Intelligent Beings In Search of a Good Metaphor

Using computers as a metaphor for the mind is not the most productive way to gain knowledge of the brain, a panelist in the symposium, "Mind and Machines: Philosphical Perspectives," said yesterday.

"Computers are more than a metaphor of mind," said Allen Newall, a professor of computer science at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Using computers as a metaphor for the brain rather than making a more direct comparison underestimates the importance computers can have in our understanding of human intelligence, Newall explained to an almost capacity crowd in Boylston Auditorium.

"Computers are having an impact on what we think are minds are about," he said.

The symposium's other participant, Starch Professor of Psychology William K. Estes, said he was unsure whether "intelligent beings are interpretable as formal systems."

"The sweep of what we can do with a computer is continuing to expand. That's odd for a technology," said Newall, differentiating computers from other technologies which man has used as a metaphor for the mind.

Newall said that the many tasks which humans can perform but computers cannot are problematical to attempts to find a direct correlation between human and computerized thought.