Why the brain is not a computer

Philosopher of mind and neuroscience Mazviita Chirimuuta of the University of Edinburgh questions the analogy of the brain as a computer. Drawing on her early work modelling cells in the visual system and her book The Brain Abstracted, she explains how neuroscience relies on simplifying strategies such as analogy, mathematisation and reductionism, traces the history and status of the computational view, and examines how it feeds ideas such as machine consciousness and mind uploading, touching on Marr’s levels, medium dependence, analog versus digital computing and neuromorphic AI.