Related papers: Pancomputationalism: Theory or metaphor?
Quantum theory is a tremendously successful physical theory, but nevertheless suffers from two serious problems: the measurement problem and the problem of interpretational underdetermination. The latter, however, is largely overlooked as a…
The paper presents a paradoxical feature of computational systems that suggests that computationalism cannot explain symbol grounding. If the mind is a digital computer, as computationalism claims, then it can be computing either over…
Quantum computing exposes the brilliance of quantum mechanics through computer science and, as such, gives oneself a marvelous and exhilarating journey to go through. This article leads along that journey with a historical and current…
This piece plays with the idea of the Computocene: an era defined not merely by the ubiquity of computers, but by their deepening role in how we observe, interpret, and make sense of the world. Rather than emphasizing automation, speed,…
A perplexing problem in understanding physical reality is why the universe seems comprehensible, and correspondingly why there should exist physical systems capable of comprehending it. In this essay I explore the possibility that rather…
The notion of programming paradigms, with associated programming languages and methodologies, is a well established tenet of Computer Science pedagogy, enshrined in international curricula. However, this notion sits ill with Kuhn's classic…
The historical development has lead to the decay of Natural Philosophy which until 19th century included all of our knowledge about the physical world into the growing multitude of specialized sciences. The focus on the in-depth enquiry…
This short paper proposes an alternative theory to Anthropic Principle. According to our interpretation, the Universe is not "fine-tuned" for life, but "roughly-tuned" for computation and its biofilness is only a phenomenon. This standpoint…
The Turing machine, as it was presented by Turing himself, models the calculations done by a person. This means that we can compute whatever any Turing machine can compute, and therefore we are Turing complete. The question addressed here…
Inspired by the work of Feynman, Deutsch, We formally propose the theory of physical computability and accordingly, the physical complexity theory. To achieve this, a framework that can evaluate almost all forms of computation using various…
Recent theoretical results confirm that quantum theory provides the possibility of new ways of performing efficient calculations. The most striking example is the factoring problem. It has recently been shown that computers that exploit…
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…
A definition of what counts as an explanation of mathematical statement, and when one explanation is better than another, is given. Since all mathematical facts must be true in all causal models, and hence known by an agent, mathematical…
One might think that, once we know something is computable, how efficiently it can be computed is a practical question with little further philosophical importance. In this essay, I offer a detailed case that one would be wrong. In…
At the intersection of what I call uncomputable art and computational epistemology, a form of experimental philosophy, we find an exciting and promising area of science related to causation with an alternative, possibly best possible,…
A universal Turing machine is a powerful concept - a single device can compute any function that is computable. A universal spin model, similarly, is a class of physical systems whose low energy behavior simulates that of any spin system.…
This pseudo-paper consists of excerpts drawn from two of my quantum-email samizdats. Section 1 draws a picture of a physical world whose essence is ``Darwinism all the way down.'' Section 2 outlines how quantum theory should be viewed in…
Machine learning presents a general, systematic framework for the generation of formal theoretical models for physical description and prediction. Tentatively standard linear modeling techniques are reviewed; followed by a brief discussion…
Vagueness is something everyone is familiar with. In fact, most people think that vagueness is closely related to language and exists only there. However, vagueness is a property of the physical world. Quantum computers harness…
The complexity of quantum computation remains poorly understood. While physicists attempt to find ways to create quantum computers, we still do not have much evidence one way or the other as to how useful these machines will be. The tools…