Computationalism
Definition
Computationalism is the view that cognition is a form of computation, and that a mind is, in the relevant sense, a computing system.
On this site
The Mind model dial measures, in FLOPS, the computing that would run a mind. That only means something if computationalism is at least a reasonable working assumption.
Role in the model
Measuring a mind in floating-point operations is a computationalist commitment. If cognition isn’t computation, the Mind total measures the wrong thing. The site states the assumption out loud. The other choice is to leave minds out of the total, and that’s a bigger assumption dressed up as caution.
Related
In the trees
14 short pages, one per thinker, each with its matching dial. See also the reading list.