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Podcast: NBN Book of the Day
Episode: M. Chirimuuta, "The Brain Abstracted: Simplification in the History and Philosophy of Neuroscience" (MIT Press, 2024)
Description: This book is available open access here. The Brain Abstracted: Simplification in the History and Philosophy of Neuroscience (MIT Press, 2024), Mazviita Chirimuuta argues that the standard ways neuroscientists simplify the human brain to build models for their research purposes mislead us about how the brain actually works. The key issue, instead, is to figure out which details of brain function are relevant for understanding its role in causing behavior; after all, the biological brain is a highly energetically efficient basis of cognition in contrast to the massive data centers driving AI that are based on the simplification tha...