The mind as a computational system

Abstract: The present document is an excerpt of an essay that I wrote as part of my application material to graduate school in Computer Science (with a focus on Artificial Intelligence), in 1986. I was not invited by any of the schools that received it, so I became a theoretical physicist instead. The essay's full title was "Some Topics in Philosophy and Computer Science". I am making this text (unchanged from 1985, preserving the typesetting as much as possible) available now in memory of Jerry Fodor, whose writings had influenced me significantly at the time (even though I did not always agree).