Materialism and Atheism

[Alex K]

I'm glad you found those links.

I was thinking back to something on one of those history/science/discovery shows, where they had 'thinking' computers on display. Relative to a "typical" computer they couldn't process very fast, but they were able to make judgement calls based on fuzzy input, and in ways that were eerily similar to how we do things.

Sure, if you realize something in a neural network, it will do much worse in algorithmic tasks that you would otherwise program directly. The same is true for our brain compared to a pocket calculator. But that's not the point, is it. We are talking about pattern recognition, decision making and so on.
It's mainly a matter of quantity if you ask me. When we can do a real time high resolution simulation of 100 billion neurons with a 1000 synapses each (roughly the order of magnitude you and I have), then tell me again how special the human brain is.