Stephen Hawking recently made the much commented upon remark that he regards the brain as a computer "which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."
Vjtorley has an interesting post at Uncommon Descent where, inter alia, he discusses eleven fundamental differences between brains and computers. According to vjtorley brains don't differ from computers merely in terms of the matter from which they're made, they're a completely different kind of entity altogether.
The discussion might not mean much except to those with some background knowledge of how computers work, but it's worth reading if you're interested in the debate over whether human beings are just biological machines or whether they're something unique.
