Causal Picture of Thoughts
At the heart of the Computational Theory of Mind is the idea that thoughts are a form of computation, and a computation is by definition a systematic set of laws for the relations among representations. This means that a mental state represents something if and only if there is some causal correlation between the mental state and that particular thing. An example would be seeing dark clouds and thinking “clouds mean rain”, where there is a correlation between the thought of the clouds and rain, as the clouds causing rain. This is sometimes known as Natural Meaning. Conversely, there is another side to the causality of thoughts and that is the non-natural representation of thoughts. An example would be seeing a red traffic light and thinking “red means stop”, there is nothing about the color red that indicates it represents stopping, and thus is just a convention that has been invented, similar to languages and their abilities to form representations.
Read more about this topic: Computational Theory Of Mind
Famous quotes containing the words causal, picture and/or thoughts:
“There is the illusion of time, which is very deep; who has disposed of it? Mor come to the conviction that what seems the succession of thought is only the distribution of wholes into causal series.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A picture is a fact.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“And my youth comes back to me.
And a verse of a Lapland song
Is haunting my memory still:
“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.””
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)