The Brain, In Theory

Why engineering and computational analogies are poorly suited to the study of biological cognition

Mainstream theories of the brain are often expressed through engineering concepts—computation, code, control, reverse-engineering, optimization. These theories cast the living organism as a machine and the brain as a computer. The fact that cognition is a biological phenomenon seems merely anecdotal; biology is considered just “implementation.” In The Brain, In Theory, Romain Brette argues that...