Questões de Inglês - Advérbios e conjunções | Adverbs and conjunctions para Concurso

It’s easy to equate brains and computers – they’re both thinking machines, after all. But the comparison doesn’t really stand up to closer inspection, as Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett reveals.

People often describe the brain as a computer, as if neurons are like hardware and the mind is software. But this metaphor is deeply flawed.

A computer is built from static parts, whereas your brain constantly rewires itself as you age and learn. A computer stores information in files that are retrieved exactly, but brains don’t store information in any literal sense. Your memory is a constant construction of electrical pulses and swirling chemicals, and the same remembrance can be reassembled in different ways at different times.

Brains also do something critical that computers today can’t. A computer can be trained with thousands of photographs to recognise a dandelion as a plant with green leaves and yellow petals. You, however, can look at a dandelion and understand that in different situations it belongs to different categories. A dandelion in your vegetable garden is a weed, but in a bouquet from your child it’s a delightful flower. A dandelion in a salad is food, but people also consume dandelions as herbal medicine.

In other words, your brain effortlessly categorises objects by their function, not just their physical form. Some scientists believe that this incredible ability of the brain, called ad hoc category construction, may be fundamental to the way brains work.

Also, unlike a computer, your brain isn’t a bunch of parts in an empty case. Your brain inhabits a body, a complex web of systems that include over 600 muscles in motion, internal organs, a heart that pumps 7,500 litres of blood per day, and dozens of hormones and other chemicals, all of which must be coordinated, continually, to digest food, excrete waste, provide energy and fight illness.[…]

If we want a computer that thinks, feels, sees or acts like us, it must regulate a body – or something like a body – with a complex collection of systems that it must keep in balance to continue operating, and with sensations to keep that regulation in check. Today’s computers don’t work this way, but perhaps some engineers can come up with something that’s enough like a body to provide this necessary ingredient.

For now, ‘brain as computer’ remains just a metaphor. Metaphors can be wonderful for explaining complex topics in simple terms, but they fail when people treat the metaphor as an explanation. Metaphors provide the illusion of knowledge.

(Adapted from https://www.sciencefocus.com/future-technology/canwe-build-brain-computer/ Published: 24th October, 2021, retrieved on February 9th, 2022)

In Japan, they call them ‘manga’; in Latin America, ‘histotietas’; in Italy, ‘fumetti’; in Brazil, ‘história em quadrinhos’; and in the U.S., ‘comics’. But no matter what you call them, comics are a favorite source of reading pleasure in many parts of the world.

In case you are wondering how popular comics are, the best-selling comic title in the U.S. sells about 5 million copies a year. All of Mexico’s comic titles together sell over 7,5 million copies a week. But Japan is        far the leading publisher of comics       the world.

Ever since comics first appeared, there have been people who have criticized them. In the 1940s and 50s, many people believed that comics were immoral and that they caused bad behavior among young people. Even today, many question whether young people should read them at all. They argue that reading comics encourages bad reading habits.

But some educators see comics as a way to get teenagers to choose reading instead of television and video games. And because of the art, a number of educators have argued that comics are a great way to get children to think creatively. More recent research has suggested that the combination of visuals and text in comics may be one reason young people handle computers and related software so easily.

In Japan, the Education Ministry calls comics ‘a part of Japan’s national culture, recognized and highly regarded abroad’. Comics are increasingly being used for educational purposes, and many publishers there see them as a useful way of teaching history and other subjects.

No matter how you view them, comics remain a guilty pleasure for millions worldwide.