Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-qlrfm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-16T02:54:00.906Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Implementation as Resemblance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

André Curtis-Trudel
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article advertises a new account of computational implementation. According to the resemblance account, implementation is a matter of resembling a computational architecture. The resemblance account departs from previous theories by denying that computational architectures are exhausted by their formal, mathematical features. Instead, they are taken to be permeated with causality, spatiotemporality, and other nonmathematical features. I argue that this approach comports well with computer scientific practice and offers a novel response to so-called triviality arguments.

Type
Computer Simulation and Computer Science
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 88 , Issue 5 , December 2021 , pp. 1021 - 1032
Copyright
Copyright 2021 by the Philosophy of Science Association. All rights reserved.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

For helpful comments and discussion I would like to thank Samuel Fletcher, Chris Pincock, Richard Samuels, and Stewart Shapiro. I would also like to thank audiences at the Ohio State Graduate Student Workshop, the 2019 Society for the Metaphysics of Science conference, and the American Philosophical Association (APA) 2020 Central Division meeting for comments and feedback. Special thanks go to Michael Rescorla, whose APA commentary led to substantial improvements in the article.

References

Block, N. 1995. “The Mind as the Software of the Brain.” In An Invitation to Cognitive Science, 2nd ed., ed. Osherson, D. N., et al., 3:377–425. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chalmers, D. J. 1996. “Does a Rock Implement Every Finite-State Automaton?” Synthese 108 (3): 309–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Copeland, B. J. 1996. “What Is Computation?” Synthese 108 (3): 335–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Copeland, B. J., and Shagrir, O.. 2011. “Do Accelerating Turing Machines Compute the Uncomputable?” Minds and Machines 21 (2): 221–39.Google Scholar
Giere, R. N. 1988. Explaining Science: A Cognitive Approach. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, P. 2009. “Triviality Arguments against Functionalism.” Philosophical Studies 145 (2): 273–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hennessy, J. L., and Patterson, D. A.. 2003. Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach. San Francisco: Kaufmann.Google Scholar
Millhouse, T. 2019. “A Simplicity Criterion for Physical Computation.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 70 (1): 153–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piccinini, G. 2012. “Computationalism.” In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Cognitive Science, ed. Samuels, R., Margolis, E., and Stitch, S. P., 222–49. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Piccinini, G.. 2015. Physical Computation: A Mechanistic Account. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rescorla, M. 2014. “A Theory of Computational Implementation.” Synthese 191 (6): 1277–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheutz, M. 2001. “Computational versus Causal Complexity.” Minds and Machines 11 (4): 543–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sieg, W. 2009. “On Computability.” In Philosophy of Mathematics, ed. Irvine, A., 535–630. Burlington, MA: North-Holland.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sprevak, M. 2010. “Computation, Individuation, and the Received View on Representation.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science A 41 (3): 260–70.Google Scholar
Sprevak, M.. 2019. “Triviality Arguments about Computational Implementation.” In Routledge Handbook of the Computational Mind, ed. Sprevak, M. and Colombo, M., 175–91. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Turing, A. 1936. “On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem.” Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society 42 (1): 230–65.Google Scholar
Weisberg, M. 2012. “Getting Serious about Similarity.” Philosophy of Science 79 (5): 785–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar