🧠💻 The Big Fallacy: Why Our Brain Is Not a Computer Scientists, engineers, and doctors tend to view biology through the lens of our own machines. Why? Because we humans can understand, program, and manipulate machines. It satisfies our basic need for control. But the popular brain-computer analogy falls completely flat—and competent neuroscience has known this for a long time. The brain does not run on code; it functions fundamentally differently from any computer. 🛠️ The Myth of Hardware and Software With computers, the division of roles is strict: the hardware is the rigid box, the software the flexible program that can be installed at will. With the human brain, this separation is simply impossible: • Permanent physical restructuring: As you read these lines and think about them, your synaptic connections are already changing at this very moment. • Experience is structure: Every action, every sound, and every experience leaves a physical trace. The brain doesn’t just learn like software; it constantly rebuilds itself as “hardware” every second. • No dead shell: A biological organ cannot be frozen and reprogrammed—it is a dynamic, living process. 👥 In Dialogue: The Embodiment Paradigm It is precisely this reductionist perspective—which reduces the mind to mere data and algorithms—that we will be examining in this Zoomposium. Our guest this time is one of the leading international figures in phenomenological anthropology: Prof. Dr. Thomas Fuchs from Heidelberg University Hospital. In his work “In Defense of the Human” and in this interview, he impressively explains why current neuroconstructivism falls short. Consciousness and cognition do not arise in isolation within the “central computer” of the head, but are inseparably bound to our living, sentient bodies (enactivism and embodiment). 💬 Discussion prompt for the network: Why does our tech world cling so stubbornly to the image of the brain as a biological hard drive? Is it the longing for perfect optimization, or are we overlooking the essential qualities that define us as human beings? I look forward to hearing your perspectives in the comments! 👇 📺 Interview: https://youtu.be/1ouxs6P3Enc 📎Information: https://philosophies.de/index.php/2022/11/20/das-verkoerperte-bewusstsein/
