Computationalism: Fundamentals and Applications

By Fouad Sabry

What Is Computationalism

The computational theory of mind (CTM), also known as computationalism, is a family of beliefs that may be found in the field of philosophy of mind. These views claim that the human mind is an information processing machine, and that cognition and consciousness together are a sort of computing. Computationalism is also known as the computational theory of mind (CTM). Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts (1943) were the pioneers who originally proposed the idea that brain activity might be modeled as a computer process. They argued that computations in the neural networks may explain cognition. The theory was first proposed by Hilary Putnam in 1967 in its current iteration, and it was developed by Jerry Fodor, a PhD student of Putnam's who was also a philosopher and cognitive scientist during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Although the position was hotly debated in analytic philosophy in the 1990s due to the work of Putnam himself, John Searle, and others, it is still widely held in modern cognitive psychology, and many theorists in evolutionary psychology take it as a given. This viewpoint has been making a comeback in analytic philosophy throughout the 2000s and 2010s.

How You Will Benefit

(I) Insights, and validations about the following topics:

Chapter 1: Computational Theory of Mind

Chapter 2: Cognitive Science

Chapter 3: Computation

Chapter 4: Functionalism (Philosophy of Mind)

Chapter 5: Artificial Consciousness

Chapter 6: Connectionism

Chapter 7: Cognitive Architecture

Chapter 8: Neurophilosophy

Chapter 9: Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence

Chapter 10: Neural Computation

(II) Answering the public top questions about computationalism.

(III) Real world examples for the usage of computationalism in many fields.

(IV) 17 appendices to explain, briefly, 266 emerging technologies in each industry to have 360-degree full understanding of computationalism' technologies.

Who This Book Is For

Professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and those who want to go beyond basic knowledge or information for any kind of computationalism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Billion Knowledgeable
• Release date: Jul 3, 2023

Book preview

Chapter 7: Computational theory of mind

The computational theory of mind (CTM), also known as computationalism, is a family of views that can be found in the field of philosophy of mind. These views hold that the human mind is an information processing system, and that cognition and consciousness together are a form of computation. Computationalism is also known as the computational theory of mind (CTM). Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts (1943) were the pioneers who originally proposed the idea that brain activity might be modeled as a computer process. They suggested that calculations in the neural networks may explain cognition. The computational theory of mind is also connected to the language of thinking, according to Fodor's early perspectives on the subject. With the assistance of semantics, according to the notion of the language of thinking, the mind is able to process increasingly complicated representations. (For more on the semantics of different mental states, see below.).

Recent research has provided evidence to support the idea that we should differentiate between the mind and cognition. The Computational Theory of Cognition (CTC) is an explanation for cognition that is based on brain calculations. This theory was developed by building on the work of McCulloch and Pitts. According to the computational theory of mind, not only cognition but also phenomenal awareness, often known as qualia, are products of computational processes. To put it another way, CTM is equivalent to CTC. Even while phenomenal awareness may perform some other kind of functional role, the computational theory of cognition does not rule out the idea that some components of the mind might not be computational in nature. Therefore, CTC offers a fundamental explanatory framework for comprehending brain networks, while also avoiding counter-arguments that rely on phenomenal awareness.

The computational theory of mind should not be confused with the computer metaphor, which likens the mind to a digital computer of the present day. The computational theory of mind (CTM) asserts that the mind is a computational system, in contrast to the computer metaphor, which compares the mind to software and the brain to hardware. To be more explicit, it asserts that the mere existence of a mind may be detected by the use of a computer simulation of a mind, and that a mind really can be replicated through the use of computational methods.

The term computational system does not refer to a typical electrical computer of the present day. A computational system, on the other hand, is more accurately described as a symbol manipulator that uses sequential functions to calculate input and produce output. This kind of computer is referred to as a Turing machine, which is a notion developed by Alan Turing.

Thomas Hobbes, who is credited as being one of the early advocates of the computational theory of mind, said that I am able to compute thanks to my ability to reason. And to calculate is to either gather the total of numerous things that are being added together at the same time or to know the remaining after one item has been taken away from another. Consequently, to reason is equivalent to doing an addition or subtraction. Because Hobbes lived before the contemporary identification of computing with instantiating effective procedures, he cannot be interpreted as explicitly endorsing the computational theory of mind in the contemporary sense. This is because Hobbes lived before the modern identification of computing with instantiating effective procedures.

The assumption that ideas are a sort of computing is at the core of the computational theory of mind. By definition, a computation is a methodical collection of rules governing the interactions that exist between representations. This demonstrates that a mental state is representative of anything if, and only if, there is some kind of causal association between the mental state in question and the specific item in question. A good illustration of this would be the belief that clouds signify rain arises when one sees ominous-looking clouds in the sky. In this scenario, there is a connection between the perception of the clouds and the idea that rain would follow because of the clouds. This is what some people refer to as the natural meaning. On the other hand, there is another aspect of the causality of ideas, and that aspect is the non-natural depiction of thoughts. There is nothing in the color red that suggests it signifies stopping, and so it is only a convention that has been formed, comparable to languages and their capacity to build representations. One example of this would be seeing a red traffic light and thinking, red means stop..

According to the computational theory of mind, the mind functions as a symbolic operator, and mental representations are symbolic representations. In the same way that the semantics of language are the characteristics of words and sentences that are related to their meaning, the semantics of mental states are those meanings of representations, the definitions of the 'words' of the language of thought. If these fundamental mental states can each have a specific meaning in the same way that words in a language may, then this suggests that it is possible to produce more complicated mental states (thoughts), even if these states have never been experienced before. In the same way, new sentences that are read may be understood even if the reader has never come across them before, provided that the fundamental components of the phrase are comprehended and that the sentence is syntactically valid. Take this statement as an example: I have had plum pudding on each and every one of these fourteen days. In spite of the fact that it's unlikely that many people have seen this exact word arrangement before, the vast majority of readers ought should be able to get a grasp on what's being said here since the phrase is syntactically sound and its component components are clear.

Many different arguments have been put out in opposition to physicalist ideas that are used in computational theories of the mind.

John Searle, a prominent philosopher, is credited with offering one of the first indirect critiques of the computational theory of mind. In Searle's thought experiment known as the Chinese room, he attempts to refute claims that artificially intelligent agents can be said to have intentionality and understanding and that these systems, because they can be said to be minds themselves, are sufficient for the study of the human mind. These claims are that artificially intelligent agents can be said to have intentionality and understanding and that these systems are sufficient for the study of the human mind. Envisage that there is a guy locked in a room with no method of interacting with anybody or anything outside the room other than a piece of paper with symbols inscribed on it that is passed under the door. This is the scenario that Searle invites us to imagine. The guy is to use the paper to follow the instructions supplied in the rule books in order to return paper with a variety of symbols printed on it. This technique results in a discussion that a Chinese speaker who is not there in the room can really comprehend. Unbeknownst to the guy who is now present in the room, these symbols are of a language that is spoken in China. Searle is of the opinion that the other guy in the room is not able to comprehend what is being spoken in Chinese. A model in which the mind just decodes signals and produces additional symbols is what we are presented with by the computational theory of mind, which is basically what it purports to explain. Searle contends that this does not constitute genuine comprehension or purposeful action. This was initially published as a critique of the concept that computers operate in a manner similar to that human minds.

Searle has also brought up further concerns about the nature of a computation and how it should be defined:

Because there is some pattern of molecular motions that is isomorphic with the formal structure of WordStar, the wall behind my back is now executing the program. This is because the wall behind my back is implementing the WordStar program. But if the wall is implementing WordStar, it is implementing any program, even any program that is implemented in the brain, if the wall is large enough.

Insufficiency objections are a term that might be used to describe arguments like Searle's. They argue that computational models of the mind are flawed due to the fact that computing alone cannot adequately account for certain capabilities of the mind. Though they target physicalist conceptions of the mind in general and not computational theories in particular, arguments from qualia, such as Frank Jackson's knowledge argument, can be understood as objections to computational theories of mind in this way. Examples of such arguments include the knowledge argument.

There are other counterarguments that are specifically designed to target computational models of the mind.

Putnam himself became a prominent critic of computationalism for a variety of reasons, including those related to Searle's Chinese room arguments, questions of world-word reference relations, and thoughts about the mind-body relationship (see in particular Representation and Reality and the first part of Renewing Philosophy). Regarding functionalism in particular, Putnam has argued along lines similar to, but more general than Searle's arguments, that the question of whether the human mind is capable of implementing computational states is irrelevant to the question of the nature of mind, because every ordinary open system realizes every abstract finite automaton. This is Putnam's position. Searle's arguments are similar to Putnam's, but they are more specific.

The supporters of CTM are presented with a simple but significant issue, the solution to which has proven to be tricky and controversial: what characteristics must a physical system (such the mind or an artificial computer) possess in order to be capable of performing computations? A very basic explanation is based on a straightforward mapping between abstract mathematical calculations and physical systems, like follows: if and only if there is a mapping between a series of states individuated by the computation C and a sequence of states individuated by a physical description of the system, then and only then does a system carry out the computation C.

Daniel Dennett is the one