Your brain probably is a computer, whatever that means

We’re certainly on to something when we say the brain is a computer – even if we don’t yet know what exactly we’re on to

Kevin Lande has written a fine essay for Aeon titled, Your brain probably is a computer, whatever that means. The essay starts with the apparent contradiction that “We have clear reasons to think that it’s literally true that the brain is a computer, yet we don’t have any clear understanding of what this means.”

We know of many cases where the brain clearly computes things, like where a sound is coming from, but we don’t know what sort of computer the brain is, or if it is only a computer. For that matter we don’t know a lot about what computation is either.

Food for thought.