In:How Metaphors Guide, Teach and Popularize Science
Edited by Anke Beger and Thomas H. Smith
[Figurative Thought and Language 6] 2020
► pp. 263–295
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Chapter 8The brain is a computer and the mind is its program
Following a metaphor’s path from its birth to teaching philosophy decades later
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.
Published online: 22 April 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.6.08beg
https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.6.08beg
Abstract
This chapter analyzes three stops along the life path of
the influential metaphor the brain is a computer and the mind is
its program. At the first two stops, the philosophers
Searle, Hofstadter and Dennett argue about the literal truth of this
metaphor in two academic papers. They embed the metaphor in complex
metaphorical analogies, i.e., deliberate metaphors,
for primarily persuasive purposes. The last stop analyzed is an
academic lecture in philosophy which aims at explaining the
metaphorical reasoning of the philosophers. The analysis focuses on
the professor’s modifications of one of Searle’s deliberate
metaphors. These modifications result in a misrepresentation of
Searle’s view on the mind. Linguistic evidence indicates that this
misrepresentation influences the students’ concept of the mind.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Methodological and theoretical aspects
- 2.1Steps of the analysis
- 2.2Metaphor in language, thought, and communication
- 2.3Recontextualization of metaphors
- 3.Analysis: How the brain is a computer and the mind is its
program is embedded and recontextualized in deliberate
metaphors to argue about, and explain, views on the mind in two
different academic genres
- 3.1Searle’s metaphorical refutation of the “strong AI
claim”
- 3.1.1Searle’s first major metaphorical analogy: The Chinese Room Thought Experiment
- 3.1.2Searle’s second major metaphorical analogy: The stomach example
- 3.2Hofstadter and Dennett’s rebuttal of Searle’s metaphorical rejection of the strong AI claim
- 3.3A professor’s recontextualizations of Searle’s stomach example analogy in a philosophy lecture
- 3.1Searle’s metaphorical refutation of the “strong AI
claim”
- 4.Summary and conclusion
Notes References
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