Assertion: brain | /r/HasProperty | computer
Facets:
value: partly
type: DEGREE
value: almost certainly
type: DEGREE
value: among those
type: OTHER
value: in part
type: OTHER
value: literally
type: DEGREE
Source sentences:
text: The brain is a computer’ – this claim is as central to our scientific understanding of the mind as it is baffling to anyone who hears it.
text: 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.
text: In fact, we don’t know what is essential for the brain to be a computer.
text: If it were a metaphor to say that the brain is a computer, then we would expect the claim to be literally false.
text: exactly what we mean when we say that the brain is a computer.
text: But the claim that the brain is a computer is not just a metaphor.
text: And the claim that the brain literally computes something implies that the brain is literally a computer (at least in part).
text: If it were just a metaphor to say that the brain is a computer, then we would expect it to be forever unclear what literal truths we are trying to convey with the use of this (presumably literally false) metaphor.
text: There really isn’t much clarity or agreement at all on what it means to say that the brain is a computer, even among those who agree that the claim is meant literally.
text: Yet if computation requires giving meaningful answers to meaningful problems then, in order to say what it would be for the brain to be a computer, one must also say what it would be for activity in the brain to be meaningful.
text: The common claim that the brain is a computer is not, at the moment, a concrete, precise, well-understood scientific hypothesis.
text: The claim that the brain is a computer is not merely a metaphor –
text: Though we are in a position to say that it is likely true that the brain is a computer, we do not yet have any settled idea of what it means for the brain to be a computer.
text: Though we are in a position to say that it is likely true that the brain is a computer, we do not yet have any settled idea of what it means for the brain to be a computer.
text: We’re on to something when we say the brain is a computer, but it might not be clear for a while what exactly it is that we’re on to.
text: How will we come to make sense of the general claim that the brain is a computer?
text: The brain is almost certainly partly a computer.
text: Some have dug in their heels, confident that cognitive scientists do know just what they are saying when they say that brains are computers: the claim is in fact a concrete, well-understood scientific hypothesis.
text: If our brains are computers, our mental lives must be rich with meaningful information
text: Far from saying that we are meaningless machines, the claim that our brains are computers would require that our mental lives are rich with meaningful information.