Your brain does not process information, retrieve knowledge or store memories. In short: your brain is not a computer.
- babies are born with senses, reflexes, instincts, changing learning mechanisms, all of which allow us to survive
- we are not born with information, data, rules, representations, algorithms, etc.
- can we not reformulate senses, instincts, learning mechanisms as the above?
- we are not born with information, data, rules, representations, algorithms, etc.
- “we don’t create representations of visual stimuli”
- is this not exactly what we do?
- the information processing view of the brain is just an intellectual crutch
- based on the prevalent invention of the time, we tried to explain intelligence in that way
- ex. hydraulic engineering in the 3rd century BCE led to the idea of “flow of different fluids in the body” aka humours
- automata powered by springs and gears in the 1500s led to thinkers like Descartes claim humans are complex machines, with Thomas Hobbes suggesting that thinking arose from small mechanical motions in the brain
- the prevalence of computers and how they truly do operate on symbolic representations prohibits us of thinking outside of the metaphor of information processing
- based on the prevalent invention of the time, we tried to explain intelligence in that way
- there is no “representation” of a dollar bill “stored” in a “memory register” in our brain, because otherwise, we would just be able to draw it from memory
- photographic memory?
- Modularity in the brain? Where are memories stored? How does this relate to the conversation I was having with NK?
- there is no “downloading of the mind” because human consciousness is not computer software
- and no two people’s brain is changed in the same way by an experience
- changes are built on the unique neural structure that already exists
- feels semantic though, like ofc unique neural structure is different, but we can still make observations about general brain state changes as a neuroscientist.
- somehow feels adjacent to the philodendron…
- and no two people’s brain is changed in the same way by an experience
Overall, the argument feels excessively extreme with little evidence. Clearly the brain stores information, even if it is not in the exact same way of file systems like in a digital computer.