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In The Physical Signature of Computation, Neal Anderson and Gualtiero Piccinini articulate and defend the robust mapping account--the most systematic, rigorous, and comprehensive account of computational implementation to date. Drawing in part from recent results in physical information theory, they argue that mapping accounts of implementation can be made adequate by incorporating appropriate physical constraints. According to the robust mapping account, the key constraint on mappings from physical to computational states--the key for establishing that a computation is physically implemented--is physical-computational equivalence: evolving physical states bear neither more nor less information about the evolving computation than do the computational states they map onto. When this highly nontrivial constraint is satisfied, among others that are spelled out as part of the account, a physical system can be said to implement a computation in a robust sense, which means that the system bears the physical signature of the computation. Anderson and Piccinini apply their robust mapping account to important questions in physical foundations of computation and cognitive science, including the alleged indeterminacy of computation, pancomputationalism, and the computational theory of mind. They show that physical computation is determinate, nontrivial versions of pancomputationalism fail, and cognition involves computation only insofar as neurocognitive systems bear the physical signature of specific computations. They also argue that both consciousness and physics outstrip computation.
Introduction
Physical Computation: A Philosophical Primer
Computation: Abstract and Concrete
Computation and Simulation
Extensional Adequacy: What Does and Does Not Compute
Pancomputationalism: Insight or Illusion?
Desiderata for Accounts of Physical Computation
Three Accounts of Concrete Computation: Mapping, Semantic, and Mechanistic
The Physical Church-Turing Thesis
Summary
Physical and Computational Description
What Is Physical?
Physical Systems and Physical Description
Classes of Physical Description
Computing Systems and Their Formal Definition
Similarities and Differences between Physical and Computational Descriptions
Summary
Computational Description of Physical Systems
Physical-to-Computational Mappings (PCMs)
Computational Description of a Physical System (CDPS) Defined
Remarks on Computational Descriptions of Physical Systems
Summary
Descriptive Strength and the Adequacy of Implementation Claims
Criterion S: Computational States
Criterion P: Computational Processes
Criterion PCE: Physical-Computational Equivalence
Criterion U: Usability
Classification of Computational Descriptions
Evaluating Implementation Claims
Summary
The Robust Mapping Account of Implementation
The Robust Mapping Account
The Robust Mapping Account as an Account of Physical Computation
Formalizing the Robust Mapping Account in Physical Information Theory
Summary
Unlimited Pancomputationalism
Arguments for Unlimited Pancomputationalism
Complex Open Systems
Systems with Clocks and Dials
Combinatorial State Automata
Discussion: What Accepting Unlimited Pancomputationalism Means
Summary
Limited Pancomputationalism
Arguments for Limited Pancomputationalism
Causal Limited Pancomputationalism
Informational Limited Pancomputationalism
Universal Limited Pancomputationalism
Summary
Ontic Pancomputationalism
Forms of Ontic Pancomputationalism and Their Empirical Claims
The Metaphysical Component of Ontic Pancomputationalism
Weak Simulationism
Strong Simulationism
Computational Pythagoreanism
Computational Structuralism
Summary
Computation and the Mind
What Is a Mind?
Levels, Powers, and Qualities
Mechanisms, Multiple Realizability, and Medium Independence
Organisms and Teleological Functions
Cognitive Computation
Computation and Consciousness
Consciousness beyond Computation
Summary
Conclusion: The Physical Signature of Computation
Computational Descriptions of Physical Systems and the Robust Mapping Account
The Illusion of Pancomputationalism: Why Not Everything Computes
The Robust Mapping Account in Context
Toward a Unified Account of Biological and Artifact Computation
Conclusion