Technological metaphors misdescribe the brain as a centralized control center

Evidence

This new figure explains the fruitlessness of the well-known technological metaphors that have been used to characterize brain functioning. Essentially, these are mechanical metaphors, which turn the brain—as they do machines—into a control center. The two most famous, today put back into question by the discovery of plasticity, are the ”central telephone exchange brain” and the ”computer brain.” The two assimilate the brain to a center and its organization to a process of centralization. — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 118

Categorization

• XREF: Relevant to the reader’s inquiry: the telephone-exchange and computer-brain metaphors are themselves old versions of the reductive machine analogy the reader is learning to catch in memos.
• FICTION: The central telephone exchange / computer brain as replaced metaphors — the contrast of a retired metaphor could frame a character’s or narrator’s habit of thinking about minds.