The notion that the operation of the mind can be explained entirely in terms of the formal, or functional, properties of a computational system. See also Cognitivism, Eliminativism, Functionalism, Materialism, Turing Test.

Computationalism is a philosophy of mind theory stating that cognition is a form of computation. It is relevant to the Simulation Hypothesis in that it illustrates how a simulation could contain conscious subjects, as required by a "virtual people" simulation. For example, it is well known that physical systems can be simulated to some degree of accuracy.