In his recent article "Making a Brain Map that We Can Use", Alva Noë argues that cell-by-cell mapping of human brain is inefficient, if not impossible. He builds this claim by an effective use of analogies, references to scientific data and allusions to modern literature employed to persuade the reader. Noë starts the article off by recalling how he started pondering the question of brain-mapping having read a piece about the neuroscientist Sebastian Seung who is trying to acquire deeper understanding of this organ by tracing out individual cells, neurons. Noë undermines the sensibility of such study in the very beginning by quoting David Marr who pointed out almost 50 years ago the illusionate nature of knowledge about the whole drawn from its parts and thus describing Seung's attempts as a "step back".
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He ask the readers to consider encountering a computer for the first time and investigating the unknown object just by thorough analysis of its parts. The literally tool is skillfully utilized here not only to emphasize the absurdity of such an approach in general but also to draw the readers in by appealing to their imagination. By addressing the audience directly for instance while suggesting "one thing you could do..." or "suppose you finished the job" he means to establish a potential for a later animated conversation. This is to say he goes on to make subtle yet efficient use of rhetorical questioning to persuade his audience that knowing about every nut and bolt in a complex machine is of no use whatsoever as far as its function is concerned. Moreover, asking "Would you know what the thing is before you? Or how it works?" he challenges the reader very directly to imagine finding themselves in such a situation and this will surely spur some kind of
He ask the readers to consider encountering a computer for the first time and investigating the unknown object just by thorough analysis of its parts. The literally tool is skillfully utilized here not only to emphasize the absurdity of such an approach in general but also to draw the readers in by appealing to their imagination. By addressing the audience directly for instance while suggesting "one thing you could do..." or "suppose you finished the job" he means to establish a potential for a later animated conversation. This is to say he goes on to make subtle yet efficient use of rhetorical questioning to persuade his audience that knowing about every nut and bolt in a complex machine is of no use whatsoever as far as its function is concerned. Moreover, asking "Would you know what the thing is before you? Or how it works?" he challenges the reader very directly to imagine finding themselves in such a situation and this will surely spur some kind of