Enchanted loom

The enchanted loom is a famous metaphor for the brain invented by the pioneering neuroscientist Charles S. Sherrington in a passage from his 1942 book "Man on his nature", in which he poetically describes what happens during arousal from sleep: [This was Sherrington's understanding in 1942. It is now known that the brain is much more active during sleep than he realized.]

The "loom" he refers to was undoubtedly meant to be a Jacquard loom, used for weaving fabric into complex patterns. The Jacquard loom, invented in 1801, was the most complex mechanical device of the nineteenth century. It was controlled by a punch card system that was a forerunner of the system used in computers until the 1970s. With as many as thousands of independently movable shuttles, a Jacquard loom in operation must have appeared very impressive. If Sherrington had written a decade later, however, he might perhaps have chosen the flashing lights on the front panel of a computer as his metaphor instead.

Perhaps in part because of its slightly cryptic nature, the "enchanted loom" has been an attractive metaphor for many writers about the brain, and has even supplied the title for books, including the following:

*cite book
last = Jastrow
first = Robert
title = The Enchanted Loom: Mind in the Universe
publisher = Simon and Schuster
year = 1983
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=S36uE6u1-7sC
isbn = 9780671433086

*cite book
last = Corsi
first = Pietro
title = The Enchanted Loom: Chapters in the History of Neuroscience
publisher = Oxford University Press
year = 1991
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=6f7sAAAACAAJ
isbn = 9780195066463

References