subject: What's So Magic About a Transistor? [print this page] What's So Magic About a Transistor? What's So Magic About a Transistor?
You probably know that a computer performs calculations based on strings of instructions composed of 'on' or 'off' switches, but did you know that a computer can be constructed out of nearly anything, including coconut shells or microorganisms?
The latter, in fact, would be extremely useful in production because they would not have to be handled as meticulously as transistor chips need to be. (Can you imagine what it would be like to have to feed and water your computer?)
Coconut shells as transistors on the other hand would be cumbersome to say the least. It would probably take a football stadium of racks of shells ten stories high and many cubic tons of circulating water just to make a simple calculator program. But it could be done. I don't wish to argue for or against artificial intelligence, it is sufficient for me that computer programs seem to extend my own intelligence, but I know that it is one of entrapping charms of computer programs as well.
The undeniable point, however, is that basis of all artificial intelligence is based upon binary code. Brain cells, on the other hand, are infinitely more complex in their DNA code in comparison to transistors. And they are functional and specialized, and are localized into different parts of the brain, which has a hypothalamus, but that is not analogous to a CPU.
At the very core of any computer language no matter how complex its build, are directions for transistors at the heart of the computer to turn on or off. One might point to the complexity of programming language as evidence of intelligent response, but the truth is that all code comes from human brains and is not contained in the transistors- or coconut shells- themselves.
A computer is a machine and its working parts are analogous to valves. We shouldn't confuse the super-intelligent illusion of computer programs as independent of the living human intelligence that made them.
