thought-2
Original: thought-2 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Child: Do you think computers can 'think'?
Woman: Yes, like everything else.
Panel 2:
Woman: Take 200 coins and lay them in a row. The system of you and the coins can now 'thought' of a number in binary.
Panel 3:
Woman: Take another 200 coins and you can add two numbers together, producing a new number registered in the coins. You can do this without understanding anything other than two rules about adding and carrying. Never imagine the numbers you added or the result you got.
Panel 4:
Woman: So, either we arrived at a solution with no thinking at all, or the coins themselves were thinking.
Panel 5:
Woman: Once you accept this, it's clear that computations are happening everywhere, all the time. When you walk, you're causing a computation in the ground. When you breathe, you're causing a computation in the air.
Panel 6:
Child: Okay, the whole universe thinks all the time, but it doesn't think about whether it's thinking.
Panel 7:
Woman: Right. Humans think about whether we're thinking and then conclude nothing else is doing the same.
Panel 8:
Woman (emphatic): EVERYTHING thinks. What makes humans special is we also come to incorrect conclusions.
Panel 9:
Child: Then we ARE special.
Woman: See? This is a perfect example.
Votey:
A caption/thought bubble: But what does it all mean?
(Below: a scattering of coins lying on the ground.)
Child: Do you think computers can 'think'?
Woman: Yes, like everything else.
Panel 2:
Woman: Take 200 coins and lay them in a row. The system of you and the coins can now 'thought' of a number in binary.
Panel 3:
Woman: Take another 200 coins and you can add two numbers together, producing a new number registered in the coins. You can do this without understanding anything other than two rules about adding and carrying. Never imagine the numbers you added or the result you got.
Panel 4:
Woman: So, either we arrived at a solution with no thinking at all, or the coins themselves were thinking.
Panel 5:
Woman: Once you accept this, it's clear that computations are happening everywhere, all the time. When you walk, you're causing a computation in the ground. When you breathe, you're causing a computation in the air.
Panel 6:
Child: Okay, the whole universe thinks all the time, but it doesn't think about whether it's thinking.
Panel 7:
Woman: Right. Humans think about whether we're thinking and then conclude nothing else is doing the same.
Panel 8:
Woman (emphatic): EVERYTHING thinks. What makes humans special is we also come to incorrect conclusions.
Panel 9:
Child: Then we ARE special.
Woman: See? This is a perfect example.
Votey:
A caption/thought bubble: But what does it all mean?
(Below: a scattering of coins lying on the ground.)
Alt text
A nine-panel SMBC comic. A child and an adult woman discuss whether computers can think. The woman argues yes, like everything else: lay out 200 coins in a row and the system represents a number in binary; with another 200 coins you can add two numbers using only mechanical rules about adding and carrying, without ever imagining the numbers. So either the solution arose with no thinking at all, or the coins themselves were thinking. She concludes computations are happening everywhere all the time, in the ground when you walk and the air when you breathe. The child counters that the universe thinks but doesn't think about whether it's thinking. The woman agrees, saying humans think about thinking and wrongly conclude nothing else does. She says EVERYTHING thinks; what makes humans special is that we also reach incorrect conclusions. The child says, Then we ARE special, and the woman replies, See? This is a perfect example. Votey: a hand-drawn thought bubble reading 'But what does it all mean?' floating above a scattering of coins lying on the ground.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.