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Why everything doesn't realize every computation

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Abstract

Some have suggested that there is no fact to the matter as to whether or not a particular physical system relaizes a particular computational description. This suggestion has been taken to imply that computational states are not “real”, and cannot, for example, provide a foundation for the cognitive sciences. In particular, Putnam has argued that every ordinary open physical system realizes every abstract finite automaton, implying that the fact that a particular computational characterization applies to a physical system does not tell oneanything about the nature of that system. Putnam's argument is scrutinized, and found inadequate because, among other things, it employs a notion of causation that is too weak. I argue that if one's view of computation involves embeddedness (inputs and outputs) and full causality, one can avoid the universal realizability results. Therefore, the fact that a particular system realizes a particular automaton is not a vacuous one, and is often explanatory. Furthermore, I claim that computation would not necessarily be an explanatorily vacuous notion even if it were universally realizable.

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References

  • Hilary Putnam (1988).Representation and Reality, MIT Press.

  • John Searle (1990), ‘Is the brain a digital computer?’,Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 64(3), November 1990. This paper was a Presidential Address delivered at the Annual Pacific Division Meeting of the APA in Los Angeles on March 30th, 1990, and was also delivered at the 5th Annual Computers and Philosophy Conference at Stanford University on August 8th, 1990. A revised version of this paper appeared as Chapter 9 ofThe Rediscovery of the Mind.

  • John Searle (1992),The Rediscovery of the Mind, MIT Press.

  • Brian Cantwell Smith (1991), ‘The owl and the electric encyclopedia’, in D. Kirsh, ed.,Foundation of Artificial Intelligence, MIT Press.

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Chrisley, R.L. Why everything doesn't realize every computation. Mind Mach 4, 403–420 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00974167

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00974167

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