Man vs. Computer Essay

Since the beginning of time, man has thought up and brought to fruition countless inventions. Each has been more ingenious than the last. The human mind has created such brilliant things, but the computer may have been its greatest creation. It is ever changing, evolving and growing â€Å"smarter†. However, as the computer has evolved, mankind’s value may be threatened. The computer has already begun to overtake many of the vital functions that man has prided himself upon. While neither the mind nor the computer are perfectly productive on their own, they complement each other, and together create a more efficient way of living. Our lives are now dependent upon the computer and what it tells you. Even now as I type this journal entry on my computer, I am fully convinced that it will produce a result for me that is far superior to what I can manage using only my own two hands. It has been commonly said that the computer can never replace the human brain, because it was humans that created them. Is this a good reason why the computer must be inferior to humans? A computer has the ability to evaluate problems that humans can hardly even imagine, let alone approach. Even if a man can calculate the same problems as a computer, the computer can solve it much faster than the human mind. Maybe it is the subconscious attempt by us at reaching the next stage of evolution by our minds, creating a machine to do all the dirty work for us while we sit back and allows our brains to focus on creating, or destroying, as the case may be. The human brain has many flaws, yet it also has many an edge over the computer. It has the capacity to create, unlike the computer. It can work without full input, making logical assumptions about problems. A person can work with a wide variety of methods, seeing new and more efficient ways of handling problems. It can come up with infinite ways of getting around problems encountered in everyday life, while a computer has a limited selection of new tricks it can come up with, limited by its programming. Given the time, the human brain can learn to understand anything, and it can grasp the central theme of any concept. The computer tends to take all things in their entirety, which makes some problems near impossible to solve. Emotions are also an asset. Emotions have allowed the human brain to evolve beyond a problem-solving machine. Anger allows the imagination to roam, inventing concepts of new and more powerful weapons of destruction. Discontent induces the mind to conceive of new methods of fulfillment that could be expanded into something more. Puzzlement causes the mind to think of solutions. Curiosity leads to attempts to satisfy it, producing new discoveries and revelations. The human brain is as incredible as it is flawed, and the computer is a fantastic machine, but seriously lacking in many aspects. Perhaps the computer is not truly a competitor with the human brain, but rather it’s ideal. Don’t those who use the computer do so in order to supplement their own creative input? After all, the computer is far superior to the human brain in those aspects where the brain is weakest. Neither the mind nor the computer would be as good as the two of them are when they are working together.