The Brain as Computer

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The old way of looking at the way th mind worksiif we might call it like brain centric, has led to designs for the world that we live in. We understand the brain and its workings through metaphor. And one of the most common metaphors is the brain as a computer. That notion got its start in the cognitive revolution of the twentieth century. It's been very fruitful as a kind of paradime for exploring the brain and inventing all the applications and technology that is so useful to us these days. But it is, again, very limiting in its capacity to explain to ourselves what the what the brain is, what it does.

Annie Murphy Paul is an acclaimed science writer. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Scientific American, Slate, Time magazine, The Best American Science Writing, and other publications.

Our conversation focuses on the subject of her latest book, The Extended Mind, which is about how human cognition relies on our bodies, other people, and the material world. I loved this book and was thrilled to ask Annie about how this line of thinking plays out in the context of our heavily digitized lives.

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