Machines can think?

     This article, Mind, Man, and Machine, was interesting, but sometimes I had to go back and re-read to understand the flow and the answers. I was confused who is right and who is wrong. Or maybe there is no right or wrong answer for this. It depends upon what participants and readers think.

Me? I was confused.

     I thought if I find definition for think, I could understand it. Like I understood why Romeo and Juliet is not tragedy when I was a sophomore in college and definition makes things clear. So, I looked up the Oxford English Dictionary.

     According to Compact Oxford English Dictionary,

think
• verb (past and past part. thought) 1 have a particular opinion, belief, or idea about someone or something. 2 direct one’s mind towards someone or something; use one’s mind actively to form connected ideas. 3 (think of/about) take into account or consideration. 4 (think of/about) consider the possibility or advantages of. 5 (think of) have a particular opinion of. 6 call something to mind; remember.

     If you read this definition, you would think to think is very human and I agree with this. But can I apply this definition to machine? And it will make sense? It is a human’s job who input information into the machine, which is passive, but when the machine has information and knowledge, I think it can generate idea, or effective answers, but no questions.

     I think both human and machine can think, but different things are involved in the process of thinking. Human has feeling, emotion, and instinct, but machine does not. Only machine can generate effective answers, more right answers or more effective answers than human beings because when people think those 3 things—feeling, emotion and instinct—are involved. So, when Stu lost chess game to computer Fischkov III, even a very small mistake could have affected the game. Stu might have daydreamed for only one second, or he may not see or forgot which one Fischove III moved.

     Am I on the right track? Did another idea popped up and jumped into the course of my thinking and distracted what I was thinking?

     I don’t know if the days machine can think might come like the movie, Eagle Eye. In that movie, computer could think and control all the machine and kill human beings. If those days come, definition for think would be changed and it would be really scary. People in the future might wonder why people now are arguing about whether machine can think or not. Like I couldn’t understand why Romeo and Juliet is not tragedy.