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Zusatztext the mechanistic account of physical computation is the best that we currently have ... Physical Computation is eminently readable and well presented, with a clear structure and helpful introduction. ... It provides a thorough ... introduction to the philosophical issues associated with computation in the physical sense and would serve as a good basis for a postgraduate or upper-level undergraduate course on the subject. Piccinini delivers a comprehensive summary of previous work on physical computation, alongside the definitive presentation of his mechanistic account, and I have no doubt that this book will become a valuable resource for future work on the topic. Informationen zum Autor Gualtiero Piccinini is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. Shortly after his appointment to the position in 2005, he founded Brains, which later became a group blog in the philosophy of mind and related sciences. He received early tenure and promotion in 2010 and early promotion to full professor in 2014. Between 2001 and 2014 he was department chair. In 2014, he received the Herbert A. Simon Award from the International Association for Computing and Philosophy for his research in the philosophy of computation. Klappentext Computation permeates our world, but a satisfactory philosophical theory of what it is has been lacking. Gualtiero Piccinini presents a mechanistic account of what makes a physical system a computing system. He argues that computation does not entail representation or information-processing, although information-processing entails computation. Zusammenfassung Computation permeates our world, but a satisfactory philosophical theory of what it is has been lacking. Gualtiero Piccinini presents a mechanistic account of what makes a physical system a computing system. He argues that computation does not entail representation or information-processing, although information-processing entails computation. Inhaltsverzeichnis Acknowledgements Introduction 1: Towards an Account of Physical Computation 2: Mapping Accounts 3: Semantic Accounts 4: Pancomputationalism 5: From Functional Analysis to Mechanistic Explanation 6: The Ontology of Functional Mechanisms 7: The Mechanistic Account 8: Primitive Components of Computing Mechanisms 9: Complex Components of Computing Mechanisms 10: Digital Calculators 11: Digital Computers 12: Analog Computers 13: Parallel Computers and Neural Networks 14: Information Processing 15: The Bold Physical Church-Turing Thesis 16: The Modest Physical Church-Turing Thesis Epilogue: The Nature of Computation Appendix: Computability Bibliography Index ...
