Date: 1999

"Whether the brain operates like a computer is a strictly empirical question to be settled by neurophysiology."

— Dreyfus, Hubert L. (b. 1929)

Date: 1999

"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."

— Dreyfus, Hubert L. (b. 1929)

Date: 1999

"In fact, the same empirical evidence presented for the assumption that the mind functions like a digital computer tends, when considered without making this assumption, to show that the assumption is empirically untenable."

— Dreyfus, Hubert L. (b. 1929)

Date: 1999

"In the absence of any empirical or a priori argument that such a formalism for processing physical inputs does or must exist, and given the empirical evidence that the brain functions like an analogue computer, there is no reason to suppose and every reason to doubt that the processing of...

— Dreyfus, Hubert L. (b. 1929)

Date: 1999

"But fiction is not empirical truth. It is simulation that runs on minds of readers just as computer simulations run on computers."

— Oatley, Keith

Date: 2001

"How romantic to think the mind a machine reliable enough to transform the same causes over and over again into the same effects. When even toasters fail!"

— Richardson, James (b. 1950)

Date: 2002

"Meaning derives from the linkages among these representations with others spread throughout the cortical system in a vast associational network, similar to a dictionary or a relational database."

— Crick, Francis (1916-2004) and Christof Koch (b. 1956)

Date: 2003

"Within the circuits of my mind, the moments in Empire Strikes Back I most adore are whenever Yoda gives his little Vince Lombardi speeches, often explaining that --in life--there is no inherent value to effort"

— Klosterman, Chuck (b. 1972)

Date: 2005

"Many other examples can easily be found since this version of social theory has become the default position of our mental software that takes into consideration the following."

— Latour, Bruno (b. 1947)

Date: 2005

"They [the vehicles that transport individuality, subjectivity, personhood, and interiority] could be called 'subjectifiers', 'personnalizers', or 'individualisers', but I prefer the more neutral term of 'plug-ins', borrowing this marvelous metaphor from our new life on the Web."

— Latour, Bruno (b. 1947)