We do know the components of the brain. "Hypocampus", "Prefrontal cortex", etc. The AIBS is studying how these regions map down to the individual elements (neurons, peptides, chemical transports etc).
You're discounting a significant amount of experimental science that is really going on right now. I don't understand why.
That's like saying we know the components of an airplane - there is the "hard shiny bit", "the bottom rubbery bits" and the "rotator thingys".
Decomposing the brain into groups of biological clumps of cells tells us literally nothing about how the brain as an information system works.
When we want to study the brain, we do so because we want to understand its information structure and build information processing models. The biochemistry of the wetware is irrelevant, except insofar as it might help us formulate an "information science".
Here we are no closer to the goal than 6000 years ago.
Comments
We do know the components of the brain. "Hypocampus", "Prefrontal cortex", etc. The AIBS is studying how these regions map down to the individual elements (neurons, peptides, chemical transports etc).
You're discounting a significant amount of experimental science that is really going on right now. I don't understand why.
That's like saying we know the components of an airplane - there is the "hard shiny bit", "the bottom rubbery bits" and the "rotator thingys".
Decomposing the brain into groups of biological clumps of cells tells us literally nothing about how the brain as an information system works.
When we want to study the brain, we do so because we want to understand its information structure and build information processing models. The biochemistry of the wetware is irrelevant, except insofar as it might help us formulate an "information science".
Here we are no closer to the goal than 6000 years ago.