Hard to describe exactly, but I’ll take a stab at it. Digital computers are different from mechanical adders because they implement an algorithm which is very ‘general’ and can be very easily and rapidly configured to follow a wide set of other algorithms. This can be used to run simulations of things. This unusual flexibility is seen to a much lesser extent in the brain because there are many physical restrictions on the changes that can be made to the algorithm being run by the brain. Similarly, you can physically modify a mechanical adder machine to change its algorithm to no longer be ‘adding’, but switching it to a different algorithm isn’t easy the way switching the algorithm running on the meta-level of the digital computer is.
Something something… degrees of freedom… markov blankets… meta level programming.… mumble mumble...
Hard to describe exactly, but I’ll take a stab at it. Digital computers are different from mechanical adders because they implement an algorithm which is very ‘general’ and can be very easily and rapidly configured to follow a wide set of other algorithms. This can be used to run simulations of things. This unusual flexibility is seen to a much lesser extent in the brain because there are many physical restrictions on the changes that can be made to the algorithm being run by the brain. Similarly, you can physically modify a mechanical adder machine to change its algorithm to no longer be ‘adding’, but switching it to a different algorithm isn’t easy the way switching the algorithm running on the meta-level of the digital computer is.
Something something… degrees of freedom… markov blankets… meta level programming.… mumble mumble...