this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2025
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Technology
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I don't see how it is impossible to know. Every component of a machine is a fully known quantity lacking any means of detecting damage or discomfort. Every line of code was put in place for a specific, known purpose, none of which include feeling or processing anything beyond what it IS specifically designed for.
Creatures and machines bear some similarities, but even simple creatures are dramatically more complex objects than even the most advanced computers. None of their many interacting components were put there for a specific purpose and intention, and many are only partially understood, if at all. With a machine, we know what every bit and piece is for, and it has no purpose beyond the intended ones because that would be a waste and cost more.
This is the right answer. Perhaps no one in this particular thread knows every component of a computer the way a hardware engineer who designed those components would, but the “mystery” is caused by ignorance and that ignorance isn’t shared by every person.
People exist who know exactly how every single component of a computer does and does not function. Every component was created by humans. Biology remains only partially understood to all of humanity. Not so machinery.