Computers are glorified potato sorters (separating electrons rather than potatoes). People translate data into electronic codes and then a computer sorts, arranges, categorizes, stores, and retrieves those coded electrons as directed by a person (or a program written by a person). Then the computer deposits the electronic codes back into words, images, and/or sounds. Electrons stream through it like potatoes through a potato sorter.

A computer is no more cognizant or conscious than a potato sorter. It doesn’t express care or concern. It doesn’t believe or trust. It makes no choices. It has no perception or understanding of what it is doing. A computer has no hopes or dreams — no motives or sense of purpose — no opinions or philosophy — no meaning, no inspiration, no intentions, no disappointment, no guilt, no shame, no sorrow, no grief, no loneliness, no sadness, no joy, no frustration, no anger, no happiness, no desires, no longings, no opinions, no pride or humility.

A person, however, experiences all of that — not just as images and words on a screen — but as direct interaction with nonmaterial reality. We experience our thoughts to be real, not just electronic potatoes being passively sorted by our brains. Even materialists (people who claim to  believe that nothing exists but matter) live their lives as if their thoughts are real (not just electrons being sorted by their brain). (Take Stephen Hawking for example.)

However, unlike a potato sorter, our thoughts don’t just passively run through a physiological processing system called a brain. Instead we actively experience nonmaterial reality by choosing to originate thoughts, to control them, to embrace them, or even to reject them. We are the programmer, not the electron sorter!

Computers don’t experience or perform any of these nonmaterial things (but you do):

Awareness, Belief, Consciousness,

Apprehension, Cognizance, Trust,

Understanding, Concern, Care,

Insight, Wisdom, Evaluation,

Perception, Intuition, Inspiration,

Revelation, Motives, Ideas,

Intention, Hope, Purpose,

Concepts, Meaning, Hypothesis,

Aspiration, Expectation, Mission,

Proposition, Proposals, Conclusions,

Analysis, Premise, Suppositions

Theorems, Thesis, Philosophy,

Presuppositions, Principles, Proposals,

Reason, Speculation, Suggestion,

Conjecture, Explanations, Assumption,

Guesses, Interpretations, Discernment,

Opinions, Reflection, Pondering.