As Metaphor or as Tool: The Computerization of the Brain Sciences and the Debate Between Cybernetics and Neurophysiology.

This paper challenges a dominant narrative of interdisciplinary fusion in the emergence of neuroscience through revisiting the mid-century encounter between cybernetics and neurophysiology. Focusing on the fraught collaboration between neurophysiologist Mary Brazier and cyberneticist Walter Rosenblith, it traces how the computer's dual status as metaphor and tool produced tension rather than synthesis. Drawing on archival correspondence and conference records, the paper argues that experimental neurophysiologists resisted cybernetics' metaphors, insisting instead on embodied practice. Ultimately, it shows that the informatization of the brain sciences was forged not through cybernetic unification, but through experimental alliances that formed around, rather than within, cybernetics.