How Do We Get From

Because We Do Not Understand The Brain Very Well We Are Constantly Tempted To Use The Latest Technology As A Model For Trying To Understand It. In My Childhood We Were Always Assured That The Brain Was A Telephone Switchboard...sherrington, The Great British Neuroscientist, Thought The Brain Worked Like A Telegraph System. Freud Often Compared The Brain To Hydraulic And Electromagnetic Systems. Leibniz Compared It To A Mill...at Present, Obviously, The Metaphor Is The Digital Computer.

I Will Argue That In The Literal Sense The Programmed Computer Understands What The Car And The Adding Machine Understand, Namely, Exactly Nothing.

We Often Attribute 'understanding' And Other Cognitive Predicates By Metaphor And Analogy To Cars, Adding Machines, And Other Artifacts, But Nothing Is Proved By Such Attributions.

The Intentionality Of The Mind Not Only Creates The Possibility Of Meaning, But Limits Its Forms.

Nowadays Nobody Bothers, And It Is Considered In Slightly Bad Taste To Even Raise The Question Of God's Existence. Matters Of Religion Are Like Matters Of Sexual Preference: They Are Not Discussed In Public, And Even The Abstract Questions Are Discussed Only By Bores.