ABSTRACT
Computers are machines and there are a lot of things machines can't do. But there are a lot of things I can't do: speak Turkish, understand James Joyce, or recognize a nasturtium when I see one. Yet, numerous as are my disabilities, they do not materially affect my status as a thinking being. I lack specialized skills, knowledge and understanding, but nothing that is essential to membership in the society of rational agents. With machines, though, and this includes the most sophisticated modern computers, it is different. They do lack something that is essential.
