Thursday, 23 July 2026

The Senior Common Room Investigates Neural Networks Or: Where Exactly Are the Neurons?

Professor Quillibrace was halfway through The Times when Mr Blottisham entered carrying a remarkably realistic model of the human brain.

Professor Quillibrace lowered the newspaper very slowly.

"No."

Blottisham smiled.

"I haven't explained."

"I believe the object is explanation enough."

Miss Stray entered moments later.

She looked at the brain.

Then at Professor Quillibrace.

"Artificial intelligence?"

Professor Quillibrace nodded.

"I'm afraid so."

Blottisham carefully placed the model upon the coffee table.

"I've come to investigate neural networks."

Professor Quillibrace looked at the brain.

"I suspected."

"I thought it best to begin with the original."

Miss Stray smiled.

"A commendably historical approach."

Blottisham opened a notebook.

"My understanding is that artificial intelligence uses neural networks."

"It often does."

"So..."

Professor Quillibrace completed the sentence.

"...where exactly are the neurons?"

Blottisham looked delighted.

"You've anticipated my first question."

Professor Quillibrace sighed.

"It wasn't difficult."

Blottisham pointed at the model.

"These are neurons."

"They are."

"And the artificial ones..."

"Yes?"

"...look rather different."

Professor Quillibrace nodded.

"Very different."

"How many branches do they have?"

"They don't."

"Dendrites?"

"No."

"Axons?"

"No."

"Cell membranes?"

"No."

Blottisham frowned.

"So..."

"...what exactly makes them neurons?"

The room became pleasantly quiet.

Miss Stray looked interested.

"That," she said,

"...is an excellent question."

Professor Quillibrace smiled.

"The answer is that they resemble biological neurons in one rather abstract respect."

"They receive signals."

"They produce signals."

"And they can influence one another."

"Exactly."

Blottisham nodded thoughtfully.

"So we've rented three characteristics."

Professor Quillibrace laughed.

"I see the Experimental Metaphor Laboratory has left its mark."

"It didn't buy the whole brain."

"No."

"It merely leased communication."

Miss Stray quietly applauded.

"I think the metaphor is improving."

Blottisham walked slowly around the brain model.

"I have another question."

"I expected as much."

"If these artificial neurons aren't really neurons..."

"They aren't."

"...do they get tired?"

"No."

"Need oxygen?"

"No."

"Grow?"

"No."

"Die?"

"Not biologically."

"They don't get headaches?"

Professor Quillibrace looked wistfully into his teacup.

"I rather wish some conference reviewers didn't either."

Miss Stray laughed.

Blottisham made several careful notes.

"No fatigue."

"No sleep."

"No lunch."

"No tea."

Professor Quillibrace looked mildly offended.

"I should very much hope they don't drink tea."

"Why?"

"It would complicate the engineering."

The discussion drifted for a while.

Finally Miss Stray spoke.

"I think every generation borrows metaphors from whatever it understands best."

Professor Quillibrace nodded.

"Steam engines."

"Telephones."

"Computers."

"Brains."

Blottisham looked puzzled.

"So if we understood octopuses better..."

Professor Quillibrace blinked.

"...yes?"

"...would we build cephalopod intelligence?"

There was a long silence.

Miss Stray stared thoughtfully into the middle distance.

Professor Quillibrace slowly removed his spectacles.

"I am simultaneously convinced..."

"...that the answer is no..."

"...and uncertain whether I can explain why."

The room dissolved into laughter.

After the laughter subsided, Blottisham became unexpectedly serious.

"So why call them neurons at all?"

Professor Quillibrace considered.

"Because the metaphor gives us somewhere to begin."

"It suggests a way of organising computation."

"It encourages us to think about distributed activity rather than central control."

"It invites us to ask productive questions."

"But..."

"...not every biological question."

"Exactly."

Miss Stray leaned forward.

"It strikes me that the metaphor performs a rather delicate trick."

Professor Quillibrace smiled.

"Go on."

"It encourages us to imagine intelligence as something that emerges from many simple interactions."

"Yes."

"But it quietly discourages us from asking what intelligence itself might be."

Professor Quillibrace paused.

"I believe..."

he said softly,

"...that may be the most important observation of the afternoon."

Blottisham looked surprised.

"Really?"

"Yes."

"We become so fascinated by the architecture..."

"...that we forget the phenomenon."

The college clock struck four.

Blottisham carefully packed away the brain model.

"I've one final question."

Professor Quillibrace smiled.

"Only one?"

"If artificial neurons aren't really neurons..."

"No."

"...why do people keep talking as though artificial intelligence works like the brain?"

Professor Quillibrace was silent for a long moment.

Finally he replied.

"Because the metaphor is so successful..."

"...that we begin to forget which direction it points."

Miss Stray nodded.

"The map gradually starts pretending to be the country."

Professor Quillibrace smiled.

"And Mr Blottisham arrives with a microscope."

"No," said Blottisham cheerfully.

"I left the microscope at home."

Professor Quillibrace looked relieved.

"I've brought it tomorrow."

Silence.

Miss Stray quietly reached for the teapot.

Professor Quillibrace looked towards the ceiling.

"My dear Blottisham..."

"Yes?"

"I have begun to suspect..."

"...that curiosity should occasionally require a licence."

They left the Senior Common Room together.

The model brain remained on the table for a moment longer.

An excellent teaching aid.

A poor substitute for a mind.

And perhaps that was precisely the point.

By at No comments:

The Senior Common Room Discovers That Physicists Never Meant Any of It Literally Or: The Great Relief

The Senior Common Room was unusually peaceful.

No fabric had been brought in.

No billiard balls had appeared.

No tools had been wheeled through the door.

No Wellington boots stood by the fireplace.

No keyboards had been connected to anything remotely cosmic.

Professor Quillibrace noticed this immediately.

"Something is wrong."

Miss Stray looked up from her book.

"Wrong?"

"Everything is functioning normally."

"Is that unusual?"

"With Mr Blottisham involved, yes."

As if summoned by the observation itself, the door opened.

Mr Blottisham entered.

Empty-handed.

Professor Quillibrace stared.

"No."

"Good morning, Professor."

"You have nothing."

"Nothing?"

"No equipment."

"No."

"No diagrams."

"No."

"No picnic hamper?"

"No."

Professor Quillibrace sat down slowly.

"I confess..."

"...I do not know whether to be relieved or concerned."

Blottisham smiled.

"I have been thinking."

Miss Stray closed her book.

"Ah."

"About the metaphors."

Professor Quillibrace looked cautious.

"Go on."

"I think I may have misunderstood something."

A silence followed.

Miss Stray looked at Professor Quillibrace.

Professor Quillibrace looked at Miss Stray.

"Did you hear that?"

"I did."

"Should we record it?"

"Perhaps frame it."

Blottisham ignored them.

"I assumed that when physicists said..."

He counted on his fingers.

"Fabric."

"Billiard balls."

"Machines."

"Fields."

"Computers."

"...they meant those things."

Professor Quillibrace nodded.

"Yes."

"And they don't."

"No."

"At all?"

"No."

Blottisham looked astonished.

"Then why say them?"

Professor Quillibrace smiled.

"An excellent question."

He walked to the blackboard.

He wrote:

THE UNKNOWN

Then beneath it:

THE FAMILIAR

"And between them..."

He drew an arrow.

"...a metaphor."

Miss Stray nodded.

"When we encounter something genuinely unfamiliar, we have no language ready-made for it."

"So we borrow."

"Exactly."

Blottisham considered this.

"Like a temporary bridge."

Professor Quillibrace looked pleased.

"Very good."

"But then..."

Blottisham continued,

"...we must remember that a bridge is not the destination."

"Precisely."

Miss Stray smiled.

"I think you have finally understood."

Blottisham looked proud.

"I do have one remaining question."

Professor Quillibrace sighed.

"Naturally."

"If everyone knows these are metaphors..."

"Yes?"

"Why does everyone keep forgetting?"

The room became quiet.

Professor Quillibrace sat down.

"Because good metaphors disappear."

"Disappear?"

"Yes."

"The best tools become invisible."

Miss Stray added:

"When you walk across a bridge, you do not spend your time thinking about the bridge."

"You think about where you are going."

"Exactly."

Blottisham nodded.

"So a successful metaphor hides itself."

"Yes."

"And that is the danger."

"Yes."

"Because eventually someone like me comes along."

Professor Quillibrace smiled.

"Precisely."

"And asks..."

He raised his hand dramatically.

"Where are the seams?"

Miss Stray laughed.

"Where are the sheep?"

"Where is the workshop?"

"Where is the keyboard?"

The room filled with laughter.

After a while, Professor Quillibrace returned to the blackboard.

"I think we should add one final principle."

He wrote:

A METAPHOR IS NOT A FAILED DESCRIPTION

Blottisham looked at it.

"What is it?"

"A successful instrument."

"Like a telescope?"

"Yes."

"But a telescope does not contain the stars."

"No."

"It helps us see them."

"Exactly."

Miss Stray smiled.

"And perhaps metaphors are intellectual telescopes."

"They let us see structures that would otherwise remain invisible."

"But they are not themselves the universe."

Professor Quillibrace nodded.

"Precisely."

The room fell silent.

Blottisham looked thoughtful.

"So the mistake was not using metaphors."

"No."

"The mistake was forgetting we were using them."

"Exactly."

The afternoon light entered through the windows.

For a moment, nobody spoke.

Then Blottisham stood.

"I think I should return something."

Professor Quillibrace looked concerned.

"What?"

Blottisham reached into his pocket.

He placed a small USB stick on the table.

Professor Quillibrace stared.

"What is that?"

"The backup reality."

A long silence.

Miss Stray looked at him.

"Why do you still have it?"

"In case."

"In case of what?"

Blottisham considered.

"Metaphorical failure."

Professor Quillibrace laughed.

"That..."

"...is perhaps the most appropriate use of it."

They left the Senior Common Room together.

The fabric was folded away.

The billiard balls returned to their case.

The tools went back into the wheelbarrow.

The picnic remained uneaten.

The keyboard was never connected.

Yet nothing had been wasted.

Because each experiment had revealed something important.

The fabric had shown that space is not cloth.

The billiard balls had shown that particles are not tiny objects.

The machine had shown that mechanisms are not necessarily machines.

The field had shown that fields need not contain sheep.

The computer had shown that information is not always stored somewhere.

The metaphors had not failed.

They had done their work.

They had carried human imagination into places it had never been before.

Professor Quillibrace paused at the doorway.

"Mr Blottisham?"

"Yes?"

"I have a confession."

"What?"

"I rather enjoyed the experiments."

Blottisham smiled.

"I suspected."

"How?"

"Because every time I asked a ridiculous question..."

"Yes?"

"...you answered it."

Professor Quillibrace considered this.

"That is an annoyingly fair observation."

Miss Stray closed the door behind them.

The Senior Common Room returned to silence.

On the blackboard, one final sentence remained.

THE PURPOSE OF A METAPHOR IS NOT TO REPLACE REALITY.

IT IS TO HELP US FIND OUR WAY TOWARDS IT.

And somewhere in the college corridor, Mr Blottisham could be heard asking:

"Professor?"

"Yes?"

"If the mind is a network..."

A pause.

Professor Quillibrace stopped walking.

"No."

"But I haven't asked anything yet."

"No."

"Fair enough."

And for once...

Everyone was relieved.

By at No comments:

The Senior Common Room Searches for the Cosmic Computer Or: Have You Tried Turning Reality Off and On Again?

Professor Quillibrace entered the Senior Common Room with unusual confidence.

For four consecutive days Mr Blottisham had failed to appear.

Professor Quillibrace began to hope.

Miss Stray looked up from her book.

"You seem cheerful."

"I believe," said Professor Quillibrace,

"...that the Experimental Metaphor Laboratory may have concluded."

At that precise moment the door opened.

Mr Blottisham entered carrying three cardboard boxes.

Professor Quillibrace closed his eyes.

"I had spoken too soon."

Blottisham smiled.

"Good morning."

"What," asked Professor Quillibrace carefully,

"...have you brought?"

"The universe."

Professor Quillibrace opened one eye.

"In boxes?"

"Well..."

said Blottisham,

"...the accessories."

Miss Stray leaned forward.

"This promises to be excellent."

Blottisham unpacked the contents onto the table.

A keyboard.

A mouse.

An external hard drive.

Several network cables.

A power board.

A wireless router.

Three USB sticks.

And a small label reading:

BACKUP REALITY

Professor Quillibrace stared for a very long time.

"I particularly admire the optimism."

"Thank you."

"What optimism?"

"The backup."

Blottisham looked puzzled.

"One should always have one."

"Of the universe?"

"Computers fail."

Professor Quillibrace sighed.

"I see."

"You often say modern physics uses information."

"It sometimes does."

"And computation."

"Occasionally."

"So..."

Professor Quillibrace completed the sentence.

"...there must be technical support."

Blottisham looked delighted.

"Exactly."

Miss Stray laughed.

"I've rarely seen someone anticipate his own misfortune so accurately."

Blottisham opened his notebook.

"I've organised my questions."

Professor Quillibrace nodded.

"Of course you have."

Question One

"If the universe is a computer..."

"It is not."

"...where is the power button?"

"There isn't one."

"So it never starts?"

"No."

"It never shuts down?"

"No."

Blottisham made a note.

"Always on."

"No."

"Always asleep?"

"No."

"Remarkably energy efficient?"

"No."

Miss Stray quietly refilled everyone's tea.

Question Two

"If the universe computes..."

"Yes?"

"What operating system does it use?"

"It doesn't."

"No?"

"No."

"Not even Linux?"

"No."

"Pity."

"Why?"

"I imagine Windows updates would be catastrophic."

Professor Quillibrace laughed despite himself.

"I concede that point."

Question Three

Blottisham held up the external hard drive.

"Where is reality stored?"

"It isn't."

"There must be memory."

"There is no hard drive."

"No cloud?"

"No."

"No cache?"

"No."

"No recycle bin?"

Professor Quillibrace looked thoughtful.

"That last one has unfortunate theological implications."

Miss Stray nearly spilled her tea.

Question Four

Blottisham connected the keyboard.

"I've prepared a command."

Professor Quillibrace became alarmed.

"You've prepared..."

"...a command?"

"Yes."

"What command?"

Blottisham unfolded a sheet of paper.

UNDO

Silence.

Miss Stray looked at it.

"I admit..."

"...there are moments when that would be useful."

Professor Quillibrace smiled.

"The difficulty is deciding how many times to press it."

Blottisham nodded gravely.

"I had wondered about that."

The discussion paused.

Professor Quillibrace walked to the blackboard.

He wrote:

THE UNIVERSE IS A COMPUTER

Then beneath it:

WHY IS THIS METAPHOR ATTRACTIVE?

Miss Stray answered first.

"Because computers transform information."

Professor Quillibrace nodded.

"They follow rules."

"They generate complex behaviour."

"They process enormous quantities of structure."

Blottisham added enthusiastically,

"They occasionally freeze."

Professor Quillibrace looked at him.

"No."

"They become unresponsive."

"No."

"They require restarting."

"No."

"They produce mysterious error messages."

"No."

"They ignore the user."

Professor Quillibrace paused.

"...I admit that last characteristic has occasionally been observed in nature."

The room dissolved into laughter.

Miss Stray became thoughtful.

"I think every age chooses metaphors from its most sophisticated technology."

Professor Quillibrace nodded.

"The medieval world imagined books."

"The Enlightenment imagined clocks."

"The Industrial Revolution imagined engines."

"The Information Age imagines computers."

Blottisham looked surprised.

"So in two hundred years..."

"Yes?"

"They'll think our metaphor sounds rather quaint."

Professor Quillibrace smiled.

"Almost certainly."

Blottisham slowly packed away the cables.

"I think I've understood."

Professor Quillibrace waited.

"The computer metaphor explains some remarkable things."

"Indeed."

"But if I keep asking computer questions..."

"...eventually I stop learning about physics..."

"...and start learning about technical support."

Miss Stray laughed.

"A very accurate diagnosis."

Professor Quillibrace nodded.

"The metaphor illuminates computation."

"It does not commit the universe to customer service."

The college clock struck five.

Blottisham lifted the final box.

Inside remained only the handwritten label.

BACKUP REALITY

He looked at it thoughtfully.

"Perhaps..."

he said quietly,

"...it is comforting to imagine that existence can be restored if something goes wrong."

The room became unexpectedly still.

Professor Quillibrace looked at the label for a long moment.

"Yes."

"I think that may be one reason we invent such metaphors."

Miss Stray closed her book.

"Not because they are literally true."

"No."

"But because they borrow certainty from things we believe we understand."

Professor Quillibrace nodded.

"And in doing so..."

"...they help us ask questions that would otherwise be impossible."

He looked at the keyboard.

Then at the router.

Then at the little label.

"My dear Blottisham..."

"Yes?"

"If you ever discover technical support for the universe..."

"I shall let you know immediately."

Professor Quillibrace smiled.

"Please don't."

As they left the Senior Common Room, the power board remained lying on the table.

Entirely disconnected.

Entirely unnecessary.

Yet oddly reassuring.

Rather like the metaphor itself.

By at No comments:

The Senior Common Room Visits the Quantum Fields Or: Mind the Sheep

Professor Quillibrace was enjoying an unusually peaceful afternoon.

This should have made him suspicious.

Instead, he made another cup of tea.

There came a knock at the door.

"Come in."

Mr Blottisham entered wearing Wellington boots.

Professor Quillibrace slowly lowered his teacup.

"No."

Blottisham looked surprised.

"I've only just arrived."

"I know."

"You haven't asked where I'm going."

"I don't believe it will improve matters."

Miss Stray entered behind him.

She stopped.

Looked at the boots.

Looked at the wicker picnic hamper.

Looked at the folded map protruding from Blottisham's coat pocket.

"Oh."

she said.

Professor Quillibrace nodded sadly.

"Exactly."

Blottisham beamed.

"I thought we'd spend the afternoon in the quantum fields."

There was a silence of remarkable density.

Professor Quillibrace finally spoke.

"There are no Wellington boots in quantum field theory."

"There ought to be."

"Why?"

"The ground may be muddy."

"It has no ground."

Blottisham frowned.

"Then how does one reach the field?"

"There isn't one."

Miss Stray quietly sat down.

"I think this is going to require fresh tea."

Blottisham unfolded his map across the table.

It contained a careful sketch of rolling countryside.

Several areas were labelled:

Electron Field

Photon Meadow

Boson Copse

Higgs Pasture

One corner bore the helpful note:

PICNIC AREA (PROVISIONAL)

Professor Quillibrace stared at it.

"I particularly admire the stile."

"Thank you."

"What is beyond the stile?"

"The neutrino footpath."

Miss Stray laughed into her teacup.

Blottisham pointed enthusiastically.

"I thought we'd begin here."

He tapped the map.

"The Electron Field."

Professor Quillibrace sighed.

"There is no Electron Field."

Blottisham looked puzzled.

"Physicists mention it constantly."

"They do."

"So where is it?"

"It isn't a field."

"Then why call it one?"

Professor Quillibrace looked thoughtfully at the ceiling.

"I ask myself that rather often."

Miss Stray smiled.

"Perhaps because a field is something spread out."

Professor Quillibrace nodded.

"Continuous."

"Extending through space."

"Present everywhere."

Blottisham brightened.

"So there could still be sheep."

"No."

"Cows?"

"No."

"A scarecrow?"

"No."

"Wildflowers?"

"No."

"Professor..."

"Yes?"

"What, exactly, is wrong with this field?"

The room dissolved into laughter.

After several minutes Professor Quillibrace recovered.

"The metaphor highlights one feature."

"Which is?"

"That the thing is not localised like a particle."

"It extends."

"Yes."

"But unlike an ordinary field..."

"...it cannot be mown."

Blottisham crossed that off his notebook.

"No mowing."

"No grazing."

"No hedgerows."

"No."

Miss Stray looked thoughtfully at the map.

"I wonder whether the difficulty is that every field we've ever seen has soil."

Professor Quillibrace smiled.

"Quite."

"So the metaphor quietly imports..."

"...earth."

"...weather."

"...boundaries."

"...ownership."

"...fences."

"...and, apparently..."

He looked at Blottisham.

"...livestock."

Blottisham was unpacking the picnic hamper.

"I've brought sandwiches."

Professor Quillibrace looked alarmed.

"For whom?"

"In case we met anyone."

"In the quantum field?"

"One likes to be hospitable."

Miss Stray could no longer contain herself.

"I should very much like to know..."

she managed between laughs,

"...what sort of sandwiches you imagined a photon would prefer."

Blottisham considered.

"Cucumber."

Professor Quillibrace closed his eyes.

"I see."

"They're very light."

There was a long silence.

Miss Stray quietly applauded.

"I cannot decide..."

she said,

"...whether that is an excellent joke or a terrible one."

Professor Quillibrace opened one eye.

"At present..."

"...I lack the emotional resources to distinguish."

The conversation settled again.

Blottisham looked thoughtful.

"I think I've understood something."

Professor Quillibrace looked cautiously optimistic.

"Oh?"

"When physicists say 'field'..."

"Yes?"

"...they don't really mean field."

"Correct."

"They mean..."

Professor Quillibrace hesitated.

"...something that behaves in one important respect rather like a field."

"But not in most of the others."

"Exactly."

Blottisham nodded.

"So the metaphor is renting one characteristic."

Miss Stray smiled broadly.

"I like that."

"It doesn't buy the whole farm."

Professor Quillibrace laughed.

"No."

"It merely leases continuity."

The afternoon sun slanted across the windows.

Blottisham folded away the map.

"I've one final question."

Professor Quillibrace looked resigned.

"Naturally."

"If every point in space has quantum fields..."

"Yes?"

"...how do they know where one field ends and the next begins?"

Professor Quillibrace looked at Miss Stray.

Miss Stray looked at Professor Quillibrace.

Finally she answered.

"I don't think..."

she said gently,

"...they've been introduced."

Professor Quillibrace laughed so unexpectedly that he nearly spilled his tea.

The three gathered their things.

The Wellington boots remained by the door.

Unused.

The picnic was never eaten.

The sheep, if any had ever existed, remained entirely theoretical.

As they left the room, Miss Stray looked back at the abandoned map.

"It served its purpose."

"What purpose?"

asked Blottisham.

"It helped us discover precisely where the metaphor wandered off."

Professor Quillibrace nodded.

"And where the sheep should not."

Outside, the college lawns glowed in the afternoon sunshine.

Students crossed them freely.

Without once wondering whether they were traversing a quantum field.

Or whether somewhere, just beyond the hedge, a particularly philosophical photon was politely declining a cucumber sandwich.

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