Codes, communication and cognition

Abstract

Brette (2019) criticizes the notion of neural coding because it seems to entail that neural signals need to be decoded by or for some receiver in the head. If that were so, then neural coding would indeed be homuncular (Brette calls it dualistic), requiring an entity to decipher the code. But I think the plea of Brett to think instead in terms of complex, interactive causal throughput is preaching to the converted. Turing (not Shannon) has already shown the way. In any case, the metaphor of neural coding has little to do with the symbol grounding problem.