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Why are many tasks that
we find trivial seemingly beyond the capacity of modern computers,
despite their hardware being several orders of magnitude faster than
that of the human brain? The answer presumably lies in the architecture,
the organization of the components. Today's computers are all based on
the same 50-year-old "stored program" architecture attributable to John
von Neumann. Could we perhaps redesign our silicon machines to make them
function more like our brains?
The answer is
undoubtedly yes, but first we need to be clear about exactly what the
difference between them is. This is the subject of SIGART's first
seminar of the semester, an informal introduction by David Davenport
entitled "Symbols, Signs & Links? Distinguishing the Symbolic &
Connectionist Paradigms." It will be held at 5:40 p.m. on
Wednesday, November 23 in Room EA-502. SIGART is an informal
group of faculty and students interested in understanding how the mind
functions. As a local chapter of the Association of Computing Machinery
(an international professional organization), Bilkent ACM SIGART also
has a role in educating people regarding computers and their relation to
society. For details, please see
http://goto.bilkent.edu.tr/sigart
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