Is the brain a dynamical system, an information processor, or a prediction machine , and does it even matter which label we choose? Computational scientist Randall Beer argues that these are not competing theories but complementary mathematical lenses, and that real progress requires building theory around carefully analyzed toy models rather than debating metaphors. Subscribe for more from the Convergent Science Network podcast series. Randall Beer joins Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott at the BCBT summer school to present his approach to understanding brain, body, and environment as coupled dynamical systems. Beer makes a sharp epistemological argument: statements like "the brain is a dynamical system" or "the brain is an information processor" are not testable theories but pre-theoretical intuitions, each backed by a body of mathematics that s ...