6-28 Consciousness can be implemented in a functional system.
. . . is supported by . . .
6-39 Computationalism.
The claim (Jerry Fodor, 1975)
A mental state is a computational state embedded in a complex
network of inputs, outputs, and other mental states. Computationalism
differs from machine state functionalism by locating the mental
in abstract computational states rather than in the various possible
machine states that could implement them. A given computation
(2 x 2, for example) can be performed by many different machine
table operations (1 + 1 + 1 + 1, 3 + 1, etc.).
Note: Computationalism is also referred to as psychofunctionalism.
A mental state is a computational state. Many different machine tables can perform the same computation (multiplying 2x2, for example). A mental state is not a machine state, but a computational state, which can be instantiated over a variety of machine states, and different machine tables. As such, any mental state is still understood as part of a complex network of stimuli inputs, other mental states, and behavioral outputs.
The Fodor argument
Jerry Fodor's own summary: "The main argument of this book
runs as follows:
1. The only psychological models of cognitive processes that seem
even remotely plausible represent such processes as computational.
2. Computation presupposes a medium of computation: a representational
system.
3. Remotely plausible theories are better than no theories at
all.
4. We are thus provisionally committed to attributing a representation
system to organisms. 'Provisionally committed' means: committed
insofar as we attribute cognitive processes to organisms and insofar
as we take seriously such theories of these processes as are currently
available.
5. It is a reasonable research goal to try to characterize
the representational system to which we thus find ourselves provisionally
committed.
6. It is a reasonable research strategy to try to infer
this characterization from the details of such psychological theories
as seem likely to prove true.
7. This strategy may actually work: It is possible to exhibit
specimen inferences along the lines of item 6 which, if not precisely
apodictic, have at least an air of prima facie plausibility"
(J. Fodor, 1975, p. 27)
What one tries to do in cognitive psychology is to explain the propositional attitudes of the organism by reference to its (hypothetical) computational operations, and that the notion of a computational operation is being taken literally here; viz., as an operation defined for (internal) formulae" (J. Fodor, 1975, p. 76).
References
Fodor, Jerry. 1975. The Language of Thought. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press.
Links
is disputed by 6-40 Computationalism
contradicts itself.