more from Jerry A. Fodor

Single Idea 3135

[catalogued under 18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 6. Artificial Thought / a. Artificial Intelligence]

Full Idea

The modest mentalism of the Computational/Representational Theory of Thought (CRTT), associated with Fodor, says mental processes are computational, defined over syntactically specified entities, and these entities represent the world (are also semantic).

Gist of Idea

Is thought a syntactic computation using representations?

Source

report of Jerry A. Fodor (works [1986]) by Georges Rey - Contemporary Philosophy of Mind Int.3

Book Reference

Rey,Georges: 'Contemporary Philosophy of Mind' [Blackwell 1997], p.9


A Reaction

This seems to imply that if you built a machine that did all these things, it would become conscious, which sounds unlikely. Do footprints 'represent' feet, or does representation need prior consciousness?