Why the brain is not a computer

In this episode

It's one of the most powerful ideas in the history of science. That a brain is, in essence, a computer. That we can look past its gelatinous flesh and see through to its underlying workings. That these workings are best described in the language of programs and computations, algorithms and representations. There's no question that this "brain as computer" analogy, has been—in many ways—enormously generative. But in other ways could it be leading us astray? My guest today is Dr. Mazviita Chirimuuta . Mazviita is a Philosopher of Mind and Neuroscience at the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland. She's the author of the widely acclaimed and widely discussed 2024 book, The Brain Abstracted: Simp…