What got me interested in Computer Science

From Ben's Writing

Some one recently asked me what first got me interested in Computer Science. I had a bit of a hard time coming up with a good answer.

My initial response went something like this:

I think initially, when I was first introduced to computers, when I was about 7 or so, I simply fell in love with them as a toy. I would spend hours playing games, etc. After a while, though, it became more interesting to play with the machine itself. Like taking it apart, putting it back together, leaving parts out to see what changes, etc. After that I found myself more interested in tinkering with the software, as there was only so much a kid could do with the hardware end (it was both expensive, fragile and not well documented). So I started writing code after taking as (forced) summer school class. (Summer school was forced, not the class itself, that was the only thing that kept me from losing my mind at having lost my summer to more school.) I think that was the summer after grade 3, or maybe 4. Fast forward to high-school: I got a job at the research centre just outside of town, and was introduced to machines that could make predictions about crop yields, etc., and I think I was just hooked. I never really did study much in terms of artificial intelligence formally, but that, I think, was what made me want to know more about the science behind computers.

But the more I think about it, the above really isn't how I became interested in Computer Science (CS). It's how I became interested in computers. I think CS began to interest me as I was progressing through my BSc. I didn't really know anything beyond programming, software configuration or hardware configuration. I'd taught that to myself long before I came to school. I think when I started taking pure theory courses is when I really began to appreciate the science. I was especially attracted to the hard problems. The ones for which no good solutions are known.

I've since given up the hope of being one of the people to solve any of the really hard problems. Their difficulty runs too deep for me, I believe. What fascinates me now is the possible connections between what is done in CS and what is done in the human mind. Not specifically how the human mind does what it does--the evolutionary milieu is far too complex and ugly to consider it elegant. This is not to imply that the process that allow for such things to be created is inelegant, it's just that the instances of things it does create are inelegant in their composition. What concerns me the most is to know if it is possible to do what the human mind does within a machine. Or in other words, are there things the human mind does, that are provably impossible on modern computational models.

My suspicion is that there exists no problem solvable by the human mind that cannot be solved by a computer. (Note, I am not necessarily talking about a physical computer here.) If this were not the case, then it would mean that there exists a machine---namely the human mind---that can compute more than the Universal Turing Machine. I won't dismiss the possibility outright, but it seems a rather unlikely outcome based on what is currently known about computing.