The mind is not a computer

[Daniel]

Yes, if we ask the right questions we may get the right answers.

I'm still open to the mind being other than computation but I have no idea what that could be.

[Guijarro]

The mind is OTHER than computation.

We have not found another scientific way to describe and perhaps explain some of its functions than computation (algorithmic or otherwise).

Alan Turing showed us that way and intelligent people have expanded it in an incredible and fruitful manner. 

Maybe you are the next Alan Turing and you give us another way. Be quick, please, otherwise, I will be unable to see it!

[Daniel]

The answer is always 42. Still working on the question.

[MrChiLambda]

Yes, the human mind is a computer.

The only difference is, the computer doesn't have the core peripherals it needs for the full human experience.

Sight, sound, touch, taste, and the other 22 or so senses currently being researched.

The hard truth is, garbage in, garbage out.

[Copernicus]

Yes, the human mind is a computer.

The only difference is, the computer doesn't have the core peripherals it needs for the full human experience.

Sight, sound, touch, taste, and the other 22 or so senses currently being researched.

All metaphors can mislead at some point, but I think that the mind-computer metaphor can be quite misleading on so many levels.  First of all, a computer is a physical object like a brain, but minds are distinct from brains.  At best, you can say that a mind is dependent on a functioning brain for its very existence, but I do think that you risk getting entangled in a reification fallacy if you confuse minds with what causes them to exist. 

Nevertheless, I do like your oblique reference to embodied cognition.  And, of course, I highly recommend George Lakoff's writings on the subject since his seminal Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things.   The field of robotics holds the most promise for developing true intelligence in machines precisely because robots have bodies with sensors and actuators.  They move around.  Brains are complex guidance mechanisms for moving bodies, and the human brain is arguably the most advanced such guidance system in the animal kingdom.  The ultimate problem, IMO, is that we need to figure out how to get machines to triangulate their senses in the same way that humans do to form concepts--those mental constructs that we associate words with words.  And that requires a method for not just being able to sense things in the environment, but to interact with them (see affordances).