Minds and Machines 4 (4):403-20 (1994)
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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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Keywords | Cognition Computation Machine Science Turing, A |
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DOI | 10.1007/BF00974167 |
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References found in this work BETA
The Rediscovery of the Mind by John Searle. [REVIEW]Daniel C. Dennett - 1993 - Journal of Philosophy 90 (4):193-205.
The Rediscovery of the Mind.John Searle - 1992 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 55 (1):201-207.
View all 8 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
The Dynamical Hypothesis in Cognitive Science.Tim van Gelder - 1998 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 21 (5):615-28.
Computation in Physical Systems: A Normative Mapping Account.Paul Schweizer - 2019 - In Matteo Vincenzo D'Alfonso & Don Berkich (eds.), On the Cognitive, Ethical, and Scientific Dimensions of Artificial Intelligence. Springer Verlag. pp. 27-47.
The Mind as Neural Software?: Understanding Functionalism, Computationalism, and Computational Functionalism.Gualtiero Piccinini - 2010 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 81 (2):269-311.
View all 34 citations / Add more citations
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