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  1. Computational modeling vs. computational explanation: Is everything a Turing machine, and does it matter to the philosophy of mind?Gualtiero Piccinini - 2007 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 85 (1):93 – 115.
    According to pancomputationalism, everything is a computing system. In this paper, I distinguish between different varieties of pancomputationalism. I find that although some varieties are more plausible than others, only the strongest variety is relevant to the philosophy of mind, but only the most trivial varieties are true. As a side effect of this exercise, I offer a clarified distinction between computational modelling and computational explanation.<br><br>.
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  • Explaining computation without semantics: Keeping it simple.Nir Fresco - 2010 - Minds and Machines 20 (2):165-181.
    This paper deals with the question: how is computation best individuated? -/- 1. The semantic view of computation: computation is best individuated by its semantic properties. 2. The causal view of computation: computation is best individuated by its causal properties. 3. The functional view of computation: computation is best individuated by its functional properties. -/- Some scientific theories explain the capacities of brains by appealing to computations that they supposedly perform. The reason for that is usually that computation is individuated (...)
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  • Computational explanation in neuroscience.Gualtiero Piccinini - 2006 - Synthese 153 (3):343-353.
    According to some philosophers, computational explanation is proprietary
    to psychology—it does not belong in neuroscience. But neuroscientists routinely offer computational explanations of cognitive phenomena. In fact, computational explanation was initially imported from computability theory into the science of mind by neuroscientists, who justified this move on neurophysiological grounds. Establishing the legitimacy and importance of computational explanation in neuroscience is one thing; shedding light on it is another. I raise some philosophical questions pertaining to computational explanation and outline some promising answers that (...)
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  • The computational theory of mind.Steven Horst - 2005 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Over the past thirty years, it is been common to hear the mind likened to a digital computer. This essay is concerned with a particular philosophical view that holds that the mind literally is a digital computer (in a specific sense of “computer” to be developed), and that thought literally is a kind of computation. This view—which will be called the “Computational Theory of Mind” (CTM)—is thus to be distinguished from other and broader attempts to connect the mind with computation, (...)
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  • Chomsky and Egan on computational theories of vision.Arnold Silverberg - 2006 - Minds and Machines 16 (4):495-524.
    Noam Chomsky and Frances Egan argue that David Marr.
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  • (1 other version)The language of thought hypothesis.Murat Aydede - 2010 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    A comprehensive introduction to the Language of Though Hypothesis (LOTH) accessible to general audiences. LOTH is an empirical thesis about thought and thinking. For their explication, it postulates a physically realized system of representations that have a combinatorial syntax (and semantics) such that operations on representations are causally sensitive only to the syntactic properties of representations. According to LOTH, thought is, roughly, the tokening of a representation that has a syntactic (constituent) structure with an appropriate semantics. Thinking thus consists in (...)
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  • The semantic view of computation and the argument from the cognitive science practice.Alfredo Paternoster & Fabrizio Calzavarini - 2022 - Synthese 200 (2):1-24.
    According to the semantic view of computation, computations cannot be individuated without invoking semantic properties. A traditional argument for the semantic view is what we shall refer to as the argument from the cognitive science practice. In its general form, this argument rests on the idea that, since cognitive scientists describe computations (in explanations and theories) in semantic terms, computations are individuated semantically. Although commonly invoked in the computational literature, the argument from the cognitive science practice has never been discussed (...)
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  • Syntax, Semantics, and Computer Programs.William J. Rapaport - 2020 - Philosophy and Technology 33 (2):309-321.
    Turner argues that computer programs must have purposes, that implementation is not a kind of semantics, and that computers might need to understand what they do. I respectfully disagree: Computer programs need not have purposes, implementation is a kind of semantic interpretation, and neither human computers nor computing machines need to understand what they do.
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  • Can Informational Theories Account for Metarepresentation?Miguel Ángel Sebastián & Marc Artiga - 2020 - Topoi 39 (1):81-94.
    In this essay we discuss recent attempts to analyse the notion of representation, as it is employed in cognitive science, in purely informational terms. In particular, we argue that recent informational theories cannot accommodate the existence of metarepresentations. Since metarepresentations play a central role in the explanation of many cognitive abilities, this is a serious shortcoming of these proposals.
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  • A Theory of Practical Meaning.Carlotta Pavese - 2017 - Philosophical Topics 45 (2):65-96.
    This essay is divided into two parts. In the first part (§2), I introduce the idea of practical meaning by looking at a certain kind of procedural systems — the motor system — that play a central role in computational explanations of motor behavior. I argue that in order to give a satisfactory account of the content of the representations computed by motor systems (motor commands), we need to appeal to a distinctively practical kind of meaning. Defending the explanatory relevance (...)
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  • Are Computational Transitions Sensitive to Semantics?Michael Rescorla - 2012 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 90 (4):703-721.
    The formal conception of computation (FCC) holds that computational processes are not sensitive to semantic properties. FCC is popular, but it faces well-known difficulties. Accordingly, authors such as Block and Peacocke pursue a ?semantically-laden? alternative, according to which computation can be sensitive to semantics. I argue that computation is insensitive to semantics within a wide range of computational systems, including any system with ?derived? rather than ?original? intentionality. FCC yields the correct verdict for these systems. I conclude that there is (...)
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  • Semantic externalism and the mechanics of thought.Carrie Figdor - 2009 - Minds and Machines 19 (1):1-24.
    I review a widely accepted argument to the conclusion that the contents of our beliefs, desires and other mental states cannot be causally efficacious in a classical computational model of the mind. I reply that this argument rests essentially on an assumption about the nature of neural structure that we have no good scientific reason to accept. I conclude that computationalism is compatible with wide semantic causal efficacy, and suggest how the computational model might be modified to accommodate this possibility.
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  • Computation without representation.Gualtiero Piccinini - 2008 - Philosophical Studies 137 (2):205-241.
    The received view is that computational states are individuated at least in part by their semantic properties. I offer an alternative, according to which computational states are individuated by their functional properties. Functional properties are specified by a mechanistic explanation without appealing to any semantic properties. The primary purpose of this paper is to formulate the alternative view of computational individuation, point out that it supports a robust notion of computational explanation, and defend it on the grounds of how computational (...)
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  • Res Computans: The Living Subject from Yeast to Human. [REVIEW]María Belén Campero & Cristián Favre - 2012 - Axiomathes 22 (4):457-468.
    Abstract Since modernity, the concept of subject supposes both an anthropocentric and a dualistic view of life and reality. In this study, we carry out an analytic interpretation of the Descartes’ notion of subject, in order to build a different dimension of the concept of subject. We discuss the activity of computing, as the manner by which the living subject relates with and in-forms the world. We further examine computing in the aging yeast as an example of living subject and (...)
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  • Against Structuralist Theories of Computational Implementation.Michael Rescorla - 2013 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 64 (4):681-707.
    Under what conditions does a physical system implement or realize a computation? Structuralism about computational implementation, espoused by Chalmers and others, holds that a physical system realizes a computation just in case the system instantiates a pattern of causal organization isomorphic to the computation’s formal structure. I argue against structuralism through counter-examples drawn from computer science. On my opposing view, computational implementation sometimes requires instantiating semantic properties that outstrip any relevant pattern of causal organization. In developing my argument, I defend (...)
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  • Why we view the brain as a computer.Oron Shagrir - 2006 - Synthese 153 (3):393-416.
    The view that the brain is a sort of computer has functioned as a theoretical guideline both in cognitive science and, more recently, in neuroscience. But since we can view every physical system as a computer, it has been less than clear what this view amounts to. By considering in some detail a seminal study in computational neuroscience, I first suggest that neuroscientists invoke the computational outlook to explain regularities that are formulated in terms of the information content of electrical (...)
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  • Inference and the structure of concepts.Matías Osta Vélez - 2020 - Dissertation, Ludwig Maximilians Universität, München
    This thesis studies the role of conceptual content in inference and reasoning. The first two chapters offer a theoretical and historical overview of the relation between inference and meaning in philosophy and psychology. In particular, a critical analysis of the formality thesis, i.e., the idea that rational inference is a rule-based and topic-neutral mechanism, is advanced. The origins of this idea in logic and its influence in philosophy and cognitive psychology are discussed. Chapter 3 consists of an analysis of the (...)
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  • Coining Terms In The Language of Thought.Robert D. Rupert - 2001 - Journal of Philosophy 98 (10):499-530.
    Robert Cummins argues that any causal theory of mental content (CT) founders on an established fact of human psychology: that theory mediates sensory detection. He concludes,.
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  • The determinacy of computation.André Curtis-Trudel - 2022 - Synthese 200 (1):1-28.
    A skeptical worry known as ‘the indeterminacy of computation’ animates much recent philosophical reflection on the computational identity of physical systems. On the one hand, computational explanation seems to require that physical computing systems fall under a single, unique computational description at a time. On the other, if a physical system falls under any computational description, it seems to fall under many simultaneously. Absent some principled reason to take just one of these descriptions in particular as relevant for computational explanation, (...)
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