Analog November 1987

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GREAT OAKS
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Stanley Schmidt
When I was teaching science fiction in college, I found that I could usually catch students (and colleagues) off guard with the question, "Is it possible to construct a computer with all the capability of the human brain, but occupying a space only so big?" To define "so big," I used my hands to indicate a region of space the size of a human head.
A typical reply was, "Well, of course 1 don't actually know what future technology will be able to achieve, but 1 seriously doubt it."
To which I countered, "And what did you use to reach that conclusion?"
The answer, of course, is "a computer with all the capability of the hu-
man brain, but occupying a space only so big." The human brain is such a com puter, and the fact that it exists clearly proves that such things are possible. The fact that human beings have not yei learned to make them by laboratory or factory methods is quite irrelevant. Un less there is something more fundamen tally special about human life than mosi scientists have found any reason to believe, the fact that nature did it implies that we should be able to learn to do it too.
In his recent book. Engines of Creation (Anchor Press/Doubleday, Garden City. 1986, $17.95), K. Eric Drexler takes that reasoning a big step further: the fact that nature made brains or anything else means that it can be done at
4 Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact Vissza