[otabdeveloper4]

> The default assumption in science is that any phenomenon is explainable and predictable

Two points:

a) Not everything is explainable and predictable, and thus under the domain of science.

b) There's a huge (maybe infinite?) class of things that are explainable and predictable and yet aren't algorithms.

An 'algorithm' is a very specific mathematical concept with a very specific definition. It is quite possible that the brain is explainable and predictable and yet isn't an algorithm.

> ...but it's still just crunching data.

Only if you expand 'data' to mean every possible physical phenomenon under the sun, which is disingenuous. (Are hormones 'data'? Is electromagnetic radiation? Etc., etc.)

[bermanoid]

I'm saying that the inputs to the brain are data, and the outputs are data. The brain transforms that data in some way, and we have mathematical theorems that say yep, most of the ways data can be transformed can be expressed as an algorithm in any Turing-complete language.

If your argument is that the brain leaps past normal computation into hypercomputation or something like that, then you're making an extremely bold claim that doesn't match what we know about the physical universe (there is a long history of arguments about the physical possibility of hypercomputation, and most people don't think it's possible even in theory).

I know it sounds expansive to say that everything in the physical world (at least the bits accessible to our experimentation) can be modeled by an algorithm, but that really is the mainstream scientific view, and the edges where people argue about the fringe possibilities most definitely do not apply to the energy/time scales involved with the brain.