Comment Re:Yes, Thank Turing We're Not the Media Hype Mach (Score 1) 293
In fact, the assumption that cognition is computational or mechanistic is where the mind-body problem comes from (right from the 17th century). If it's all just syntactic, then explaining semantics is now a problem, and you have problems like dualism. Non-algorithmic doesn't mean magic, by any stretch. If you don't assume algorithmic, then there is no mind-body separation about which you can have a dualist stance.
If you think that the universe in general is algorithmic, e.g. that the evolution of the sun is an algorithmic process, then we might easily only disagree about terminology. Those who do not follow computational theories of mind might say that the complexities of intelligent behavior are more like the complexities of the sun than anything you will get out of a turing machine.
There are a frightening number of different issues once we go into details, and there is a long history of people attempting to address them. I don't think a slashdot thread is capable of holding it all. And of course, the more one learns the more one realizes that the answers are far fewer than the questions.