Author ORCID Identifier

Mangalam - https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6369-0414

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Description

The brain-as-computer metaphor has anchored the professed computational nature of the mind, wresting it down from the intangible logic of Platonic philosophy to a material basis for empirical science. However, as with many long-lasting metaphors in science, the computer metaphor has been explored and stretched long enough to reveal its boundaries. These boundaries highlight widening gaps in our understanding of the brain's role in an organism's goal-directed, intelligent behaviors and thoughts. In search of a more appropriate metaphor that reflects the potentially noncomputable functions of mind and brain, eight author groups answer the following questions: (1) What do we understand by the computer metaphor of the brain and cognition? (2) What are some of the limitations of this computer metaphor? (3) What metaphor should replace the computational metaphor? (4) What findings support alternative metaphors? Despite agreeing about feeling the strain of the strictures of computer metaphors, the authors suggest an exciting diversity of possible metaphoric options for future research into the mind and brain.

Publication Date

6-9-2022

Comments

Chapters title "When a milkshake acts like a computer" and "Knitting together the mind, brain, and behavior with Turning's Cascade instability" are written by the University of Nebraska at Omaha's facaulty member, Dr. Madhur Mangalam.

This work was originally published in ArXiv an open access archive. It can be accessed directly at https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2206.04603

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

In search for an alternative to the computer metaphor of the mind and brain

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