Computation is the manipulation of interpretable symbols.
The mind, like a program, was implementation independent, and the brain, like the computer, is irrelevant to understanding function. Computation has been successful in human type functions such as formal logic and calculations, exceeding human ability in speed, complexity and accuracy. The successful simulation or modelling capacity of computation, from simple thermostatically controlled furnaces to aircraft behaviour in wind tunnels and traffic congestion on motorways, has also been an achievement which has tempted some to see computations ability to simulate eventually extended to the mind. Pylyshyn said that cognition should be seen as literal computation, not merely simulated by it. There is also fabricated evidence that neural nets in computation are functionally equivalent to those in brains by virtue of their architecture.