14 Are the Androids Dreaming Yet? moments — so we have packed them with diagnostic monitoring systems. These systems allow us to watch a computer think and, since they think symbolically, we can easily read their minds. Unfortunately computers don't display many human-like thoughts. They don't laugh and cry, they don’t report consciousness and they don't appear to exercise free will or display creative impulses. This is frustrating because these are the thoughts we would most like to study. It might be that computers are not yet powerful enough, and in another few years they will be giving Mozart a run for his money. But there may also be a fundamental difference which renders them incapable of this sort of thinking. This is the crux of the modern scientific debate: do humans think differently? Computer Brains On the face of it, humans and computers behave very differently. Our memories are poor, but we understand things. We are creative, but bad at mathematics. We learn by example, computers are programmed. We are emotional, impulsive and appear to have free will. Computers are ordered, predictable, but lack common sense. Both humans and computers appear to be physical, discrete systems. We both take inputs, generate outputs and are capable of solving similar problems. Indeed, each time we examine a problem solved by humans we usually find we can automate it. This is known as ‘knowledge engineering’ and there are many examples; from aerospace to finance, and architecture to medicine. An example of where computers excel is in medical diagnosis. ISABEL is a clinical diagnosis program designed to help ER doctors quickly diagnose critical patients. It was created by the parents of Isabel Maude, a little girl who presented with multiple symptoms to an ER unit. Doctors were initially confused by the symptoms and misdiagnosed her condition. She was later diagnosed with meningitis. Isabel suffered multiple organ failure but survived. Her parents realized there was som