Boekhandel Douwes Den Haag

Physical Computation

A Mechanistic Account

Piccinini, Gualtiero (University of Missouri, St. Louis)

Physical Computation

Physical Computation

A Mechanistic Account

Physical Computation

 

Computation permeates our world, but a satisfactory philosophical theory of what it is has been lacking. Gualtiero Piccinini presents a mechanistic account of what makes a physical system a computing system.


Levertijd op aanvraag

€ 93,80

Levertijd op aanvraag


Beschrijving Physical Computation

Gualtiero Piccinini articulates and defends a mechanistic account of concrete, or physical, computation. A physical system is a computing system just in case it is a mechanism one of whose functions is to manipulate vehicles based solely on differences between different portions of the vehicles according to a rule defined over the vehicles. Physical Computation discusses previous accounts of computation and argues that the mechanistic account is better. Many kinds of computation are explicated, such as digital vs. analog, serial vs. parallel, neural network computation, program-controlled computation, and more. Piccinini argues that computation does not entail representation or information processing although information processing entails computation. Pancomputationalism, according to which every physical system is computational, is rejected. A modest version of the physical Church-Turing thesis, according to which any function that is physically computable is computable by Turing machines, is defended.


ISBN
9780199658855
Pagina's
324
Verschenen
NUR
770
Druk
1
Uitvoering
Hardback
Taal
Engels
Uitgever
OUP Oxford

Psychologie