Up: [[Metaphor]] Created: 2024-12-01 Updated: 2025-01-28 The ancient Greeks thought of the brain as a kind of theatre. Sigmund Freud used hydraulics to describe a mind that functions via the buildup and release of psychic pressures Cyberneticists (scientists who study control systems in devices and organizations) see the brain as a computer Self-help gurus think the brain is a muscle that you can make stronger through various ‘exercises’ such as visualization and affirmations. Neuroscientists think of the brain as *a tapestry of connections that match sensory inputs to motor outputs* (*Better in Every Sense*, p.72) The creator of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle, believed the tabula rasa theory in which he described the brain as an empty attic. > [!Orbit] Arthur Conan Doyle > I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.