Computationalism

This is an introduction to the 80 articles on philosophy in MITECS.

Androides são "autômatos com forma humana" . Enquanto robôs são "aparelhos automáticos capazes de manipular objetos ou executar operações segundo um programa". Assim podemos dizer que um androide pode ser considerado um robô, mas nem todo robô é um androide. Devido à diversidade de gêneros, foi criado o termo ginóide, separando-se assim os androides de aparência masculina (andros) da feminina (ginos). A propagação destes se deu à ficção cientifica, em livros de Isaac Asimov, em seriados para televisão como Jornada nas (...) Estrelas, em filmes para o cinema, como Guerra nas Estrelas e A.I.: Inteligência Artificial, e diversos outros meios de cultura e entretenimento, teatro inclusive. As obras citadas possuem androides que sentem; que percebem o mundo, mesmo à sua maneira, e com isso eles interagem com o ambiente, e, logicamente, com os objetos à sua volta. Para este ensaio, o principal "androide de estudo" será Data, de Jornada nas Estrelas, A Nova Geração 3 4 , e também alguns filmes posteriores. Assim, este pequeno ensaio tem como objetivo verificar se, a percepção, a extensão sensorial e porque não, a relação entre Corpo e Espírito de Bergson, podem ser aplicados a robôs e androides da Ficção, e talvez os da não ficção. Para tanto, precisaremos percorre por todos os sentidos, pela memória, e talvez até pelos sonhos, pois como já perguntava Phillip K Dick em seu livro que inspirou Blade Runner: "Androides Sonham com Ovelhas Elétricas?". (shrink)

This is review of the book "Physical Computation and Cognitive Science" by Nir Fresco: http://www.springer.com/la/book/9783642413742.

We consider processes of emergence within the conceptual framework of the Information Loss principle and the concepts of systems conserving information; systems compressing information; and systems amplifying information. We deal with the supposed incompatibility between emergence and computability tout-court. We distinguish between computational emergence, when computation acquires properties, and emergent computation, when computation emerges as a property. The focus is on emergence processes occurring within computational processes. Violations of Turing-computability such as non-explicitness and incompleteness are intended to represent partially the (...) properties of phenomenological emergence, such as logical openness, given by the observer’s cognitive role; structural dynamics where change regards rules rather than only values; and multi-modelling where multiple non-equivalent models are required to model such structural dynamics. In this way, we validate, from an epistemological viewpoint, models and simulations of phenomenological emergence where the sequence of events constitutes the natural, analogical non-Turing computation which a cognitive complex system can reproduce through learning. Reproducibility through learning is different from Turing-like computational iteration. This paper aims to open a new, non-reductionist understanding of the conceptual relationship between emergence and computability. (shrink)

‘The art of living with ICTs ’ today not only means finding new ways to cope, interact and create new lifestyles on the basis of the new digital technologies individually, as ‘consumer-citizens’. It also means inventing new modes of living, producing and, not in the least place, struggling collectively, as workers and producers. As the so-called digital revolution unfolds in the context of a neoliberal cognitive and consumerist capitalism, its ‘innovations’ are predominantly employed to modulate and control both production processes (...) and consumer behavior in view of the overall goal of extracting surplus value. Today, the digital networks overwhelmingly destroy social autonomy, instead engendering increasing social heteronomy and proletarianization. Yet it is these very networks themselves, as technical pharmaka in the sense of French ‘technophilosopher’ Bernard Stiegler, that can be employed as no other to struggle against this tendency. This paper briefly explores this possibility by reflecting upon current diagnoses of our ‘technological situation’ by some exemplary post-operaist Marxists from a Stieglerian, pharmacological perspective. (shrink)

A version of the Church-Turing Thesis states that every effectively realizable physical system can be simulated by Turing Machines (‘Thesis P’). In this formulation the Thesis appears to be an empirical hypothesis, subject to physical falsification. We review the main approaches to computation beyond Turing definability (‘hypercomputation’): supertask, non-well-founded, analog, quantum, and retrocausal computation. The conclusions are that these models reduce to supertasks, i.e. infinite computation, and that even supertasks are no solution for recursive incomputability. This yields that the realization (...) of hypercomputing devices is implausible, and that Thesis P is not essentially different from the standard Church-Turing Thesis. (shrink)

The idea that human thought requires the execution of mental algorithms provides a foundation for research programs in cognitive science, which are largely based upon the computational conception of language and mentality. Consideration is given to recent work by Penrose, Searle, and Cleland, who supply various grounds for disputing computationalism. These grounds in turn qualify as reasons for preferring a non-computational, semiotic approach, which can account for them as predictable manifestations of a more adquate conception. Thinking does not ordinarily require (...) the execution of mental algorithms, which appears to be at best no more than one rather special kind of thinking. (shrink)

According to Church’s thesis, we can identify the intuitive concept of effective computability with such well-defined mathematical concepts as Turing computability and partial recursiveness. The almost universal acceptance of Church’s thesis among logicians and computer scientists is puzzling from some epistemological perspectives, since no formal proof is possible of a thesis that involves an informal concept such as effectiveness. Elliott Mendelson has recently argued, however, that equivalencies between intuitive notions and precise notions need not always be considered unprovable theses, and (...) that Church’s thesis should be accepted as true.I want to discuss a thesis that is nearly as important in current research in computer science as Church’s thesis. I call the newer thesis the tractability thesis, since it identifies the intuitive class of computationally tractable problems with a precise class of problems whose solutions can be computed in polynomial time. After briefly reviewing the theory of intractability, I compare the grounds for accepting the tractability thesis with the grounds for accepting Church's thesis. Intimately connected with the tractability thesis is the mathematical conjecture, whose meaning I shall shortly explain, that P≠NP. Unlike Church's thesis, this conjecture is precise enough to be capable of mathematical proof, but most computer scientists believe it even though no proof has been found. As we shall see below, understanding the grounds for acceptance of the conjecture that P≠NP has implications for general questions in the philosophy of mathematics and science, especially concerning the epistemological importance of explanatory and conceptual coherence. (shrink)

The term 'consciousness' has not been consistently used in the history of philosophy and psychology. It has been taken to stand for the mental activity in which all of us are engaged during our waking lives, whether absorbed in the solving of a task or in calm moments of contemplation. It has also been allied with the term 'introspection' to stand for a self-monitoring activity, one in which we are not simply engaged, but in which we aware of the succession (...) of mental items that constitute our experiences. In Consciousness and the Computational Mind, Ray Jackendoff opts for this second sense and exploits it to criticize the "central processing" theory of consciousness. The background assumption for all such theories is that the human mind is to be conceived on the model of a computer whose central processor controls in accordance with programmed instructions the reception of inputs, delegation of tasks to secondary processors carrying out sub-routines, storage and retrieval of information, and finally the production of outputs. The central processing theory identifies consciousness with the activities of those areas of the brain which function as central processor as defined by this model. Jackendoff's alternative theory correlates consciousness with intermediate-level informational structures operated on by secondary processors. Of the higher-level structures and the processes operating on them, the level we refer to with such terms as 'conceptualization' and 'understanding,' we are, he contends, unconscious. (shrink)

When computing is defined as the causal implementation of algorithms and algorithms are defined as effective decision procedures, human thought is mental computation only if it is governed by mental algorithms. An examination of ordinary thinking, however, suggests that most human thought processes are non-algorithmic. Digital machines, moreover, are mark-manipulating or string-processing systems whose marks or strings do not stand for anything for those systems, while minds are semiotic systems for which signs stand for other things for those systems. Computing, (...) at best, turns out to be no more than a special kind of thinking. (shrink)

The present paper discusses a topic often neglected by contemporary philosophy of biology: The relation between metaphorical notions of living organisms as information processing systems, the attempts to model such systems by computational means, and the idea that life itself is a computational phenomenon. This question has ramifications in theoretical biology and thedefinition of Iife, in theoretical computer science and the concept of computation, and in semiotics, and the concept of the interpreter. It is argued, that the theory of autopoietic (...) systems known from theoretical biology should be integrated with a biosemiotic reflection on the natural history of signs. (shrink)

This article examines Plotinus’ conception of metaxý – the human as interval between animals and gods – and its resonances in the work of Jacques Lacan, who implicitly retains and reconfigures the notion of the human being as a mediator. Lacan replicates this ancient narrative, but does so within the context of a cyberneticism that replaces gods and angels with symbolic computation. Humanity, according to such a conception, is tacitly regarded not only as a mediator, but as that which is (...) mediated, the subject caught within a significative network modelled on the basis of then-new systems of digital computation. (shrink)

Computers have invaded our offices, our homes, cars and coffee-pots; they have become ubiquitous. However, the advance of computing technologies is associated with an increasing lack of “visibility” of the underlying software and hardware technologies. While we use and accept the computer, we neither know its history nor functionality. In this paper, we argue that this is not a healthy situation. Also, recruitment onto UK Computing degree courses is steadily falling; these courses are appearing less attractive to school-leavers. This may (...) be associated with the increasing ubiquity. In this paper we reflect on an MSc. module of instruction, Concepts and Philosophy of Computing, and a BSc. module Computer Games Development developed at the University of Worcester which address these issues. We propose that the elements of these modules form a necessary part of the education of all citizens, and we suggest how this may be realized. We also suggest how to re-enthuse our youth about computing as a discipline and halt the drop in recruitment. (shrink)

Robust, concrete and abstract, mathematical computation and inference on the scale now becoming possible should change the discourse about many matters mathematical. These include: what mathematics is, how we know something, how we persuade each other, what suffices as a proof, the infinite, mathematical discovery or invention, and other such issues.

The Church-Turing Thesis is widely regarded as true, because of evidence that there is only one genuine notion of computation. By contrast, there are nowadays many different formal logics, and different corresponding foundational frameworks. Which ones can deliver a theory of computability? This question sets up a difficult challenge: the meanings of basic mathematical terms are not stable across frameworks. While it is easy to compare what different frameworks say, it is not so easy to compare what they mean. We (...) argue for some minimal conditions that must be met if two frameworks are to be compared; if frameworks are radical enough, comparison becomes hopeless. Our aim is to clarify the dialectical situation in this bourgeoning area of research, shedding light on the nature of non-classical logic and the notion of computation alike. (shrink)

Fodor's thinking on modularity has been influential throughout a range of the areas studying cognition, chiefly as a prod for positive work on modularity and domain-specificity. In _The Mind Doesn't Work That Way_, Fodor has developed the dark message of _The Modularity of Mind_ regarding the limits to modularity and computational analyses. This paper offers a critical assessment of Fodor's scepticism with an eye to highlighting some broader issues in play, including the nature of computation and the role of recent (...) empirical developments in the cognitive sciences in assessing Fodor's position. (shrink)