"Whether the brain operates like a computer is a strictly empirical question to be settled by neurophysiology."
— Dreyfus, Hubert L. (b. 1929)
Author
Place of Publication
Cambridge
Publisher
MIT Press
Date
1999
Metaphor
"Whether the brain operates like a computer is a strictly empirical question to be settled by neurophysiology."
Metaphor in Context
Whether the brain operates like a computer is a strictly empirical question to be settled by neurophysiology. The computer model simply fails to square with the facts. No such simple answer can be given to the related but quite different question: whether the mind functions like a digital computer, that is, whether one is justified in using a computer model in psychology. The issue here is much harder to define. The brain is clearly a physical object which uses physical processes to transform energy from the physical world. But if psychology is to differ from biology, the psychologist must be able to describe some level of functioning other than the physical-chemical reactions in the brain.
(p. 163)
(p. 163)
Categories
Provenance
Reading and Searching at Google Books
Citation
Hubert L. Dreyfus, What Computers Still Can't Do: A Critique of Artificial Reason 6th printing (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999).
Date of Entry
02/22/2011
