Uncharted Territory

Abstract

The human brain is the most highly evolved, most complicated structure in the living world. A sophisticated computer may come close to a Grand Master as far as a game of chess is concerned (Figure 62), but it will not write a novel as sweeping as Tolstoy’s War and Peace, and it will not produce a musical score as original as Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony; nor is it likely to have the intuition of an Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein. In fact, it will not produce the range of thoughts and feelings that run through our own humble brains every day: “I wonder whether Jimmy will turn out to be more like his grandfather or his uncle Bob”; “I think the reason I feel a little queasy this morning is because the tomato sauce on the pasta was too spicy last night, but then again it could be because the ice cream might have gone off a little”; “Should we go to Montana again for our summer vacation, or perhaps try Oregon for a change, or maybe go to Europe—though of course the problems with the hotel in Rome three years ago—or was it four—were pretty awful.” You do not need to be a genius to have thoughts that are quite unpredictable and that encompass as wide a range of topics as those of a Thomas Jefferson or John Steinbeck. How is all of this achieved within a structure that is no bigger than a small melon?