"Now, as Weber approached his own professional zenith, the brain became the Internet, a distributed network, more than two hundred modules in loose, mutually modifying chatter with other modules."
— Powers, Richard (b. 1957)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
New York
Publisher
Picador
Date
2006
Metaphor
"Now, as Weber approached his own professional zenith, the brain became the Internet, a distributed network, more than two hundred modules in loose, mutually modifying chatter with other modules."
Metaphor in Context
He knew the drill: throughout history, the brain had been compared to the highest prevailing level of technology: steam engine, telephone switchboard, computer. Now, as Weber approached his own professional zenith, the brain became the Internet, a distributed network, more than two hundred modules in loose, mutually modifying chatter with other modules. Some of Weber's tangled subsystems had gained ascendancy over most brain thinking, Weber drifted back to his origins. In what would surely be the final stage of his intellectual development, he now hoped to find, in the latest solid neuroscience, processes that looked like old depth psychology: repression, sublimation, denial, transference. Find them at some level above the module.
(p. 190)
(p. 190)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Richard Powers, The Echo Maker (New York: Picador, 2006).
Date of Entry
06/08/2015
