Traces of a computational mind

The image of writing is singularly frequent in cognitivistic explanations of the functioning of mind, not only as a metaphor but also as a conceptual paradigm: the Turing machine, particularly, displays a complete structural isomorphism with the use of alphabetical writing. The Turing machine performs exactly the same operations carried out by a man writing with pen and paper and this depends on two reasons: 1. it has been conceived in image and likeness of the human concrete practice of writing; 2. it is the typical product of the western rationality, whose development has been made possible only by the specific features of the alphabetical treatment of information. This is useful to understand why the mind started being depicted as a writing machine just when the alphabet began spreading: a genealogical investigation will show how in mnemotechnics treatises and in Plato's and Aristotle's metaphysics we can find the very first foundation of every logico-symbolical model of mind.