Welcome to the 46th Special Issue of the SHAPE Journal on how the rise of computers has resulted in a philosophical impasse.

The Myth of the Intelligent Computer

With so many media fairytales about so-called “Intelligent Computers”, projected with confidence, by seemingly all pundits, into all our futures, we must, from a both well-informed and sound position, trounce such hopeful or even fearful myths completely.

The statement, “The computer says...” is, of course, total nonsense, as all computer programs are written by people, AND, crucially, limits the means they use to considerably more restricted methods, than can be carried out in the best of Human Thinking.

Indeed, they are mostly iterative techniques for getting closer and closer to a sought, quantitatuve solution. Their value is that they can carry out such processes at colossal speeds, delivering useable results very quickly indeed.

But computers cannot think!