Related papers: The physical Church thesis and the sensitivity to …
We turn `the' Church-Turing Hypothesis from an ambiguous source of sensational speculations into a (collection of) sound and well-defined scientific problem(s): Examining recent controversies, and causes for misunderstanding, concerning the…
Proving the chaoticity of some dynamical systems is equivalent to solving the hardest problems in mathematics. Conversely, one argues that it is not unconceivable that classical physical systems may "compute the hard or even the…
Roughly, the Church-Turing thesis is a hypothesis that describes exactly what can be computed by any real or feasible conceptual computing device. Generally speaking, the computational metaphor is the idea that everything, including the…
Two aspects of the physical side of the Church-Turing thesis are discussed. The first issue is a variant of the Eleatic argument against motion, dealing with Zeno squeezed time cycles of computers. The second argument reviews the issue of…
It is possible in principle to construct quantum mechanical observables and unitary operators which, if implemented in physical systems as measurements and dynamical evolution, would contradict the Church-Turing thesis, which lies at the…
According to the Church-Turing Thesis (CTT), effective formal behaviours can be simulated by Turing machines; this has naturally led to speculation that physical systems can also be simulated computationally. But is this wider claim true,…
On the real numbers, the notions of a semi-decidable relation and that of an effectively enumerable relation differ. The second only seems to be adequate to express, in an algorithmic way, non deterministic physical theories, where…
Physical processes are computations only when we use them to externalize thought. Computation is the performance of one or more fixed processes within a contingent environment. We reformulate the Church-Turing thesis so that it applies to…
We construct quantum mechanical observables and unitary operators which, if implemented in physical systems as measurements and dynamical evolutions, would contradict the Church-Turing thesis which lies at the foundation of computer…
What does it mean to claim that a physical or natural system computes? One answer, endorsed here, is that computing is about programming a system to behave in different ways. This paper offers an account of what it means for a physical…
Notoriously, quantum computation shatters complexity theory, but is innocuous to computability theory. Yet several works have shown how quantum theory as it stands could breach the physical Church-Turing thesis. We draw a clear line as to…
At a first glance the Theory of computation relies on potential infinity and an organization aimed at solving a problem. Under such aspect it is like Mendeleev theory of chemistry. Also its theoretical development reiterates that of this…
We show that Church's thesis, the axiom stating that all functions on the naturals are computable, does not hold in the cubical assemblies model of cubical type theory. We show that nevertheless Church's thesis is consistent with univalent…
Are minds subject to laws of physics? Are the laws of physics computable? Are conscious thought processes computable? Currently there is little agreement as to what are the right answers to these questions. Penrose goes one step further and…
The Church-Turing thesis asserts that if a partial strings-to-strings function is effectively computable then it is computable by a Turing machine. In the 1930s, when Church and Turing worked on their versions of the thesis, there was a…
We report a new limitation on the ability of physical systems to perform computation -- one that is based on generalizing the notion of memory, or storage space, available to the system to perform the computation. Roughly, we define memory…
The conceptual relation between the measurability of quantum mechanical observables and the computability of numerical functions is re-examined. A new formulation is given for the notion of measurability with finite precision in order to…
A physical system is determined by a finite set of initial conditions and "laws" represented by equations. The system is computable if we can solve the equations in all instances using a "finite body of mathematical knowledge". In this…
Provided that there is no theoretical frame for complex engineered systems (CES) as yet, this paper claims that bio-inspired engineering can help provide such a frame. Within CES bio-inspired systems play a key role. The disclosure from…
Hypercomputation is a relatively new branch of computer science that emerged from the idea that the Church--Turing Thesis, which is supposed to describe what is computable and what is noncomputable, cannot possible be true. Because of its…