Operating Systems and You

Spring Term has come to and end and Summer Term is now starting. I'm done with CS 330 (Concepts of Programming Languages) and starting CS 345 -- Operating Systems Principles. It is so significantly more difficult it is ridiculous. But I'm really looking forward to this.

So throughout the course we're writing an operating system. The projects will build upon each other to eventually form an OS. It's very interesting to learn about the way computers can handle so many things going on at the same time.

I was thinking today about the differences between the way computers multitask and humans multitask. I wonder how similar it really is. As far as I have learned the way a computer works was not built on the way a human works at all. But its interesting to think of it that way. We've learned in my class how computers will put one process on hold and focus their attention and computing power on another task or process for a time. When that other process is complete they can resume the former process without any problems. Or maybe they'll put the second process on hold and go back and forth until one of them is finished. The time between switching processes is generally not noticeable to us as humans. That's why you can have your internet and itunes and solitaire all running at the same time. Anyway the point is that computers have the ability to multitask.

I think that humans use multitasking in a similar way. We at times of heightened activity seem to have multiple thought processes developing at once. In reality we are just switching between the thought processes so fast that we don't even notice the time it takes to do so. It seems to make sense to compare computer processes with human thought processes, but I'm very confident that the human brain is far more complex than any computer. We can teach computers how to speak and act like humans, but we can never give them the gift of moral agency that sets us so uniquely apart.

I think of humans as having the potential to do almost anything. Over time and through their actions they limit those possibilities. Computers on the other hand start being able to do nothing. The better they are built and the better they are programmed the more they are able to do. Computers and humans sort of meet in the middle somewhere there.

Its hard to explain I guess. Maybe I'll write about it again another time.