Thinking in the Box

When we talk about computers, we tend to distinguish the machine and its programming: hardware and software

OK, yes, I think everyone is familiar with those terms                         

Great, but I’d like to point out how wrong that is, in some respects …

Where do we draw the line between those? Are they really that different? Doesn’t the design of the one determine the design of the other?

Whoa, those are tricky questions! 😅
Remarkably similar to the kind we ask about humans; is that what you’re after?

In a sense. We are so used to the hardware/software distinction, that we forget that somewhere they overlap and interact

Can you give me some examples? Otherwise, I fear our readers won’t all get it …😅

Sure: flip-flops are at the same time a hardware device and a software abstraction, a circuit and a one or zero

Right, so there is a level where the distinction is arbitrary: it is both a thing and information

Exactly! 😉 But then of course at other levels things are much more clear cut

But what did you mean with “wetware” then?                                       

Ah, yes, well as far as I know, the brain is like that all over: it is tremendously difficult to keep the hardware and software apart

Oooh, now I get what you mean: a classical computer architecture is completely different

Right, but if the brain is an information processor, you can try to just copy the informationally relevant bits

So like Smee you can capture the same informationally relevant relations in a different hardware?

Up to a point, of course. We can try to copy some of the structure of the brain, but only in software really

What do you mean? 🤔                                                                             

Well, most “artificial neural networks” (ANN) actually are software simulations that run on ordinary beige box computers

Aha, so as you said: a lot of simplification and abstraction 😊                

Correct! We still don’t know exactly how the brain does all its information processing or how to copy that efficiently

and then there’s the whole digital/analog problem …