The Nature of Physical Computation

Front matter

OXFORD STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

General Editor: P. Kyle Stanford, University of California, Irvine

Founding Editor: Paul Humphreys, University of Virginia

Introduction

. Desiderata ofa Theory of Computation 1.1 Scope

1.2 Features

2.1 The 1936 Affair

2.2 Turing’s Analysis

2.3 Who Is “the Computer”?

2.4 Effective Computability and Machine Computation 2.5 Summary

3.1 Gandy’s Account of Machine Computation 3.2 Generic Computation

3.3 Algorithmic Computation

3.4 Physical Computation

4.1 Cummins’s Account of Computation

4.2 Is Step-Satisfaction Necessary for Computation? 4.3 Neural Computation

5.1 Triviality Results

5.2 Avoiding Triviality

5.3 From Implementation to Computation 5.4 Summary

6.1 An Outline of the Mechanistic Account

6.2 What Is “Mechanistic” in the Mechanistic Account? 6.3 Computational and Mechanistic Explanations

6.4 Rules, Medium-Independence, and Teleological Functions

103 118

119 120 129 137 144

CONTENTS

7.1 What Is a Semantic View of Computation? 7.2 Objections to the Semantic View

8.1 Simultaneous Implementation

8.2 The Master Argument: From Simultaneous Implementation to the Semantic Individuation of Computational States

8.3 Objection 1: Computational Individuation Is More Basic

8.4 Objection 2: Externalism Without Content

9.1 What Is Modeling?

9.2 The Modeling Notion of Computation

9.3 Others Who Have Linked Computing to Modeling 9.4 The Methodological Role of Modeling

9.5 Computational Explanations