Many thanks again to Andre Curtis-Trudel, Marcin Milkowski, Danielle Williams, and Mazviita Chirimuuta for their commentaries on our recent book The Physical Signature of Computation: A Robust Mapping Account. The medium independence of computation seems to have caused trouble for the latter three commentators, so we take this opportunity to …
The Physical Signature of Computation (PSC) builds on previous publications by Gualtiero Piccinini that have shaped the debate over the nature of information processing in the brain. I will focus on this topic, the subject of Chapter 9, and discuss how PSC inherits some of the flaws embedded in the …
The Physical Signature of Computation is the most “robust” mapping view that’s ever hit the market. It is impressive in its detail and the careful attention paid to its characterization of both the physical system and the formal computational description—a true service to the philosophical literature. The book promises a …
Anderson and Piccinini (2024) offer a foundational approach to understanding physical computation. The book’s primary aim is to defend the notion of physical computation against trivialization. Critics argue that ascribing computation lacks a factual basis, which, if true, would render computational explanations ineffective by stripping them of explanatory power. Piccinini …
The Physical Signature of Computation is an impressive book. Anderson and Piccinini have given us one of the most thoroughly articulated account of physical computation to date. At the center of their discussion is pancomputationalism, and in particular an especially strong version—known as unlimited pancomputationalism—which holds that every physical system …
This week the Brains Blog is hosting a symposium on Neal Anderson and Gualtiero Piccinini’s new book The Physical Signature of Computation: A Robust Mapping Account (Oxford University Press; eBook available here). Today’s post from Anderson and Piccinini provides introductory remarks and an overview of the content of the book. …
This post applies the reason-responsive consequentialist view of rational inquiry to shed light on bounded rationality, the Standard Picture, and the epistemology of inquiry.
