When someone utters the phrase, "The brain is of course just a computer"
This tells you two things:
1. This person doesn't actually know that much about the brain/body/consciousness/etc.
2. You might also want to be suspicious about this person's thoughts on how computers work, too
All analogies break down at a certain point
All of them
They're all simplifications or extrapolations that are meant to make a point or emphasize something
And so when someone says "X is like Y"
You should figure out 1. what point they're trying to make with the analogy, 2. whether it actually is similar in those respects, and 3. where the analogy breaks down, and whether this is a problem for the argument at hand
@researchfairy analogies are on a spectrum of strong to weak in my understanding. Useful as a rhetorical device for persuading your assessor of your point but not good for proving it.
I get tired of the โbrain and computer are sameโ argument analogy. Same with โLLM is a power tool.โ
@researchfairy trying to get it to fit, you end up in the world of analog computing and trying to wrap your head around a multi-input analog bit (chemical and electrical signaling) while also no discrete bits and no structured programming...
I mean, we do have the hardware/software dichotomy. When you have a brain problem, it has to be broken down into ether a neurological problem or a psychological problem.
But like, we don't think in math exactly. A computer needs math exactly.
@researchfairy
๐๐ฎ๐ซ ๐๐ง๐ข๐ฏ๐๐ซ๐ฌ๐ ๐๐ข๐ ๐ก๐ญ ๐๐ ๐ ๐๐ข๐๐ง๐ญ ๐๐ซ๐๐ข๐ง, ๐๐๐๐จ๐ซ๐๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ญ๐จ ๐๐๐ฐ ๐๐ก๐๐จ๐ซ๐ข๐๐ฌ
KristinaThereโs something quietly unsettling about placing a photograph of a human neuron next to a simulated image of the large-scale cosmic web. The two look almost identical: delicate, branching filaments connecting dense clusters, with vast open spaces in between. One fits inside your skull. The other stretches across billions of light-years. The resemblance is hard ... Read more
@researchfairy when they say that exact phrase, I don't trust them on which end of their digestive tract does what
(maybe I'm too mathsy, but if you use "of course" and "just" in the same sentence and it's not "of course, they're just full of it", there'd better be proof)
@researchfairy the brain, of course, is just like a computer
in that people tend to both wildly underestimate the complexity, yet consider themselves more knowledgeable about it than they really are
@researchfairy the universe is a computerยน so everything in it is too. it's saying nothing.
ยน almost a turing machine
@researchfairy As my philosophy and biology teachers used to say (each quoting the other):
If our brains were made so simple that we could understand their inner workings, we wouldn't be able to...
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