I am familiar with the computational theory of cognition. What I wanted to know was whether there were any people who actually claimed their thinking is nothing more than programmed computation. I am very curious to know if they have mapped out the instruction set for their mind along the lines of something like the SKI combinators.
A mental instruction set would be extremely interesting. Unfortunately, nobody has that level of understanding of brain processes (and it might be quite difficult to formulate in such a linear way since the underlying mechanism is so very parallel), but the idea that human cognition is computable falls pretty naturally out of the idea that nature is computable which I think is a common position (sometimes called the Church Turing Deutsch principle).
Yes, I understand why some scientists claim that nature is "just" some computer but no one still has given an answer to my very basic question: what is the instruction set that the people who claim they are computers are using to think? Surely there must be one if they are nothing more than programmable computers as they claim.
Just trying to figure out how rigorously people have thought about this. A computer with an undefined instruction set seems somewhat useless as a computer.
And wouldn't that language need to be able to account for different physiological states? Thinking when one is hungry or sleepy is quite different than thinking when one is well-fed or fully rested.
Yes. To validate the claim would require not only a formal instruction set but also the code to account for all sorts of cognitive states and processes. I'm not ruling out that some people are indeed programmable computers but I would like to see some actual evidence presented by the people who make these claims about themselves.