Physical Computation
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A01=Gualtiero Piccinini
Author_Gualtiero Piccinini
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=JMR
Category=NL-HP
Category=NL-JM
Category=NL-PD
Category=NL-UY
Category=PDA
Category=QD
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COP=United Kingdom
Discount=15
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eq_computing
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Format=BC
Format_Paperback
HMM=235
IMPN=Oxford University Press
ISBN13=9780198801160
Language_English
PA=Available
PD=20180503
POP=Oxford
Price_€20 to €50
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PUB=Oxford University Press
SMM=18
Subject=Computer Science
Subject=Philosophy
Subject=Psychology
Subject=Science: General Issues
WG=464
WMM=156
Product details
- ISBN 9780198801160
- Format: Paperback
- Weight: 464g
- Dimensions: 156 x 235 x 18mm
- Publication Date: 12 Jul 2018
- Publisher: Oxford University Press
- Publication City/Country: Oxford, GB
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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Gualtiero Piccinini articulates and defends a mechanistic account of concrete, or physical, computation. A physical system is a computing system just in case it is a mechanism one of whose functions is to manipulate vehicles based solely on differences between different portions of the vehicles according to a rule defined over the vehicles. The Nature of Computation discusses previous accounts of computation and argues that the mechanistic account is better. Many kinds of computation are explicated, such as digital vs. analog, serial vs. parallel, neural network computation, program-controlled computation, and more. Piccinini argues that computation does not entail representation or information processing although information processing entails computation. Pancomputationalism, according to which every physical system is computational, is rejected. A modest version of the physical Church-Turing thesis, according to which any function that is physically computable is computable by Turing machines, is defended.
Gualtiero Piccinini is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. Shortly after his appointment to the position in 2005, he founded Brains, which later became a group blog in the philosophy of mind and related sciences. He received early tenure and promotion in 2010 and early promotion to full professor in 2014. Between 2001 and 2014 he was department chair. In 2014, he received the Herbert A. Simon Award from the International Association for Computing and Philosophy for his research in the philosophy of computation.
