Processor or Thinker
Posted on Feb 24, 2010
Chips comprised of tiny electronic integrated circuits are everywhere. CPUs reside on motherboards for our computers, laptops, notebooks and calculators. Chips add personalized messages within childhood storybooks and still others hammer out electronic tones when special greeting cards are unfolded. Recently, automotive chips controlling acceleration, breaking and airbags have made news. There is a reason the fundamental semiconductor chip on a motherboard is called a Central Processing Unit (CPU). Such chips and the computers they serve are processors; they are not thinkers. Computers follow a programmed set of instructions to process the data they are given and then post a response. The chips do not evaluate the response they are about to share to see if it passes “the smell test.” This is why with the emergence of the computer age it became popular to hear the saying, “garbage in, garbage out.” Although the media, and to a large extent Hollywood, enjoys ascribing anthropomorphic characteristics to computers, they remain processors. We are humans; it is our job to be the thinkers.
Contemporary students must understand the distinction between processing and thinking; fortunately God has designed our brains to do both. Calculators process numbers and word processors process words. Neither operation requires the computer to think, even once. Processing is simply no substitute for thinking. Anyone who has been spun in circles by a Hertz “Never Lost®” system will relate to the couple from Japan who proudly drove from the showroom in a new, GPS-equipped car built to decipher signals from the navigational satellite network. All the maps for a lifetime of journeys throughout Japan were at their fingertips. For their inaugural excursion the couple carefully entered their destination and smiled as the display plotted their route. The pair followed instructions precisely, even though this required driving through barricades, across an active construction site and off a bridge that had been demolished for repairs! Processing can be tidy and fast. Thinking is often messy and slow. It is safer too!
Throughout the course of history it has never been easier to process information. However, with each passing day the ability to THINK is an evermore important asset.
