Author: Gualtiero Piccinini Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA ISBN: 0199658854 Category : Computers Languages : en Pages : 324
Book Description
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. He argues that computation does not entail representation or information-processing, although information-processing entails computation.
Author: Gualtiero Piccinini Publisher: OUP Oxford ISBN: 0191633429 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 324
Book Description
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. The Nature of 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.
Author: Oron Shagrir Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0197552382 Category : Computers Languages : en Pages : 319
Book Description
Computing systems are ubiquitous in contemporary life. Even the brain is thought to be a computing system of sorts. But what does it mean to say that a given organ or system "computes"? What is it about laptops, smartphones, and nervous systems that they are deemed to compute - and why does itseldom occur to us to describe stomachs, hurricanes, rocks, or chairs that way? These questions are key to laying the conceptual foundations of computational sciences, including computer science and engineering, and the cognitive and neural sciences.Oron Shagrir here provides an extended argument for the semantic view of computation, which states that semantic properties are involved in the nature of computing systems. The first part of the book provides general background. Although different in scope, these chapters have a common theme-namely,that the linkage between the mathematical theory of computability and the notion of physical computation is weak. The second part of the book reviews existing non-semantic accounts of physical computation. Shagrir analyze three influential accounts in greater depth and argues that none of theseaccounts is satisfactory, but each of them highlights certain key features of physical computation that he eventually adopts in his own semantic account of physical computation - a view that rests on a phenomenon known as simultaneous implementation (or "indeterminacy of computation"). Shagrircompletes the characterization of his account of computation and highlights the distinctive feature of computational explanations.
Author: Nir Fresco Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 3642413757 Category : Technology & Engineering Languages : en Pages : 242
Book Description
This book presents a study of digital computation in contemporary cognitive science. Digital computation is a highly ambiguous concept, as there is no common core definition for it in cognitive science. Since this concept plays a central role in cognitive theory, an adequate cognitive explanation requires an explicit account of digital computation. More specifically, it requires an account of how digital computation is implemented in physical systems. The main challenge is to deliver an account encompassing the multiple types of existing models of computation without ending up in pancomputationalism, that is, the view that every physical system is a digital computing system. This book shows that only two accounts, among the ones examined by the author, are adequate for explaining physical computation. One of them is the instructional information processing account, which is developed here for the first time. "This book provides a thorough and timely analysis of differing accounts of computation while advancing the important role that information plays in understanding computation. Fresco’s two-pronged approach will appeal to philosophically inclined computer scientists who want to better understand common theoretical claims in cognitive science.” Marty J. Wolf, Professor of Computer Science, Bemidji State University “An original and admirably clear discussion of central issues in the foundations of contemporary cognitive science.” Frances Egan, Professor of Philosophy, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Author: Marc Mézard Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 019857083X Category : Computers Languages : en Pages : 584
Book Description
A very active field of research is emerging at the frontier of statistical physics, theoretical computer science/discrete mathematics, and coding/information theory. This book sets up a common language and pool of concepts, accessible to students and researchers from each of these fields.
Author: Neal G. Anderson Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0192570293 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 334
Book Description
In The Physical Signature of Computation, Neal Anderson and Gualtiero Piccinini articulate and defend the robust mapping account--the most systematic, rigorous, and comprehensive account of computational implementation to date. Drawing in part from recent results in physical information theory, they argue that mapping accounts of implementation can be made adequate by incorporating appropriate physical constraints. According to the robust mapping account, the key constraint on mappings from physical to computational states--the key for establishing that a computation is physically implemented--is physical-computational equivalence: evolving physical states bear neither more nor less information about the evolving computation than do the computational states they map onto. When this highly nontrivial constraint is satisfied, among others that are spelled out as part of the account, a physical system can be said to implement a computation in a robust sense, which means that the system bears the physical signature of the computation. Anderson and Piccinini apply their robust mapping account to important questions in physical foundations of computation and cognitive science, including the alleged indeterminacy of computation, pancomputationalism, and the computational theory of mind. They show that physical computation is determinate, nontrivial versions of pancomputationalism fail, and cognition involves computation only insofar as neurocognitive systems bear the physical signature of specific computations. They also argue that both consciousness and physics outstrip computation.
Author: Marilyn Wolf Publisher: Elsevier ISBN: 0128096160 Category : Technology & Engineering Languages : en Pages : 278
Book Description
The Physics of Computing gives a foundational view of the physical principles underlying computers. Performance, power, thermal behavior, and reliability are all harder and harder to achieve as transistors shrink to nanometer scales. This book describes the physics of computing at all levels of abstraction from single gates to complete computer systems. It can be used as a course for juniors or seniors in computer engineering and electrical engineering, and can also be used to teach students in other scientific disciplines important concepts in computing. For electrical engineering, the book provides the fundamentals of computing that link core concepts to computing. For computer science, it provides foundations of key challenges such as power consumption, performance, and thermal. The book can also be used as a technical reference by professionals. - Links fundamental physics to the key challenges in computer design, including memory wall, power wall, reliability - Provides all of the background necessary to understand the physical underpinnings of key computing concepts - Covers all the major physical phenomena in computing from transistors to systems, including logic, interconnect, memory, clocking, I/O
Author: Anthony Hey Publisher: CRC Press ISBN: 0429980086 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 356
Book Description
Computational properties of use to biological organisms or to the construction of computers can emerge as collective properties of systems having a large number of simple equivalent components (or neurons). The physical meaning of content-addressable memory is described by an appropriate phase space flow of the state of a system. A model of such a system is given, based on aspects of neurobiology but readily adapted to integrated circuits. The collective properties of this model produce a content-addressable memory which correctly yields an entire memory from any subpart of sufficient size. The algorithm for the time evolution of the state of the system is based on asynchronous parallel processing. Additional emergent collective properties include some capacity for generalization, familiarity recognition, categorization, error correction, and time sequence retention. The collective properties are only weakly sensitive to details of the modeling or the failure of individual devices.
Author: Chris Kempes Publisher: Seminar ISBN: 9781947864184 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 500
Book Description
Why do computers use so much energy? What are the fundamental physical laws governing the relationship between the precise computation run by a system, whether artificial or natural, and how much energy that computation requires? This volume integrates concepts from diverse fields, cultivating a modern, nonequilibrium thermodynamics of computation.
Author: Gualtiero Piccinini
Author: Gualtiero Piccinini
Author: Oron Shagrir
Author: Nir Fresco
Author: Marc Mézard
Author: Neal G. Anderson
Author: Marilyn Wolf
Author: Michael E. Cuffaro
Author: Anthony Hey
Author: Chris Kempes