Computationalism: Still the Only Game in Town: A Reply to Swiatczak’s “Conscious Representations: An Intractable Problem for the Computational Theory of Mind” [Book Review]

Minds and Machines 22 (3):183-190 (2012)
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Abstract

Abstract   Mental representations, Swiatczak (Minds Mach 21:19–32, 2011) argues, are fundamentally biochemical and their operations depend on consciousness; hence the computational theory of mind, based as it is on multiple realisability and purely syntactic operations, must be wrong. Swiatczak, however, is mistaken. Computation, properly understood, can afford descriptions/explanations of any physical process, and since Swiatczak accepts that consciousness has a physical basis, his argument against computationalism must fail. Of course, we may not have much idea how consciousness (itself a rather unclear plurality of notions) might be implemented, but we do have a hypothesis—that all of our mental life, including consciousness, is the result of computational processes and so not tied to a biochemical substrate. Like it or not, the computational theory of mind remains the only game in town. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-8 DOI 10.1007/s11023-012-9271-5 Authors David Davenport, Computer Engineering Department, Bilkent University, 06800 Ankara, Turkey Journal Minds and Machines Online ISSN 1572-8641 Print ISSN 0924-6495

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The Language of Thought.Jerry A. Fodor - 1975 - Harvard University Press.
Facing up to the problem of consciousness.David Chalmers - 1995 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 2 (3):200-19.
Minds, brains, and programs.John Searle - 1980 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3 (3):417-57.
On a confusion about a function of consciousness.Ned Block - 1995 - Brain and Behavioral Sciences 18 (2):227-–247.
Facing up to the problem of consciousness.D. J. Chalmers - 1996 - Toward a Science of Consciousness:5-28.

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