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My computer is an integral part of my daily routine. From running online classes to checking the box score from last night’s Detroit Tiger’s game, my computer provides me with access to a steady stream of seemingly limitless information.

It provides me with income and entertainment. It helps me balance my checkbook and pay my bills. Such an important device surely deserves the best possible care.

I regularly delete junk files, protect it from viruses, and back up my hard drive up regularly so information doesn’t get lost.

I have often heard people refer to a computer’s hard drive as its brain. In fact, during my years as a college student in the mid 1980s, I remember being taught the difference between system memory (i.e. RAM) and storage-based memory (such as a floppy disk or a hard drive). A teacher actually compared the two types of computer memory to a person’s long term and short term memory. This really is a poor comparison. Despite being created by man, computer memory greatly differs from the human brain.

The human brain really is inefficient. I have no way to organize the way information gets stored, and if I want to recall a memory, I can’t necessarily access the information immediately. If someone were to come up to me and ask me the name of my first grade teacher, I might remember it immediately. Or I might not. I’m sure that information is tucked in there somewhere, but accessing it might take a little work.

My brain doesn’t have a Google toolbar or a keyboard. Perhaps seeing a picture of my first grade class would jog my memory.

Also, I have memories that I can’t get rid of no matter how hard I try. Trust me, I coach Little League, and there are plenty of games and plays I’d like to forget, but my brain does not have a delete key and a recycle bin. What goes in pretty much stays there. Accessing it gets increasingly difficult as I get older, but there is no way to permanently delete information and experiences.

Some have told me that copious amount of mind altering drugs or alcohol might do the trick, but the logic part of my brain tells me that is just plain stupid.

Sometimes, I remember information at precisely the wrong time. I almost always leave the house having forgotten something I need later in the day. When do I remember? Right when I get to work, of course.

But sometimes, I remember stuff at inappropriate times. I can’t count how many times I’ve thought of something funny when laughter is simply not an appropriate response. Yes, I’ve caught myself wanting to laugh in school, at work, in meetings, in church, and, God forbid, even at a funeral home.

I can’t run maintenance or perform upgrades on my brain. There is no optimization program to organize and defragment information. New experiences can’t be saved and old ones deleted. I can’t back up information to an external hard drive, or leave it at home when I don’t need it.

What I have to work with is all that I’ll ever have. And I can’t upgrade my memory. Perhaps I could take vitamins to improve my memory, but what would happen if I forgot to take them?

That’s not to say that I would rather have a brain more like a computer. Computer memory is limited in storage. I have to upgrade my hard drive every once in a while because I run out of storage space. I upgrade RAM when prices fall. It seems you can never have enough RAM.

System software needs upgraded, and viruses can strike with little to no warning. I have to open up the case and blow out the dust. Hard drives fail, sometimes at the worst possible moments.

Perhaps the worst thing about a computer hard drive is that, for all the information it holds, it really is stupid. All it does is follow what I ask it to do. It never makes a decision, enjoys a ball game, or engages in a good old conversation. It simply performs what we ask it to do. We never even say thank you, and if we did, it wouldn’t care.

A computer may be able to process and store information, but a computer completely lacks a sense of self. Information without purpose is meaningless.

One of the creepiest lines in movie history is uttered by Hal 9000 in the science-fiction classic “2001: A Space Odyssey.” When the disembodied voice proclaims, “My mind is going,” I still get the chills. The notion of a self-aware computer still frightens me. More than 30 years later, computers still serve man and their intelligence remains artificial. I’d like to keep it that way.

Homework: "2001: A Space Odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke