https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_theory_of_mind
> Despite being vigorously disputed in analytic philosophy in the 1990s due to work by Putnam himself, John Searle, and others, the view is common in modern cognitive psychology and is presumed by many theorists of evolutionary psychology.
The theory is quite foundational for cognitive science and popular in a number of other fields.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_science#Computationa...
So it's not like he's doing anything fundamentally new. He's maybe come up with a new computational model that might give new insights.
Is it possible to do otherwise? We use the most appropriate tool for a job, the one we're most familiar with. I can't see an alternative. Could be being short-sighted though.
Interesting - we do tend to approach problem sets via the lens that is readily available to us.
Slightly unrelated but I've always been fascinated by how useful it is to overlay two areas of interest and the insights that present themselves when you focus at the intersection. What's more it seems to work with disparate ideas as well as it does with adjacent ideas. I'm convinced it's a useful way to ideate/think of ideas for startups/businesses.