Edit: I don’t think I worded this right, how do we create CPU’s? How do they know they’re the brain of the entire operation? If that makes my question easier to comprehend.
In: Technology
There is no consciousness embedded in a CPU. The CPU is like an engine, give it fuel, start it rotating and it keeps running according to the fuel given to it. The engine, like the CPU, doesn’t “know” anything.
CPUs are at one level just big general purpose calculating machines. Give it some electrical signals as input and instruct it to manipulate the signal using logic and then output the results as other signals. The output can be connected to a screen, disk drive, RAM, to the internet. The input comes from the internet, keyboard, mouse, RAM, HDD etc etc.
The CPU doesn’t “know” any of this – some of the instructions are built in, other instructions it gets from the inputs (other programs – ROM, RAM, CD etc). It simply follows the instructions one after another after it is turned on.
EDIT: A CPU doesn’t choose what it does, it doesn’t have ideas who or where the inputs/instructions come from and it doesn’t know what the output is used for.
In a simple analogy, the light in your room doesn’t “know” it needs to light up a room. If the right kind of power is delivered to it, it lights up. Take away the power, and it stops lighting. We don’t describe the light as having an understanding of it’s job.
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