▨ models
This fact, that knowledge comes from distinctions, implies that we can come to an understanding of the nature of any one thing, whatever it might be, only by comparison with something else we already know, and by observing the similarities and differences."
"every ‘explanation’, however convincing, is merely a model; a comparison of something with something else."
"The model we choose to use to understand something determines what we find.
[...] If we assume a purely mechanical universe and take the machine as our model, we will uncover the view that – surprise, surprise – the body, and the brain with it, is a machine."
p. 97-9"Neuropsychology is inextricably bound up with philosophy. [...] the scientific process and the meaning of its findings is generally taken for granted. The model of the body, and therefore the brain, as a mechanism is exempted from the process of philosophical scepticism" p. 134f
"to some people the brain is a thing, and a particular type of thing, a machine; which is only to say that it is something we understand (understanding) from the bottom up" p. 175f