Saturday, March 01, 2008

Using Quotations as Support

Computers cannot be compared to human brains. The first reason is that the information-processing capacity of the human brain is more powerful than any computer. According to an article titled “Can a Computer Be Conscious?” in U.S. News & World Report, “It has been estimated that the information-processing capacity of even the most powerful supercomputer is equal to the nervous system of a snail—a tiny fraction of the power available to the supercomputer inside the human skull” (64). Moreover, the kinds of processing in a human brain and a computer are different, too. For example, author Steven Pinker reported that computers found it easy to remember a 25-digit number but found it hard to summarize the gist of [children's story] “Little Red Riding Hood,” and humans found it hard to remember the number but easy to summarize the story (64).

Source: Both quotations are on page 64 of a magazine article titled "Can a computer Be Conscious?" by Steven Pinker. The article appeared on pages 63-65 of the news magazine U.S. News & World Report on August 18, 1997.
http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/1997_08_18_usnewsworldreport.html

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