• Programming is the art of thinking clearly, and
• A computer programmer is a human who's learned to think like a computer.

I would argue your points a little differently .. in order to become proficient at programming, one needs to be able to think clearly. And a computer programmer is a human who has learned to understand how computer software operates.

As you already stated, a computer does not think -- therefore (being pedantic), a computer programmer can't think like a computer. What a programmer can do is understand how a computer will most likely do a task, and fit the solution to that process.

And programmers don't have the monopoloy on clear thought. You need to be able to think clearly for lots of other jobs too. :) I would argue that creative thought helps during the software development process. For the same reason that ad agencies have a basketball court to blow off steam and trigger the creative process, Silicon Valley companies have foosball tables to achieve the same goal -- work through the creative process and come up with a great solution.

I'm reminded of a PHB from a few jobs back -- he'd get really miffed if he saw me staring out the window, obviously deep in thought. He couldn't understand that thinking works best away from the keyboard. For some reason, upper management had decided someone with a Tourism degree from a community college was a great choice to run a software development project.

Go figure.