This review of Programs of the Brain by J.Z. Young (1978) focuses on the powerful ‘computer’ metaphor put forward in this book addressed to non-specialists. Psychologists had widely used the metaphor of the telephone exchange to illustrate the brain’s mechanisms. A novel metaphor such as ‘program’ not only helps clarify the idea of biological development but can also contribute to overcome the age-old controversy between nativism and empiricism, in that the ‘program’ analogy allows determinism to coexist with a developmental learning process. Another idea set forth by Young’s book is that human capacity for solving problems by visual imagery may be linked to cortical maps. Furthermore, the book suggests that such visual representation seems made of ‘symbols’ rather than of arbitrary ‘signs’.