Related papers: What does it mean for a system to compute?
Computing is a high-level process of a physical system. Recent interest in non-standard computing systems, including quantum and biological computers, has brought this physical basis of computing to the forefront. There has been, however,…
The study of neural computation aims to understand the function of a neural system as an information processing machine. Neural systems are undoubtedly complex, necessitating principled and automated tools to abstract away details to…
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…
We study the computational complexity theory of smooth, finite-dimensional dynamical systems. Building off of previous work, we give definitions for what it means for a smooth dynamical system to simulate a Turing machine. We then show that…
Although individual neurons and neural populations exhibit the phenomenon of representational drift, perceptual and behavioral outputs of many neural circuits can remain stable across time scales over which representational drift is…
Unlike computation or the numerical analysis of differential equations, simulation does not have a well established conceptual and mathematical foundation. Simulation is an arguable unique union of modeling and computation. However,…
We need much better understanding of information processing and computation as its primary form. Future progress of new computational devices capable of dealing with problems of big data, internet of things, semantic web, cognitive robotics…
Information theory and the framework of information dynamics have been used to provide tools to characterise complex systems. In particular, we are interested in quantifying information storage, information modification and information…
Interconnected dynamic systems are a pervasive component of our modern infrastructures. The complexity of such systems can be staggering, which motivates simplified representations for their manipulation and analysis. This work introduces…
The aim of this paper is to propose an alternative behavioural definition of computation (and of a computer) based simply on whether a system is capable of reacting to the environment-the input-as reflected in a measure of programmability.…
Many complex systems can be modeled as multiagent systems in which the constituent entities (agents) interact with each other. The global dynamics of such a system is determined by the nature of the local interactions among the agents.…
Computation is commonly defined as the execution of abstract algorithms over symbolic representations, with physical systems treated as substrates that realise predefined operations. While effective for engineered machines, this separation…
We survey an area of recent development, relating dynamics to theoretical computer science. We discuss the theoretical limits of simulation and computation of interesting quantities in dynamical systems. We will focus on central objects of…
Dynamical systems are a broad class of mathematical tools used to describe the evolution of physical and computational processes. Traditionally these processes model changing entities in a static world. Picture a ball rolling on an empty…
Living systems, from single cells to higher vertebrates, receive a continuous stream of non-stationary inputs that they sense, e.g., via cell surface receptors or sensory organs. Integrating these time-varying, multi-sensory, and often…
The nature of distributed computation has often been described in terms of the component operations of universal computation: information storage, transfer and modification. We review the first complete framework that quantifies each of…
This paper establishes a general framework for describing hybrid dynamical systems which is particularly suitable for numerical simulation. In this context, the data structures used to describe the sets and functions which comprise the…
The present article introduces a reference framework for discussing resilience of computational systems. Rather than a property that may or may not be exhibited by a system, resilience is interpreted here as the emerging result of a dynamic…
Intrinsic computation refers to how dynamical systems store, structure, and transform historical and spatial information. By graphing a measure of structural complexity against a measure of randomness, complexity-entropy diagrams display…
This paper introduces abstractions that are meaningful for computers and that can be built and used according to computers' own criteria, i.e., computable abstractions. It is analyzed how abstractions can be seen to serve as the building…