Internet in Your Head: A New Paradigm for How the Brain Works

The metaphor of the brain as a computer has defined neuroscience for much of the modern era, but neuroscientists are reevaluating their assumptions and need a new paradigm to help them ask better questions. Daniel Graham's "Internet in Your Head" paradigm suggests that the brain is a communication system, like the internet, that is both flexible and reliable. By focusing on shared design principles and communication strategies, the internet metaphor can help neuroscience unravel the brains routing mechanisms and unlock its deepest secrets.

Format: Hardback
Length: 360 pages
Publication date: 04 May 2021
Publisher: Columbia University Press

The metaphor of the brain as a computer has defined the field of neuroscience for much of the modern era. However, as neuroscientists increasingly reevaluate their assumptions about how brains work, we need a new metaphor to help us ask better questions. Daniel Graham, a computational neuroscientist, offers an innovative paradigm for understanding the brain. He argues that the brain is not like a single computer but rather a communication system, similar to the internet. Both are networks whose power comes from their flexibility and reliability.

The brain and the internet both must route signals throughout their systems, requiring protocols to direct messages from almost any point to any other. However, we do not yet understand how the brain manages the dynamic flow of information across its entire network. The internet metaphor can help neuroscience unravel the brains routing mechanisms by focusing attention on shared design principles and communication strategies that emerge from parallel challenges.

Highlighting similarities between brain connectivity and the architecture of the internet can open new avenues of research and help unlock the brains deepest secrets.

An Internet in Your Head: The Future of Brain Science presents a clear-eyed and engaging tour of brain science as it stands today and where the new paradigm might take it next. It offers anyone with an interest in brains a transformative new way to conceptualize what goes on inside our heads.

Weight: 550g
Dimension: 151 x 223 x 28 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780231196048