The Computational Theory of Mind
The computational theory of mind holds that thinking is a form of computation over mental representations.
Definition
The computational theory of mind is the thesis that the mind is a computational system and that mental processes are computations defined over internal representations.
Scope
This topic covers the classical computational theory of mind and the language-of-thought hypothesis, the connectionist alternative, and the central objections, including Searle's Chinese room and the symbol-grounding problem. It addresses how representational content and computational structure relate to thought.
Core questions
- Is thinking literally a kind of computation?
- Do thoughts have a language-like compositional structure?
- Can syntactic symbol manipulation give rise to genuine understanding?
- Is the mind better modeled as a classical symbol system or a connectionist network?
Key concepts
- computation
- mental representation
- language of thought
- systematicity
- Chinese room
- connectionism
Key theories
- Language of thought hypothesis
- Thinking occurs in a symbolic mental language with compositional syntax and semantics, explaining the productivity and systematicity of thought.
- Classical computationalism and its critics
- Cognition is rule-governed manipulation of representations, a view extended from functionalism but challenged by arguments that syntax alone cannot yield understanding.
History
Growing out of functionalism and the cognitive revolution, Fodor's (1975) language-of-thought hypothesis gave the computational theory its classical form. Searle's (1980) Chinese room argument challenged whether computation suffices for understanding, while Fodor and Pylyshyn (1988) defended classical architecture against connectionism.
Debates
- The Chinese room
- Whether running the right program is sufficient for genuine understanding or whether syntax can never constitute semantics.
- Classical versus connectionist architecture
- Whether systematicity and productivity require a classical symbolic architecture or can be captured by connectionist networks.
Key figures
- Jerry Fodor
- John Searle
- Zenon Pylyshyn
- Hilary Putnam
Related topics
Seminal works
- fodor1975
- searle1980
- fodor1988
Frequently asked questions
- Does the computational theory of mind say the brain is a computer?
- It says mental processes are computations over representations; whether this implies the brain is literally a digital computer depends on the version of the theory.