The switch from sense impression to sense data occurred around the time scientists ended most of their work with television, and started to experiment with the reception of other data. The third definition from the Oxford English Dictionary was taken from the 1946 Ann. Computation Lab from Harvard University. “The quantities, characters, or symbols on which operations are performed by computers and other automatic equipment, and which may be stored or transmitted in the form of electrical signals, records, on magnetic tape or punched cards, etc.,” it reads.

Believing the effect of memory on the mind was a “sense impression” relied on a series of thought that was missing at the time. Before the computer, television (technically, for my point, photography) and radio were the two most used mediums for thought. In a photograph, what people saw was an impression of an event they would like to keep. Imagine all the people who still claim to have a photographic memory. All they can remember is what they saw on that day. The data was unable to change with how you remember the event. A new theory applying to sense data is the possibility to alter your memory, or twist your memories into something else.

Using the metaphor the associates the brain with a computer is definitely a lot more descriptive of a brain. When making an impression, there are not many chemicals changing and processes running in order for you to make the impression. The computer/brain metaphor allows for those to be considered and examined. Many people refer to the motherboard of a computer as the “brain” of the computer as it can perform many complex tasks. Going with this metaphor, however, brings one big problem: how are events entered into the mind? My belief is that we have not totally moved away from the impression process. We are still stuck in a transition stage where memory is implanted into our brains which we are then free to mold and modify as we see fit.

The printing press helped us see the way in which memories are entered into our mind, as I just said. Until the invention of the computer, people also thought impressions were the way most memories stayed on the mind as well. This model also helped us understand the foundation of our brains. Had it not been for the invention of the printing press, we could not have made the distinction of how our mind processes information.

I think J.M. Balkin, who wrote Cultural Software, has the right impression. “Some philosophers of mind have gone so far as to argue that the human mind is virtually indistinguishable from a computer….,” he says. The brain as a computer metaphor has built on the impression metaphor in order to advance our knowledge of the brain. Describing synapses like circuits on the motherboard is an obvious way of explaining information processing in the brain. I might claim the motherboard was modeled after the brain. You can see the multiple similarities, especially in the input-output processing through each. They are very similar and could be mistaken.