Is There a Metaphor for Deep Learning?

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I'm always fascinated by our desperate attempts as human beings to find a metaphor for reality that helps us understand it. In the old days, the brain was a clock or the world was a clock because the clock was the most advanced technological thing we had in the 50s and 60s. And now it's like a neural network with deep learning. I just find that I don't think that's progress. It sounds like progress, but I think it's more like it's a little bit of self deception there in my view.

Neurologist and author Robert Burton talks about his book, On Being Certain, with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Burton explores our need for certainty and the challenge of being skeptical about what our brain tells us must be true. Where does what Burton calls "the feeling of knowing" come from? Why can memory lead us astray? Burton claims that our reaction to events emerges from competition among different parts of the brain operating below our level of awareness. The conversation includes a discussion of the experience of transcendence and the different ways humans come to that experience.