To be fair, we did have animals that served the purpose of computers. We even called them computers—as in, people whose job it was to do calculations (typically Linear Algebra or Calculus or Differential Equations—hard stuff).
This is true, but if this level of similarity is going to count, I think there are natural “examples” of pretty much anything you could ever hope to build. It doesn’t seem helpful to me when thinking about the counterfactual I brought up.
To be fair, we did have animals that served the purpose of computers. We even called them computers—as in, people whose job it was to do calculations (typically Linear Algebra or Calculus or Differential Equations—hard stuff).
This is true, but if this level of similarity is going to count, I think there are natural “examples” of pretty much anything you could ever hope to build. It doesn’t seem helpful to me when thinking about the counterfactual I brought up.