This is the second time today on HN I've heard someone claim that the brain is an "interpreter". Someone even went as far as to cite Wernicke's area, followed by a sly winky face, as if they're not supposed to know that.
Wernicke's area isn't an "interpreter" in the CS sense. It's not a compiler either. Or a transpiler. It's not "converting" from one language to another, because language is a man-made construct.
I'll prove this by taking the counterargument - let's say {insert brain area that a well-educated engineer happens to know about} IS an interpreter. What would you think of an interpreter that runs totally differently on every single machine in existence, for no perceivable reason? It's a pretty shit interpreter right? I'm not talking about a few bits difference here and there, I'm saying that when I read Moby Dick, I understood the book completely differently from a close friend.
You could perhaps argue that everyone has their own separate interpreter built into their brain, for compiling to their own unique machine instruction set (the connectome). At least that way software engineers can feel like they've inherited an understanding of neuroscience without having studied the field.
