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Neural coding: The bureaucratic model of the brain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2019

Romain Brette Open the ORCID record for Romain Brette [Opens in a new window]
Romain Brette*
Affiliation:
Institut de la Vision, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, INSERM, CNRS, 75012Paris, France. [email protected]://romainbrette.fr
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Abstract

The neural coding metaphor is so ubiquitous that we tend to forget its metaphorical nature. What do we mean when we assert that neurons encode and decode? What kind of causal and representational model of the brain does the metaphor entail? What lies beneath the neural coding metaphor, I argue, is a bureaucratic model of the brain.

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Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 42 , 2019 , e243
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

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