Computational theory of mind: what does it consist of?

There are different theoretical models that try to explain the functioning of the human mind. One of them is the computational model or theory of the mind, which uses the metaphor of the computer to substantiate the idea that our cognitive system processes information in the same way that a computer.

In this article we talk about the computational theory of mind, what other theoretical and philosophical frameworks it draws on, what its most prominent authors are, and what kind of criticism it has received.

Background to computational theory of mind

The computational theory of mind is framed within the cognitive psychology, which is responsible for the study of the functioning of human cognition; that is, how people elaborate, transform, encode, store, retrieve and use the information they receive from their environment.

Computationalism, proposed by Hilary Putnam in the sixties, is situated within cognitive psychology and understands that the functional architecture of human cognition is close to how it is understood from information processing and intelligence models artificial.

The formal bases of the computational theory of mind are based, on the one hand, on the formalism mathematician who conceived a discipline such as mathematics as the art of manipulating symbols based on rules formal; and on the other hand, in Alan Turing's experiments, that he implemented a mathematical model that consisted of an automaton capable of constructing any mathematical problem expressed through algorithms.

Computationalism also thrives on the synthesis of two philosophical positions: intentional realism and physicalism.. The first postulates the existence of mental states and intrinsic intentionality as part of the natural order of things, as well as the propositional attitude or the way people behave towards said propositions; and physicalism assumes that everything that exists has a physical and material entity.

Basic principles of computationalism

The computational model is based on a series of basic principles that can help to better understand how it works. Let's see what they are:

• The human mind is a complex biological machine in charge of processing symbols.

• Cognition is understood as a system that sequentially processes symbolic information from a set of rules stored in the form of. "Logic programs".

• Cognitive systems and computers receive, encode, transform, store, and retrieve information by following certain computational rules, working with a digital code, as occurs in the representation propositional.

• Human cognition and the computer are different structures (from the material point of view), but functionally equivalent.

• The processing of propositional information, both for a computer and for the human mind, follows a sequential process and some calculation rules (algorithms).

The works of Noam Chomsky

The computational model of the mind was based in its beginnings on the theoretical proposals of Noam chomsky and his generative grammar, which is based on the idea that, together with the specific rules of construction of sentences proper to each language, there are more basic rules (innate and common to all languages) that explain the ease with which we learn language from kids.

According to Chomsky, all sentences have a deep structure (which contains their meaning) and another superficial structure (the way the sentence is presented, when expressed). The deep structure would be abstract and the superficial one would conform the physical or material reality of language.

Chomsky also distinguished between a person's ability to associate sounds and meanings with certain unconscious rules and automatic, and linguistic performance or execution, which refers to the way of interpreting and understanding a sentence or a language in particular.

With everything, the theories of the popular famous linguist served to underpin computational theory that he developed Jerry fodor and that we will see next.

Fodor's computational theory of mind

The computational theory of mind postulates that the functioning of the human mind is similar to that produced in a computer, Being the brain the hardware of the information processing system. This theory combines the explanation of how we reason and how mental states work, and is also known as the "representational theory of mind."

According to the philosopher Jerry Fodor, one of the greatest exponents of the theory, the mental is intentional and can also be reduced to the physical. For this author, the human mind resembles a digital computer; that is, to a device that stores symbolic representations and manipulates them through a series of syntactic rules.

The thoughts would then be mental representations that, in turn, function as symbols of the "language of thought"; and the mental processes or states would be causal sequences guided by the syntactic (and non-semantic) properties of the symbols. Fodor also defended the existence of the innate private language, different from the rest of natural languages ​​or human languages.

Internal language vs. natural

The private and innate language would be used to perform the calculations and computations that are at the base of human behavior. To explain its existence, Fodor uses a simile with the languages ​​that a computer uses: the input language (input) and output (output), which are the ones we use to enter data and read those provided by the computer from return; that is, the way the computer communicates with its environment.

These two input and output languages ​​are contrasted with machine language, which is what the computer understands and with which it performs its calculations and operations. Between both languages ​​there are so-called compiler programs, which act as mediators or translators between them.

For Fodor, people's private language can be compared to machine language; therefore, public languages ​​or natural languages ​​(Spanish, English, French, etc.) would be similar to the programming languages ​​of computers. Well, this language of thought would be an internal language and prior to public or natural languages, just as it happens with machine language on a computer that must be previously installed with any input / output language.

Criticisms of the theory

The ideas of Fodor and of computationalism in general, have not been without criticism over the last few years.. While the idea that mental states are intentional is accepted, which for some scientists is debatable is the fact that these representations are manipulated by means of calculations and computations.

The philosopher Daniel Dennett considers that the computational theory of mind is empirically little plausible, because a brain manipulating computational symbols does not seem entirely biological. However, he is in favor of "neural determinism", which implies assuming that neural activity is prior to "free" decisions and that consciousness it is only an epiphenomenon that, at best, has the evolutionary function of serving as a control and supervision mechanism of the adaptation processes to the half.

On the other hand, the philosopher Patricia S. Churchland She is equally critical of computational postulates and considers that the emergence of the language of innate thought does not it seems very sensitive to evolutionary considerations, since the system has to operate with formal or syntactic rules to manipulate representations, and every aspect of the meaning of a symbol that affects psychological processing must be formally encoded.

If the cognitive system works exclusively according to syntactic principles, it cannot have access to contexts that, in natural language, serve to eliminate ambiguities in the different meanings of the finished. Also, if every mental state is to be understood as some form of storage or processing of a sentence In the language of thought, people would need an infinite number of sentences stored in our mind.

In short, there remains a problem with the nature of intentionality that is not yet fully resolved., despite the attempts of computational theory to show, through the mind / computer metaphor, that physical systems can arise from intentional states.

Bibliographic references:

• Horst, S. (1999). Symbols and computation a critique of the computational theory of mind. Minds and Machines, 9 (3), 347-381.

• Horst, S. (2011). The computational theory of mind. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

• Ludwig, K., & Schneider, S. (2008). Fodor’s challenge to the classical computational theory of mind. Mind & Language, 23 (1), 123-143.

• Pinker, S. (2005). So how does the mind work?. Mind & Language, 20 (1), 1-24.