Isn’t it interesting what they’re finding out these days? This is just in from PhysOrg.com.
Many researchers who create these models shun the computer metaphor,” O’Reilly said. “My work comes out of a tradition that says people’s brains are nothing like computers, and now all of a sudden as we look at them, in fact, in a certain respect they are like computers.”
Digital computers operate by turning electrical signals into binary “on and off states” and flexibly manipulating these states by using switches. O’Reilly found the same operating principles in the brain.
“The neurons in the prefrontal cortex are binary — they have two states, either active or inactive — and the basal ganglia is essentially a big switch that allows you to dynamically turn on and off different parts of the prefrontal cortex,” O’Reilly said.
It should be even more interesting to see the Darwinian explanation of all of this.