Will Computers Ever Think ? On the Difference of Nature Between Machines and Living Organism

One should not forget that the initial aim of the first builders of computers and scientists in Artificial Intelligence was to make "thinking machines". Today, people are more cautious about the nature of intelligence and the difference between natural intelligence and artificial intelligence. Numerous definitions of thinking and of intelligence have been proposed. Nowadays, even consciousness, which has been taboo for a long time in the AI circles, begins to be discussed. In this paper, after a brief introduction about the different paradigms of the cognitive sciences in the last 50 years, we present the main features of a systemic holistic metamodel that has been proposed recently to interpret complex self-organizing systems evolving toward autonomy, like those found in biology, in the social and cognitive sciences. We then use this graphical language to show the specificity of living systems which is autopoiesis or selfproduction ; we then propose an interpretation of consciousness which is related to self-reference. Using these concepts, we then comment on the question raised in the title.