[jmedwards]

In the 1900s, people used to think the mind (and body, in a way) worked like a steam engine. In part, the steam engine was used as the analogy because that was the nearest and most technologically advanced input/output closed system that was available. (And, importantly, that most people could grasp and talk about.)

Hence colloquialisms like I need to "let off steam" or "I am under so much pressure".

It turned out to be an analogy that was so far removed from reality, it was useless.

I wonder if we are making the same mistake with computers as we know them today?

"I really just need to reset and reboot, y'know."

[simonh]

From the Abstract: "...computational science 'is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.'"

So when they say 'Computational' Neuroscience, they're not particularly referring to using computers, but analyzing neurological systems using computational analytical techniques.

[aschampion]

A salient difference from astronomy is that computational neuroscience is typically concerned with describing neural systems in terms of information processing. Our principle technological example of an information processing system is the computer. So while there's a distinction between "computational" as (a) a tool used for analysis, (b) a methodology or model employed to describe a system, and (c) an statement about a property of the system under study, computational neuroscience refers to at least both ab and often abc. This isn't the case with astronomy, because we aren't typically using telescopes to study how stars bend and collect light like telescopes (although we of course sometimes do).

[simonh]

It's just an analogy.

[Lambdanaut]

Are you looking for the perfect metaphor?

"Stress", "strain", and "tension" were all taken from mechanical physics.

Would I be burnt at the stake if I were to suggest that these concepts as we use them in psychology are more-than-just isomorphic to the way they're used in physics? That perhaps we are structures, and the stress occuring in our abstract social realm often manifests in the physical realm as creases on the forehead, and chewing of the fingernails.

I mean, we're made of matter just like the living tree is. Shouldn't we go through the same physical stresses at every level of our being?

We're the rube-goldberg-machines of structures, here. Really impressive skyscrapers that haven't quite yet noticed that they can be anything and everything, given the metaphor for it.

And so what's so different from a steam engine "letting off steam" and a load-bearing structure "letting off tension". Well, look up the Newtonian age formulas for calculating pressure and tension and you tell me the difference.

Not much of one, is there?

But we're talking about electricity here, right? Tooootaly different substance! Oh wait, there is voltage, however. How does that definition go again?

> One volt is the amount of pressure required to cause one ampere of current to flow against one ohm of resistance.

Oh my.. back in pressure land. Or was that psychology land?

I'm under a lot of voltage attempting to convey this vast homogony to you.

Anyway, my point is that yes, we're not computers, but also yes, we are computers.

I leave an open question for the one smarter than me: What is the "pressure" of data science?

It must be a ratio between a metaphorical force applied, and a metaphorical surface area on which to act.

Im excited to hear the answer.

* http://www.humanstress.ca/stress/what-is-stress/history-of-s...

[ozy]

Well, metaphors are like perspectives. The steam engine perspective has many useful aspects to it, even today. But it has more limits than the computer metaphor.

But if you want to use the metaphors to capture the core of what the brain does, then no, I don't think either are much good.

I would put much more emphasis on learning and surprise. Not the big kind of learning, like a new language. But learning what to expect in situational patterns. Making predictions of what might happen, and surprise when what really happened did not fit anything.

But that does not have a good metaphor from ordinary life.