Is computation based on interpretation?
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Marcin Miłkowski,
Abstract
I argue that influential purely syntactic views of computation, shared by such philosophers as John Searle and Hilary Putnam, are mistaken. First, I discuss common objections, and during the discussion I mention additional necessary conditions of implementation of computations in physical processes that are neglected in classical philosophical accounts of computation. Then I try to show why realism in regards of physical computations is more plausible, and more coherent with any realistic attitude towards natural science than the received view, and distinguish computational simulation, implementation, and re-engineering. I also point out the sources of confusion about what computation is that seem to stem from disregarding the use/mention distinction.
© 2012 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Prelims
- Semiotics and logic: Pragmatization of the common ground
- Meaning between sense and reference: Impacts of semiotics on philosophy of science
- Where does logic meet semiotics?
- The correspondence theory of truth
- The intent to lie
- Reasoning in belief contexts
- Pragmatic constraints of meaning: An inferentialist approach
- On common knowledge in conversation
- Proofs and mistakes: Their syntactics, semantics, and pragmatics
- Object realism versus mathematical structuralism
- Indeterministic tense operators and the concept of time as a substance
- Counterfactual semantics and quantum physics
- The ultimate strengthening of the Turing Test?
- Is computation based on interpretation?
- The troubles with ontological primacy
- Some remarks on the word “be” and other existential expressions
- The evolution of scientific languages in Ajdukiewicz and Kuhn
- The core of grammar
- The grammar of philosophical discourse
- Semantic bounds for everyday language
- Demonstrative descriptions and conventional implicatures
- Does the Twin-Earth argument rest on a fallacy of equivocation?
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Prelims
- Semiotics and logic: Pragmatization of the common ground
- Meaning between sense and reference: Impacts of semiotics on philosophy of science
- Where does logic meet semiotics?
- The correspondence theory of truth
- The intent to lie
- Reasoning in belief contexts
- Pragmatic constraints of meaning: An inferentialist approach
- On common knowledge in conversation
- Proofs and mistakes: Their syntactics, semantics, and pragmatics
- Object realism versus mathematical structuralism
- Indeterministic tense operators and the concept of time as a substance
- Counterfactual semantics and quantum physics
- The ultimate strengthening of the Turing Test?
- Is computation based on interpretation?
- The troubles with ontological primacy
- Some remarks on the word “be” and other existential expressions
- The evolution of scientific languages in Ajdukiewicz and Kuhn
- The core of grammar
- The grammar of philosophical discourse
- Semantic bounds for everyday language
- Demonstrative descriptions and conventional implicatures
- Does the Twin-Earth argument rest on a fallacy of equivocation?
