Cognitive vs Computational Capacities - Essay Example

The terms, learning, intelligence, perception, reasoning, or numerical abilities can be attributed to cognition. It can be studied as a property of the brain. All human activities are controlled by the instructions from the brain.

 Cognitive capacities include; the ability to analyze a situation, the ability to evaluate the do’s and don’ts, implementation of actions, understanding, and analysis of ideas to form clear pictures about an incident, hypothesis formations, generalizations, anticipation of new possibilities, ability to understand the cause-and-effect linkages among a system, etc. The intellectual levels of different human beings are different and hence the cognitive capacities also will be different from person to person.

“According to the computational theory of mind (CTM), mental capacities are explained by inner computations, which in biological organisms are realized in the brain” (Gualtiero Piccinini). Human mind activities are more or less similar to that of a computer. A computer is providing us with the output after a lot of computations. Whatever instructions are supplied to a computer is been processed inside the Central Processing Unit (CPU). A lot of arithmetic and logical computations will be done inside the CPU before providing us with the result.

Similarly, our minds also will undergo a lot of computing processes before taking a decision. The instructions to the computer are been supplied through the keyboard or mouse while in the case of a human being the instructions are obtained through the senses, ear, eyes, nose, tongue, and skin. In the case of a computer the information will be processed in the CPU while in the case of a human, it is processed in the brain. For computers, the instructions supplied from the keyboard or mouse will reach the CPU through address buses while in the case of humans, the instructions from the senses reach the brain through nerves associated with the senses.

Consider the case of a purchasing decision of a car by a person. He will decide about the car to be purchased only after a lot of computations such as analyzing the data about different models of cars, evaluation of price factors, fuel economy, maintenance costs, resale value, financial capacities, etc. He will collect all the data related to the above factors and will feed it to his computer (brain). After undergoing a lot of computations the computer (brain) will provide him with the output (decision).

So we can conclude that our mind is working like a computer all the cognitive or mind activities are related to the computational capacity. Computations are a logical process that helps the mind to take decisions. Our conscious or unconscious and natural or artificial activities are the end products of a lot of computations. Without computations, none of the cognitive activities can be executed.