Can Computers Think? Page 122 #3 (2 September 2010)

Governing Rules

Primarily, it is necessary to establish exactly what Minsky’s viewpoint is. Davidson says that Minsky believes in a “top-down” approach which means “imitating human intelligence by programming computers to process information by manipulation symbols that represented knowledge and rules” (Davidson 116). Minsky believes in building robots in such a manner that they exist and are governed by a set of rules that has been programmed into them. One might argue that this then does not constitute consciousness, but it can also be argued that it is the only way a robot can function adequately and sufficiently
Let’s look at something we should all be familiar with, yet does not have the breadth of a robot, the calculator. No one sat there for a profoundly large amount of time and entered in every single calculation that he or she could think of. It would be humanly impossible given the vast amount of calculations that are possible. Instead a calculator is governed by rules. Humans type in a function and using the rules programmed into it, it in return gives an answer in accordance with these rules. People, who have ever taken an algebra class, were likely told by the teacher that in some given problems, they must use the parenthesis correctly or they would get an incorrect answer. Once again, it is because a calculator is governed by rules. These rules in it tell it that certain entries produce certain results. Calculators have been around for an extremely long time now and will continue to be forever to come. Thus, this method works.
In comparing this to Minsky’s idea of robots, his ideals are the most plausible. My reasoning behind agreeing with Minsky is because I feel the only way a robot can be efficient is through a set of rules. The way for a robot to reach its full potential and aspirations is to be programmed. Minsky thinks that this can eventually make computers smarter than human beings in the aspects that they are programmed for. A calculator is smarter than a human being. Not many people can make that many vast amounts of calculations in such a short amount of time. Thus it is conceivable to believe that a programmed robot can be smarter than a human. When thinking about the concept of robots, it makes sense to me to have them governed by a set of rules programmed into them. Then again, I also think if people really want to create human intelligence, they should just go have a kid.
Work Cited
Davidson, Clive. "I Process Therefore I Am" Academic Communities/Disciplinary Conventions. Ed. Bonnie Beedles and Michael Petracca. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2001. 115-122.

*Note: I know my work cited is incorrect, but I could not get it to format correctly on here.I also could not get it to tab or center things. Trust me, it is bugging me like crazy!