What's New and Exciting About Computationalism?

This entry was posted on 8/2/2008 4:24 PM and is filed under Metaphysics,Cognition,Computation and Logic.

I'm about to start writing a review article on "Computationalism in the Philosophy of Mind," for Philosophy Compass, due in two months.  It should cover new and interesting stuff that pertains to computationalism.  By "new", I would say we should consider mostly literature from the last 15 years or so.

Of course I have plenty of opinions about what should go in such an article.  Still, in the interest of fairness and balance, I'm interested in other opinions.  Plus, I might have missed something

What should I write about?  What do you think are the most exciting developments/recent publications on computationalism?  This is your chance to set me straight.  Feel free to advertise your own work.

(Of course, although I welcome your advice, I cannot promise that I will follow it.  The available space and time and attention span are finite, as always.)

Trackbacks

• 9/12/2008 4:00 PM Brains wrote:
  As announced a few weeks ago, I wrote a paper in which I survey the state of the art on computationalism. Thanks a lot to those who suggested topics I should cover. I touched on most of the suggested topics.The paper is due at Philosophy Compass by the end of the month. If anyone is interested in commenting on it, here it is. Needless to say, your comments would be greatly appreciated. ...
• 9/17/2008 2:12 PM Brains wrote:
  As announced a few weeks ago, I wrote a paper in which I survey the state of the art on computationalism. Thanks a lot to those who suggested topics I should cover. I touched on most of the suggested topics.The paper is due at Philosophy Compass by the end of the month. If anyone is interested in commenting on it, here it is. Needless to say, your comments would be greatly appreciated.Update [9/17/08]: And here is the abstract:Computationalism has been the mainstream view of cognition for decades. There are periodic reports of its demise, ...
• 9/18/2008 1:15 PM Brains wrote:
  As announced a few weeks ago, I wrote a paper in which I survey the state of the art on computationalism. Thanks a lot to those who suggested topics I should cover. I touched on most of the suggested topics.The paper is due at Philosophy Compass by the end of the month. If anyone is interested in commenting on it, here it is. Needless to say, your comments would be greatly appreciated.Update [9/17/08]: And here is the abstract:Computationalism has been the mainstream view of cognition for decades. There are periodic reports of its demise, ...

Comments

• 8/3/2008 10:20 AM Pete Mandik wrote:
  I would like, after having read such an article, to come a way with a grasp of the state of the art regarding how the following three kinds of explanations of intelligent behavior relate: mechanistic explanations, intentional explanations, and computational explanations.
  Reply to this
• 8/3/2008 10:41 AM Anibal wrote:
  What is to me the most exciting thing about "computationalism" in the broad sense, is the idea that all human experience is in principle computable, and the newest in this effort is the attempt to compute even emotions and subjective feelings!
  (i don´t know if some philosopher of mind is doing some related stuff bu i think falls under the heading of computationalism)
  Reply to this
• 8/3/2008 12:00 PM Eric Thomson wrote:
  Super-turing computation (Siegelmann's work), and the claim that ANNs implement such computations.
  
  For instance:
  H.T. Siegelmann, "Neural and Super-Turing Computing," Philosophy 2002.
  Reply to this
• 8/6/2008 2:59 PM Marcin Miłkowski wrote:
  Some (for example Matthias Scheutz and Ron Chrisley) say that Brian Cantwell Smith's work on computationalism and ontology is a huge advancement over prior theories. I'm not sure if his 6-volume work for MIT is already out, but you seem to generally ignore BCS in your papers, so you have an occasion to look at it.
  Reply to this
  1. 8/8/2008 9:31 AM gualtiero piccinini wrote:
     What's so good about Cantwell Smith's work?
     Reply to this
     1. 8/17/2008 11:52 AM Marcin Miłkowski wrote:
        Actually, no idea. Haven't read it myself, but was told several times it's good. I hoped someone could summarize it for me
        Reply to this
• 8/7/2008 12:52 AM Anonymous wrote:
  Gualtiero, hello! These questions are rooted in concerns over 15-years-old, but they are partially inspired by a recent look at a sort of recent book by Peter Carruthers.
  
  What’s the status of concepts in computational psychology? There are computational paradigms (are they computational?) in the psychology of concepts research. But is the term ‘concept’ too tightly wrapped up in other folk-psychological notions to serve rigorous scientific purposes? Who cares(I mean this as a genuine question)?
  
  Carruthers, for one instance of why it might matter, makes liberal use of the language of thought paradigm from Fodor to underwrite an argument for massive modularity. I don’t mean to target this project; the explanandum for Carruthers is not immediately related to the question of what constitutes the psychological states he posits. Still, there is a quick route from classical computation to representational states, and from there to compositional intentional states, and concepts are purported to be the constituents of those states (and nothing more?).
  Reply to this
• 8/7/2008 3:42 AM Mark Sprevak wrote:
  How about recent interest in unconventional kinds of physical computers (DNA, molecular, optical, billiard ball). Quantum computation, and counterfactual computation are also fun. Relatedly, the recent trend to explain a huge range of natural systems as if they were computing, like DNA protein synthesis and large-scale behaviour of ecosystems.
  
  The journal of Natural Computing has lots of interesting stuff:
  
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/108905/?p=cd8a3e7e08f84a73ae4abb8b58150b89&pi=0
  Reply to this
• 8/22/2008 8:58 AM John Dilworth wrote:
  The Irrelevance of Computationalism to the Philosophy of Mind
  
  Since any review article on computationalism--or anything else--should include at least one provocative opposing view, here's one. My just-published Minds and Machines article
  "Semantic Naturalization Via Interactive Perceptual Causality", available online at
  
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/t5484v453q524812/
  
  or on my website at
  
  http://homepages.wmich.edu/~dilworth/Index.html
  
  provides a comprehensive alternative approach to the philos of mind. It
  combines a broadly dispositional view of meaning and perceptual content
  with a broadly realist abstract propositionalism about scientific theories.
  On this account, as long as a creature can come up with appropriate
  dispositional outputs that are propositionally indexable in standard
  scientific experiments, it matters not at all--whether computationally
  or otherwise--what went on in the creature in its causal processing
  of inputs. (See also other relevant papers on my website).
  
  John Dilworth, Dept of Philosophy, Western Michigan University
  Reply to this

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