Re:Computational Thinking Benefits Society (2014)
by westoncb on Thursday October 13, 2016 @05:28PM
(#12704198)
> Thinking is already computation. Computational is redundant.
There is a difference between computation being part of the underlying substrate of thought, and having thoughts formulated explicitly in terms of a computational framework. The article is advocating the second thing here (the question of whether the second thing is a necessary consequence of the first thing is an open question: neurons are also part of the substrate of thought—does that mean we will inevitably come to think in terms of neurons?)
Edit: thinking more about it though, I do believe the structure of our brains makes it inevitable that we will always need abstractions and to consider alternate problem/solution representations—but the emphasis on algorithms is more related to contemporary computing hardware than the structure of the human brain.
There is a difference between computation being part of the underlying substrate of thought, and having thoughts formulated explicitly in terms of a computational framework. The article is advocating the second thing here (the question of whether the second thing is a necessary consequence of the first thing is an open question: neurons are also part of the substrate of thought—does that mean we will inevitably come to think in terms of neurons?)
Edit: thinking more about it though, I do believe the structure of our brains makes it inevitable that we will always need abstractions and to consider alternate problem/solution representations—but the emphasis on algorithms is more related to contemporary computing hardware than the structure of the human brain.