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Computing Machinery and Emergence: The Aesthetics and Metaphysics of Video Games

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Abstract

We build on some of Daniel Dennett’s ideas about predictive indispensability to characterize properties of video games discernable by people as computationally emergent if, and only if: (1) they can be instantiated by a computing machine, and (2) there is no algorithm for detecting instantiations of them. We then use this conception of emergence to provide support to the aesthetic ideas of Stanley Fish and to illuminate some aspects of the Chomskyan program in cognitive science.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy and Linguistics Program, Louisiana State University, 106 Coates Hall, Baton Rouge, LA, USA, 70803

    Jon Cogburn

  2. Department of Philosophy, Auburn University, 6080 Haley Center, Auburn, AL, USA, 36849

    Mark Silcox

Authors
  1. Jon Cogburn
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  2. Mark Silcox
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Correspondence to Jon Cogburn.

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Cogburn, J., Silcox, M. Computing Machinery and Emergence: The Aesthetics and Metaphysics of Video Games. Mind Mach 15, 73–89 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-004-1168-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-004-1168-5

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