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Abstract:
(Contributed Talk)
A distinction is made between two senses of the claim
"cognition is computation". One sense opaque reading takes
computation to be whatever is described by our current
computational theory and claims that cognition is best understood
in terms of that theory. The transparent reading, which has its
primary allegiance to the phenomenon of computation, rather than
to any particular theory of it, is the claim that the best
account of cognition will be given by whatever theory turns out
to be the best account of the phenomenon of computation. The
distinction is clarified and defended against charges of
circularity and changing the subject. Several well-known
objections to computationalism are then reviewed, and for each
the question of whether the transparent reading of the
computationalist claim can provide a response is considered.
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