Parentheticals to ponder

Geoffrey Johnson, who gave a speech that attempted to debunk any ideas that a machine could have emotions or self-consciousness and could, therefore, be said to think in a human way (Johnson was a pioneer of the frontal lobotomy).

That is from Jane Smiley's new and worthwhile The Man Who Invented the Computer, The Biography of John Atanasoff, Digital Pioneer.  My favorite part of the book was the discussion of Konrad Zuse, who deserves his own popular biography.

Comments

Comments for this post are closed