Role Metaphors Play Helping People Understand Concept

¶ … role metaphors play helping people understand concept artificial intelligence? Do agree brain a -called meat machine? What metaphors applicable function human brain

There is presently much controversy regarding the concept of intelligence and the way that it influences individuals. In order to assist the masses in getting a better understanding of intelligence, the human brain, and the relationship between them, society has come up with a series of metaphors. Present-day technology has made it possible for individuals to interact with tools that work similarly to the human brain, thus making people think that the brain actually works as a very advanced computer that has a certain amount of storage space, a particular processing speed, and that is overall more or less capable of performing certain tasks.

Metaphors are sometimes used as a means to address the masses, considering that they are more likely to gain a better comprehension of some concepts if they are presented with the opportunity to associate it with an idea that they are familiar with. People are basically presented with the fact that the computer functions similar to the brain and vice-versa. Individuals who are experienced in domains concerning the human mind are likely to express sympathy regarding the idea that human behavior can be understood better through studying computers and the way that they operate. Even with the fact that more and more individuals have come to accept that the brain can be generally related to as being a "machine," this metaphor can be confusing because of the concepts that it brings along. The principal misunderstanding emerging as a result of the fact that people associate the brain with their understanding of artificial intelligence is related to how "machines of any sort exist only in the material order of nature whereas the mind exists within the human order and in its system of Space-Time" (Krader & Levitt, x1vi). Furthermore, thinking and knowledge in general are believed to be interconnected with feelings, thus making it impossible for a machine to be capable to reproduce the same actions that a human brain can perform.

Artificial intelligence can be considered to be an attempt to model particular aspects of human thinking. Alan Turing is one of the most recognized individuals who contributed to the domain and his studies are essential in providing people with a more complex understanding of the similarity between the human mind and artificial intelligence. The Turing test consists out of an interaction between a computer and a human being during which the computer needs to respond to a number of blind questions without having its correspondent consider that he or she is actually speaking to a machine (Gossin, 488).

The concept of a brain being a machine goes back several centuries at a time when Descartes promoted the belief that it is very possible for the brain to be an operator responsible for all the activities that the individual performs. Philosophy is one of the principal domains dealing with this matter, as it often relates to how people are nothing more than technologically advanced machines that are unable to express actual feelings and who are mainly governed by the way that their minds operate. The masses apparently have trouble understanding how the brain works because they perceive it as being more than just a simple organic machine (Gossin, 488).