18 found
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  1.  25
    Slime mould: The fundamental mechanisms of biological cognition.Oscar Castro, Jordi Vallverdú, Andrew Adamatzky, Audrey Dussutour, Michael Levin, Max Talanov, Richard Mayne, Frantisek Baluska, Yukio Gunji & Hector Zenil - 2018 - Biosystems 165:57-70.
    The slime mould Physarum polycephalum has been used in developing unconventional computing devices for in which the slime mould played a role of a sensing, actuating, and computing device. These devices treated the slime mould as an active living substrate, yet it is a self-consistent living creature which evolved over millions of years and occupied most parts of the world, but in any case, that living entity did not own true cognition, just automated biochemical mechanisms. To “rehabilitate” slime mould from (...)
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  2. A Computable Universe: Understanding and Exploring Nature as Computation.Hector Zenil - unknown
    A Computable Universe is a collection of papers discussing computation in nature and the nature of computation, a compilation of the views of the pioneers in the contemporary area of intellectual inquiry focused on computational and informational theories of the world. This volume is the definitive source of informational/computational views of the world, and of cutting-edge models of the universe, both digital and quantum, discussed from a philosophical perspective as well as in the greatest technical detail. The book discusses the (...)
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  3.  75
    Image characterization and classification by physical complexity.Hector Zenil, Jean-Paul Delahaye & Cédric Gaucherel - 2012 - Complexity 17 (3):26-42.
  4.  26
    A Behavioural Foundation for Natural Computing and a Programmability Test.Hector Zenil - 2013 - In Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic Raffaela Giovagnoli (ed.), Computing Nature. pp. 87--113.
  5.  37
    On the Kolmogorov-Chaitin complexity for short sequences.Hector Zenil - unknown
    This is a presentation about joint work between Hector Zenil and Jean-Paul Delahaye. Zenil presents Experimental Algorithmic Theory as Algorithmic Information Theory and NKS, put together in a mixer. Algorithmic Complexity Theory defines the algorithmic complexity k(s) as the length of the shortest program that produces s. But since finding this short program is in general an undecidable question, the only way to approach k(s) is to use compression algorithms. He shows how to use the Compress function in Mathematica to (...)
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  6.  46
    Empirical Encounters with Computational Irreducibility and Unpredictability.Hector Zenil, Fernando Soler-Toscano & Joost J. Joosten - 2012 - Minds and Machines 22 (3):149-165.
    The paper presents an exploration of conceptual issues that have arisen in the course of investigating speed-up and slowdown phenomena in small Turing machines, in particular results of a test that may spur experimental approaches to the notion of computational irreducibility. The test involves a systematic attempt to outrun the computation of a large number of small Turing machines (3 and 4 state, 2 symbol) by means of integer sequence prediction using a specialized function for that purpose. The experiment prompts (...)
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  7.  81
    (1 other version)What Is Nature-Like Computation? A Behavioural Approach and a Notion of Programmability.Hector Zenil - 2013 - Philosophy and Technology (3):1-23.
    The aim of this paper is to propose an alternative behavioural definition of computation (and of a computer) based simply on whether a system is capable of reacting to the environment—the input—as reflected in a measure of programmability. This definition is intended to have relevance beyond the realm of digital computers, particularly vis-à-vis natural systems. This will be done by using an extension of a phase transition coefficient previously defined in an attempt to characterise the dynamical behaviour of cellular automata (...)
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  8.  39
    A Computable Measure of Algorithmic Probability by Finite Approximations with an Application to Integer Sequences.Fernando Soler-Toscano & Hector Zenil - 2017 - Complexity:1-10.
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  9.  15
    The Information-Theoretic and Algorithmic Approach to Human, Animal, and Artificial Cognition.Jesper Tegnér, Hector Zenil & Nicolas Gauvrit - 2017 - In Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic & Raffaela Giovagnoli (eds.), Representation of Reality: Humans, Other Living Organism and Intelligent Machines. Heidelberg: Springer.
    We survey concepts at the frontier of research connecting artificial, animal, and human cognition to computation and information processing—from the Turing test to Searle’s Chinese room argument, from integrated information theory to computational and algorithmic complexity. We start by arguing that passing the Turing test is a trivial computational problem and that its pragmatic difficulty sheds light on the computational nature of the human mind more than it does on the challenge of artificial intelligence. We then review our proposed algorithmic (...)
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  10.  7
    How nature works: complexity in interdisciplinary research and applications.Ivan Zelinka, ʻAlī Ṣanāyiʻī, Hector Zenil & Otto E. Rössler (eds.) - 2014 - New York: Springer.
    This book is based on the outcome of the ""2012 Interdisciplinary Symposium on Complex Systems"" held at the island of Kos. The book consists of 12 selected papers of the symposium starting with a comprehensive overview and classification of complexity problems, continuing by chapters about complexity, its observation, modeling and its applications to solving various problems including real-life applications. More exactly, readers will have an encounter with the structural complexity of vortex flows, the use of chaotic dynamics within evolutionary algorithms, (...)
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  11.  64
    An Algorithmic Approach to Information and Meaning.Hector Zenil - unknown
    While it is legitimate to study ideas and concepts related to information in their broadest sense, that formal approaches properly belong in specific contexts is a fact that is too often ignored. That their use outside these contexts amounts to misuse or imprecise use cannot and should not be overlooked. This paper presents a framework based on algorithmic information theory for discussing concepts of relevance to information in philosophical contexts. Special attention will be paid to the intersection of syntactic and (...)
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  12.  14
    On the Dynamic Behaviour of Turing Universal Computing Systems.Hector Zenil - unknown
  13.  34
    On the possible computational power of the human mind.Hector Zenil & Francisco Hernandez-Quiroz - 2007 - In Carlos Gershenson, Diederik Aerts & Bruce Edmonds (eds.), Worldviews, Science and Us: Philosophy and Complexity. World Scientific. pp. 315--334.
    The aim of this paper is to address the question: Can an artificial neural network (ANN) model be used as a possible characterization of the power of the human mind? We will discuss what might be the relationship between such a model and its natural counterpart. A possible characterization of the different power capabilities of the mind is suggested in terms of the information contained (in its computational complexity) or achievable by it. Such characterization takes advantage of recent results based (...)
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  14.  12
    Program-size complexity for short strings.Hector Zenil - unknown
  15.  54
    Randomness Through Computation: Some Answers, More Questions.Hector Zenil (ed.) - 2011 - World Scientific.
    The book is intended to explain the larger and intuitive concept of randomness by means of computation, particularly through algorithmic complexity and recursion theory. It also includes the transcriptions (by A. German) of two panel discussion on the topics: Is The Universe Random?, held at the University of Vermont in 2007; and What is Computation? (How) Does Nature Compute?, held at the University of Indiana Bloomington in 2008. The book is intended to the general public, undergraduate and graduate students in (...)
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  16.  32
    Towards a stable definition of program-size complexity.Hector Zenil - unknown
    We propose a test based on the theory of algorithmic complexity and an experimental evaluation of Levin's universal distribution to identify evidence in support of or in contravention of the claim that the world is algorithmic in nature. To this end statistical comparisons are undertaken of the frequency distributions of data from physical sources--repositories of information such as images, data stored in a hard drive, computer programs and DNA sequences--and the output frequency distributions generated by purely algorithmic means--by running abstract (...)
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  17.  15
    Towards a stable definition of algorithmic randomness.Hector Zenil - unknown
    Although information content is invariant up to an additive constant, the range of possible additive constants applicable to programming languages is so large that in practice it plays a major role in the actual evaluation of K(s), the Kolmogorov complexity of a string s. We present a summary of the approach we've developed to overcome the problem by calculating its algorithmic probability and evaluating the algorithmic complexity via the coding theorem, thereby providing a stable framework for Kolmogorov complexity even for (...)
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  18.  41
    The World is Either Algorithmic or Mostly Random.Hector Zenil - unknown
    I will propose the notion that the universe is digital, not as a claim about what the universe is made of but rather about the way it unfolds. Central to the argument will be the concepts of symmetry breaking and algorithmic probability, which will be used as tools to compare the way patterns are distributed in our world to the way patterns are distributed in a simulated digital one. These concepts will provide a framework for a discussion of the informational (...)
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