Philosophy of Neuroscience
new web page dedicated to the philosophy of neuroscience
Category: Philosophy of Science
Real Numbers and Hypercomputation
A topic that has received increasing attention in the last few years is hypercomputation (see also the Wikipedia article), a term coined by Jack Copeland for the computation of functions that are not computable by Turing machines. Real numbers are often invoked in recipes for hypercomputation. I have tried to explain my skepticism …
The Physical Church-Turing Thesis
I’ve just finished a paper corresponding more or less to my 2005 Eastern APA talk on the Physical Church-Turing thesis. The topic is a bit far from the concerns of mainstream philosophers of mind, but still relevant. It’s about what can be physically computed, which is relevant to what can …
Philosophy by Counterexamples
In comments to a recent post, Ken Aizawa raised the following question: How is the development of a counterexample [to a philosophical theory] different than the development of a falsifiable/falsified prediction of a scientific theory? I think this is a fascinating question that gets at the heart of contemporaty philosophical methodology, and I’d be curious to …
Turing, von Neumann, and the Computer
It is possible to take two opposite lines on the origin of the modern computer. (There should also be a place for Babbage in this story, but I will set that aside.) One line says that Turing invented the computer in his 1936 mathematical paper. After that, it was just …
Computational Explanation in Neuroscience
As many of you know, the journal Synthese devotes one issue per year to the philosophy of neuroscience. If you work in this area, you should definitely consider submitting articles to John Bickle, who is in charge of the yearly issue in question. This year, most of the yearly Synthese …
Mind, Metaphysics, and Philosophy of Science
The theme underlying the current NEH Seminar in Mind and Metaphysics is that there is a deficit of metaphysics in contemporary philosophy of mind and a deficit of ontological seriousness in contemporary metaphysics. According to John Heil, who is the seminar organizer and director, much of the talk of counterfactuals, …