It was exactly 12 years ago when the then chess world champion Garry Kasparov defeated super computer Deep Blue in a chess match. He won by a score of 4-2, and it seems that humanity had prevailed over the threat of digital dominance. But just over a year later, a new and improved Deep Blue exacted its revenge, defeating Kasparov by a score of 3.5 to 2.5. I remember following this historical match over the internet; a match between a flesh and blood human and a cold calculating super computer that was said to have the ability to analyze 200 million chess positions a second. A defeat over the world champion (and arguably the greatest chess-player in history) was indeed an impressive thing. Immediately after the match, newspapers were hailing a new era where computers had become intelligent, in the sense that they could even think for themselves. Even Kasparov himself commented that Deep Blue's moves appeared to exhibit human-like qualities of deep intelligence and creativity.
However, in spite of Deep Blue's awesome processing power, Kasparov won the first game of the six-game match, lost game 2 (he actually resigned in a drawn position), drew games 3, 4 and 5, and only lost game 6 due to tiredness and emotional strain. So Deep Blue's win wasn't as convincing as it seemed. But Deep Blue's chess style was based on raw processing power and an "opening book" containing 4000 positions and 700,000 grandmaster (human) games. It used its awesome calculating powers to find the best possible move in a position, but it was not "intelligent". It did not play like a human. Although a computer can calculate positions much faster than any human, it's calculating abilities are not necessarily more efficient than a human's. Computers lack the human skills of intuition and evaluation. A human grandmaster can consider the most likely moves and responses and reject the others. Deep Blue was merely a chess position calculator whereas Kasparov plays chess to at least Deep Blue's level, speaks Russian and English, tell jokes, drive a car, have meaningful relationships, etc. Modern computers are still very far from being able to emulate true human intelligence, even though computers like Deep Blue may pass the "Turing test" in which it can prove its intelligence by fooling a human into thinking that he/she is dealing with a human.
What's really lacking in modern computers is the kind of intuition and imagination that makes us human and allows us (for example) to make remarkable scientific discoveries and gain insight into the workings of the universe. For example, when James Clerk Maxwell originally formulated his 4 equations relating electric charges and currents with electric and magnetic fields, he felt that something was missing. He took an intuitive leap of faith - something that no computer can do - and introduced an additional term to one of the equations - the so-called displacement current. This piece of inspiration, which was not based on any logic or experiment, implied the existence of electromagnetic radiation, paving the way for some of the things we take for granted today, like televisions, telephones, power stations, street lights, etc. Computers as we know them cannot even come close to this behaviour; they are simply our slaves; we write software instructions that basically break down complex ideas into small steps that a stupid machine can deal with.
The human brain is the most powerful computer on Earth. It is a miracle of nature that has evolved only once on our planet. With its 10^11 neurons and perhaps 100 trillion connections between neurons, it is without doubt the most complicated thing on Earth. Can the human brain fully understand the universe? Since the brain is part of the universe, it seems to silly to suggest that the part can understand the whole.
It is estimated that the observable universe is made up of 10^80 elementary particles. The maximum amount of information our brains can know is "only" 100 trillion (10^14) pieces, so it seems a futile exercise. However, science has shown that the universe is governed by natural laws; i.e. there are patterns and there is order in the universe - it is not just a random assortment of 10^80 particles (if it were, galaxies, planets and life would never have arisen), so we don't need to know 10^80 pieces of information in order to understand the universe. Some of these natural laws may well turn out to be very complicated; too complex for the storage capacity of our brains to handle - but we can use our digital slaves for data storage. If the universe is finite, I believe the time will come come when humanity - with the help of the internet that connects humans together, and with the passage of time - will be able to fully comprehend it.
Personally I would not like to live in a universe where everything is knowable and there are no mysteries. For me there is no greater pleasure in life than the feeling I get from understanding some scientific concept. It is for this reason that I have returned to study at my age, and it is also for this reason that I am constantly reading and learning. There are many others like me, and this is why humanity, the most powerful computer in the universe, will one day learn the meaning of life, the universe and everything.
