I don't particularly like that essay because the author seems focused on the idea that "your brain is a computer" is a metaphor rather than a theory (see [1] for a more nuanced discussion).
The author correctly points out that past eras developed metaphors to explain how the mind might work based on the technological innovations they were familiar with, but I think there's a lot more nuance in the computational theory of the mind.
Namely that the notion of computation is much more abstract, and potentially more portable across disciplines, than some of the historical examples that the author of that Aeon piece brings up.
Anyway, obviously I don't have any real answers but for whatever reason the brain-as-a-computer theory rings pretty true for me and I've enjoyed reading essays and watching talks about the topic [2] [3].
^-- This is the first part in an ongoing series of lectures that Joscha Bach has been giving at the Chaos Communication Congress; if you watch it and find it interesting you should check out the proceeding installments.
The "neural network of neural networks" thing is a bit of lavish exaggeration TBH, because a network of networks is just a larger network. The human brain has about 100tn synapses, which I think is a less obscure statistic to marvel about.
> The better we could communicate on a mass scale, the more our species began to function like a single organism, with humanity’s collective knowledge tower as its brain and each individual human brain like a nerve or a muscle fiber in its body. With the era of mass communication upon us, the collective human organism—the Human Colossus—rose into existence.
I like thinking about us this way too, as being both individuals but at the same time also forming a sorts of organism together.
What originally got me thinking about us this way was something that Sun Tzu wrote in his book The Art of War.
I think this might be the part of that book that made me think of it like this:
> The skillful tactician may be likened to the shuai-jan. Now the shuai-jan is a snake that is found in the ChUng mountains. Strike at its head, and you will be attacked by its tail; strike at its tail, and you will be attacked by its head; strike at its middle, and you will be attacked by head and tail both.
> Asked if an army can be made to imitate the shuai-jan, I should answer, Yes. For the men of Wu and the men of Yueh are enemies; yet if they are crossing a river in the same boat and are caught by a storm, they will come to each other's assistance just as the left hand helps the right.
The author correctly points out that past eras developed metaphors to explain how the mind might work based on the technological innovations they were familiar with, but I think there's a lot more nuance in the computational theory of the mind.
Namely that the notion of computation is much more abstract, and potentially more portable across disciplines, than some of the historical examples that the author of that Aeon piece brings up.
Anyway, obviously I don't have any real answers but for whatever reason the brain-as-a-computer theory rings pretty true for me and I've enjoyed reading essays and watching talks about the topic [2] [3].
[1] https://medium.com/the-spike/how-to-find-out-if-your-brain-i...
[2] https://medium.com/the-spike/yes-the-brain-is-a-computer-11f...
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKQ0yaEJjok
^-- This is the first part in an ongoing series of lectures that Joscha Bach has been giving at the Chaos Communication Congress; if you watch it and find it interesting you should check out the proceeding installments.