My results were pretty erratic; when I plotted my data, it is not linear, and it have peaks all over the place. My results are probably one of the better evidence that "human is not machine", but yet I would like to disagree; these errors must be coming from SOMEWHERE. I think human IS a machine, just extremely complicated.
Looking at my data, I am pretty sure I had some "distractions" going on while I was trying to focus on catching the ruler. In other words, when I was doing this lab, I was not really doing this lab 100%; my eyes were open, moving, and my ears were listening, my lab partner was kind of moving, and there were people walking around in the surrounding. Also, all my internal organs were fully active and my blood is pumping all over my body. And that's not all; our universe have a rule where everything moves toward disorganization, so no matter how my neurons try to fire in an orderly fashion, SOMETHING can happen that may delay/change them. There are so many neurons in my brain that chance that everything will happen without any random error seem almost seem impossible.
And I think, this occurs in machines as well...if it is complex enough! I use MATLAB for my classes all the time and I use a function "tic toc" out of whim to measure the TIME it takes to run my codes...and they are never consistent. For this lab, I performed a simple experiment where I made my code do some repetitive calculation and fill about 200 answers into an array; the measured time were all different [I ran it about 10 times]. Note that this time is measured by the computer itself, so one can argue that it is not actually measuring real life, but none the less it is not consistent at all. Thus, something must be happening internally in my computer. And it could be that I have firefox on, and is listening to music, and at the time I was having some strange internet trouble. The number of things that can hinder my laptop's process is immensely high.
In conclusion, I believe that it is the complexity that make us look very different/far from machines, but I think that all the fancy things we can perform are only branches off from the main, basic stem of our true mechanism; neurons firing!
I was really interested in the part of your post where you talk about the fact that computers running code vary in the time they take to run it. I actually wrote something in my post about how machines do things in a specific amount of time that doesn't change, but what you've said kind of changed the way I'm looking at it.
However, there's one part of what I said that isn't changed and that I'd like to ask about: You mentioned that computers vary in the time it takes them to run the same code, but is it possible for them to show a consistent improvement in speed of code-running over a long period of time? The general feeling I am getting both from reading the message board and from my own data is that there is not always a strong decrease in reaction time, but that there is almost always at least somewhat of an improvement over the course of the experiment. Which leads me to ask: If humans are capable of improving the efficiency of a small task, something which I don't think has ever been seen done autonomously by a machine, does that still make them a type of machine?
I never imagined I would be able to learn about human beings from the computers we ourselves have designed, but your post made me think about cognition in a new light.
I agree with Rachel that even though the data was erratic, I noticed small improvements after even such a short interval of training.
In huge complex systems like weather or global markets or even this computer, it may be logical to apply chaos theory to facilitate understanding. The actions are vastly complex, and beyond common articulation. Perhaps our brain, with its complex system, is no less understandable.
I read through several threads and found yours very interesting. I agree with you in that the results are erratic and thus, there are many factors humans are interrupted by. Therefore, a linear line representing a continuous improvement on human behavior is unrealistic. However, you gave us the example of MATLAB, comparing this software of matrix system with unpredictable human behavior. I believe, however, MATLAB is not an apt example to represent human behavior, because the program itself is created to come up with random numbers. Unlike machines that are programmed to work in certain ways, humans are more complex beings and their behaviors are irrational.
