Abstract
The view that the brain is a sort of computer has functioned as a theoretical guideline both in cognitive science and, more recently, in neuroscience. But since we can view every physical system as a computer, it has been less than clear what this view amounts to. By considering in some detail a seminal study in computational neuroscience, I first suggest that neuroscientists invoke the computational outlook to explain regularities that are formulated in terms of the information content of electrical signals. I then indicate why computational theories have explanatory force with respect to these regularities:in a nutshell, they underscore correspondence relations between formal/mathematical properties of the electrical signals and formal/mathematical properties of the represented objects. I finally link my proposal to the philosophical thesis that content plays an essential role in computational taxonomy.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Amit D.J. (1989). Modelling brain function. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Andersen R.A., Essick G.K., Siegel R.M. (1985). Encoding of spatial location by posterior parietal neurons. Science, 230(4724): 456–458
Buneo C.A., Jarvis M.R., Batista A.P., Andersen R.A. (2002). Direct visuomotor transformations for reaching. Nature, 416, 632–636
Burge T. (1986). Individualism and psychology. Philosophical Review 95, 3–45
Chalmers D.J. (1996). Does a rock implement every finite-state automaton?. Synthese, 108, 309–333
Chomsky N. (1980). Rules and representations. Columbia University Press, New York
Churchland P.S., Grush R. (1999). Computation and the brain. In: Wilson R.A., Keil F.C (eds). The MIT Encyclopedia of the cognitive sciences. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 155–158
Churchland P.S., Koch C., Sejnowski T.J. (1990). What is computational neuroscience?. In: Schwartz E.L. (eds). Computational neuroscience. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 46–55
Churchland P.S., Sejnowski T.J. (1992). The computational brain. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
Craver C.F. (2002). Structures of scientific theories. In: Machamer P., Silberstein M. (eds). The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Science. Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 55–79
Davidson D. (1990). Turing’s Test. In: Mohyeldin Said K.A., Newton-Smith W.H., Viale R., Wilkes K.V. (Eds). Modeling the mind. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 1–11
Davies M. (1991). Individualism and perceptual content. Mind, 100, 461–484
Dennett D.C. (1971). Intentional systems. Journal of Philosophy, 68, 87–106
Dretske F. (1988). Explaining behavior. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
Egan F. (1995). Computation and content. Philosophical Review, 104, 181–203
Fodor J.A. (1974). Special sciences, or the disunity of science as a working hypothesis. Synthese, 28, 97–115
Fodor J.A. (1980). Methodological solipsism considered as a research strategy in cognitive psychology. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3, 63–73
Fodor J.A. (1981). The mind-body problem. Scientific American, 244, 114–123
Fodor J.A. (1994). The elm and the expert. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
Fodor J.A., Pylyshyn Z.W. (1988). Connectionism and cognitive architecture: A critical analysis. Cognition, 28, 3–71
Gödel, K. (1933). The present situation in the foundations of mathematics. In S. J. W. Dawson, W. Goldfarb, C. Parsons, & R. M. Solovay (Eds.), Kurt Gödel collected works, Vol. III (pp. 45–53). New York: Oxford University Press (1995).
Gödel, K. (1934). On undecidable propositions of formal mathematical systems. In S. Feferman, J. W. Dawson, S. C. Kleene, G. H. Moore, R. M. Solovay, & J. van Heijenoort (Eds.), Kurt Gödel collected works, Vol. I (pp. 346–371). New York: Oxford University Press (1986).
Grush R. (2001). The semantic challenge to computational neuroscience. In: Grush P.R., McLaughlin P. (eds). Theory and method in the neurosciences. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA, pp. 155–172
Haugeland J. (1981). Semantic engines. In: Haugeland J. (eds). Mind design. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 1–34
Hogarth M.L. (1992). Does General Relativity allow an observer to view an eternity in a finite time?. Foundations of Physics Letters, 5, 173–181
Hogarth M. (1994). Non-Turing computers and non-Turing computability. Proceedings of the Philosophy of Science Association, 1, 126–138
Kitcher P. (1988). Marr’s computational theory of vision. Philosophy of Science, 55, 1–24
Lehky S.R., Sejnowski T.J. (1988). Network model of shape-from-shading: Neural function arises from both receptive and projective fields. Nature, 333, 452–454
Marr D. (1982). Vision. W. H. Freeman, San Francisco
Morton P. (1993). Supervenience and computational explanation in vision theory. Philosophy of Science, 60, 86–99
Newell A., Simon H. (1976). Computer science as empirical inquiry: Symbols and search. Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery, 19, 113–126
Peacocke C. (1994). Content, computation, and externalism. Mind and Language, 9, 303–335
Peacocke C. (1999). Computation as involving content: A response to Egan. Mind and Language, 14, 195–202
Piccinini G. (2004). Functionalism, computationalism, and mental contents. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 34, 375–410
Piccinini, G. (forthcoming). Computation without representation. Philosophical Studies.
Pour-El M.B., Richards I. (1981). The wave equation with computable initial data such that its unique solution is not computable. Advances in Mathematics, 39, 215–239
Putnam H. (1973). Reductionism and the nature of psychology. Cognition, 2, 131–146
Putnam, H. (1975). Philosophy and our mental life. In H. Putnam (Ed.), Mind, language and reality, philosophical papers, volume 2 (pp. 291–303). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Putnam H. (1988). Representations and reality. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
Pylyshyn Z.W. (1984). Computation and cognition. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
Rumelhart, D. E., McLelland, J. L., & the PDP Research Group (1986). Parallel distributed processing, Vol. 1–2. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Scheutz M. (2001). Computational versus causal complexity. Minds and Machines, 11, 543–566
Searle J.R. (1992). The rediscovery of the mind. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
Segal G. (1989). Seeing what is not there. Philosophical Review, 98, 189–214
Segal G. (1991). Defense of a reasonable individualism. Mind, 100, 485–494
Sejnowski T. J., Koch C., Churchland P.S. (1988). Computational neuroscience. Science, 241(4871): 1299–1306
Shadmehr R., Wise S.P. (2005). The computational neurobiology of reaching and pointing: A foundation for motor learning. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
Shagrir O. (1992). A neural net with self-inhibiting units for the n-queens problem. International Journal of Neural Systems, 3, 249–252
Shagrir O. (1997). Two dogmas of computationalism. Minds and Machines, 7, 321–344
Shagrir O. (1998). Multiple realization, computation and the taxonomy of psychological states. Synthese, 114, 445–461
Shagrir O. (1999). What is computer science about?. Monist, 82, 131–149
Shagrir O. (2001). Content, computation and externalism. Mind, 110, 369–400
Shagrir O. (2006). Gödel on turing on computability. In: Olszewski A., Wolenski J., Janusz R. (eds). Church’s thesis after 70 years. Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt, pp. 393–419
Shagrir O., Pitowsky I. (2003). Physical hypercomputation and the Church–Turing thesis. Minds and Machines, 13, 87–101
Sher G.Y. (1991). The bounds of logic: A generalized viewpoint. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
Sher G.Y. (1996). Did Tarski commit “Tarski’s Fallacy”?. Journal of Symbolic Logic, 61, 653–686
Smith B.C. (1996). On the origin of objects. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
Smolensky P. (1988). On the proper treatment of connectionism. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 11, 1–23
Sober E. (1999). The multiple realizability argument against reductionism. Philosophy of Science, 66, 542–564
Stich S.P. (1983). From folk psychology to cognitive science. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
Wilson R.A. (1994). Wide computationalism. Mind, 103, 351–372
Zipser D., Andersen R.A. (1988). A back-propagation programmed network that simulates response properties of a subset of posterior parietal neurons. Nature, 331, 679–684
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Shagrir, O. Why we view the brain as a computer. Synthese 153, 393–416 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-006-9099-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-006-9099-8