Another friendly public service reminder

A neuron is not a transistor. 

A transistor is not a neuron.

A transistor is a solid-state semiconducting "sandwich" consisting of three adjacent regions of doped silicon (or germanium, historically) called the base, collector and emitter, respectively (or source, gate, and drain for FETs), enabling it to function as an electrical switch or signal amplifier by modulating the flow of current through the device using a smaller control current.

 

A electric current applied at the base (or gate) can effectively switch "on" or "off" the current flowing from collector to emitter (or source to drain as in the animation below); the basic principle on which digital logic circuits inside computers operate: 

A neuron, by contrast, is a nerve cell. It is a complex electrochemical system of biological origin having multiple dendrites and one or more branched axon terminals that can exist in relative states of excitation in response to specific messages from surrounding neurons, both by means of electrical impulses and through the influence of chemical neurotransmitters. 

 

A unique combination of these inputs typically results in a neuron increasing (or decreasing) its rate of firing in response to a broad array of shifting signal patterns arriving from multiple sources. Furthermore, there are many different types of neurons depending on their function and location in the nervous systems of living creatures:

 

In no way does a neuron function, either in isolation or in situ, as a standardized electrical switch or current amplifier analogous to those devices as they are commonly found in human-manufactured electronic circuits. 

Groups of neurons do not link together to form logic gates. They do not perform Boolean operations or work in pairs to form "flip-flops" (latches) or registers. There is no "machine code" for the human brain. It is not a Turing machine. There is no software consisting of "ones" or "zeros". In fact, there doesn't appear to be any software at all! It's all hardware, and it's analog, not digital. How it all works together to create the experience of life as we know it is still anybody's guess. It's a black box.   

Therefore, brains are not computers. And computers are not brains.   

Thank you for your attention. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming...