... We do something like [computers] with our brains, but we do it differently; we get things wrong. We use information not so much for its own sake as for leading to thoughts that really are unrelated, unconnected, patternless, and sometimes therefore quite new. If the human brain had not posessed this special gift, we would still be sharpening bones, muttering to ourselves, unable to make a poem or even whistle.
These two gifts, the ability to lose information unpredictably and to get relationships wrong, distinguish our brains from any computer I can imagine ever being manufactured. Artificial Intelligence is one thing, and I never spend a day without admiring it, but human intelligence is something else again.
--Lewis Thomas, "The Youngest Science," Chapter 8
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