John said:
A computer is not a medium.
It certainly contains one or more (conventional) mediums with the 'disk
storage medium' being the one most familiar to the typical user but, as
I'll show below, it is also, itself, a 'medium'.
Perhaps your analogy holds some water if
you consider the repetition a computer is capable of. It is capable
of repeating the same task over and over again. But then there's no
need for a user.
Repetition is non essential.
Why you can't grasp the concept that a program is the result of, and
contains, the creator's knowledge and then that expertise is transferred to
the user who uses the program I don't know.
Again, as I said, the computer goes even further in that it implements,
which has the interesting result that the user need not necessarily
understand the knowledge he's using as he would likely need to with a
written text; although not necessarily if he were simply following
instructions, like a 'how to' book, which is, tada, a 'program' with him as
the implementing device. "Do this, turn that, wait 5 seconds, hammer this,
close door, finished."
We humans have the built-in physical attributes that allow us to get
from here to there and to carry things. The wheel was invented as an
external device which helped to accomplish the same things, and it
grew from there.
Certainly, but other than being another means to a similar goal there is
little that a wheel has in common with legs. They don't work the same,
operate on the same principles, or anything else.
Our brains allow us to do such things as solve
problems and plan ahead. So we have invented an external device
called a computer that emulates some of what our brains do. And as
happened with the wheel, we know the invention will continue to grow
and be included in more things such as robots.
Our brain also stores 'information' and so does a book. Humans sing and so
does a guitar. Human's speak and so does a record player. And to extend
your wheel analogy, humans 'travel' and so does a jet. It's a weak analogy,
IMO, because that's what any "tool" does: help do something.
A computer doesn't, in fact, 'emulate' what our brains do any more than a
guitar, jet, or a book does, nor does it "solve problems and plan ahead."
(Which was the point of the I, Robot discussion. A 'Robot' would have to
be, as Dr. Daystrom of Start Trek M5 fame put it, "a whole new approach.").
We tend to project that onto them because they're seemingly 'dynamic'. It
'does something' in a seemingly autonomous manner, plus we like the idea of
it and the 'computer' can be seen while a program is essentially
'invisible', but it's the program's creator that did the 'smarts', the
"solve problems and plan ahead" thinking, and not the 'computer'. The
computer just mechanically followed the program in a deterministic manner
according to the (program) creator's wishes.
If there isn't someone knowledgeable enough to know how to do whatever the
task is, then have it programmed, the computer is a useless pile of junk
just as a blank book would be useless pressed plant fibers (well, maybe
decent toilet paper). And, in that sense, the computer (hardware) is an
implementing 'medium' for the program. I.E. It has no form or function
without it. It's a 'blank medium', an empty book.
Comparing the wheel to a computer is a complex analogy, but I
haven't heard anything better.
If you're going to use a 'wheel' analogy you might as well go to the root
of it, consistent with your 'helper' theme, and simply say "tool" as that's
what a tool is: a man made object that helps perform a task. In that sense
it's 'better' because it's the root definition but that begs the issue of
which 'tool' the computer is most like.
You seem to be concerned with only the physical but my whole point is that
it's the *knowledge* transfer that makes the computer orders of magnitude
more significant than the typical tool and that that's also what made the
printing press so significant, the *knowledge* that it transferred.
Mxsmanic's comment that the comparison is "written language" captures the
same essence of knowledge being the core of it but I think reproductive
distribution by mechanical means is an important aspect as well (perhaps
reserving the future Robotics "whole new approach" for something so
dramatically fundamental as the concept of speaking/writing itself). And
that's why I make the printing press analogy.
Now one could say that the wheel enhanced knowledge transfer too but, as
you point out, there is no storage medium to it (people forget) and it's
not all that dramatically different than without one. The book and computer
have both, however, in spades. Give Socrates a wheel and he may be able to
meet and teach a few more people but put it in print, or a program, and the
number is limitless, spanning the ages. And following on, make a wheel and
you have a wheel, wonderful as it is. Teach a few people how to make wheels
and you have hundreds of wonderful wheels and creative minds making even
better ones but teach an infinite number how to make wheels...
It's the staggering magnitude of the distribution combined with the
empowering effect of knowledge and the synergism of knowledge begetting
knowledge that makes them (printed books and computers) so revolutionary.
With all due apologies to Khan Noonien Singh, "Improve a [simple tool] and
you may double productivity. But improve [knowledge] and you gain a
thousandfold." The reason is readily apparent: wheels do not beget wheels
but knowledge does beget knowledge.
The computer adds a third, implementation. So I see it as an extension of
the 'knowledge enhancement' mechanism rather than a simple physical tool,
e.g. wheel.
Do you agree that Microsoft holds monopoly power over the desktop
operating system market?
I have refused to discuss it with you in the past and continue to do so.
).
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