Real Algorithms: A Defense of Cognitivism

Cognitivism is the view that cognition, emotion, and even perception consist of algorithmic transformations of symbols. Since virtually all cognitivists are materialists, few of them believe that these algorithmic transformations of symbols take place in any spiritual or non-physical medium. So, for all practical purposes, cognitivism implies that the brain is an algorithmic symbol-transformer, i.e. a computer. On the cognitivist view, human thought supervenes upon the computational features of unconscious brain processes. John Searle attacks cognitivism at its very root. According to Searle, computation is not an objective feature of any consciously inaccessible brain process. Searle admits that any brain process can be described as though it were performing a computation but insists that such a description does not correspond to any objective, intrinsic feature of the process. According to Searle, unconscious brain processes are not intrinsically performing computations.