What is a digital state?
Müller VC (2013)
Publication Type: Conference contribution
Publication year: 2013
Pages Range: 11-16
Conference Proceedings Title: 6th AISB Symposium on Computing and Philosophy: The Scandal of Computation - What is Computation? - AISB Convention 2013
Event location: GBR
ISBN: 9781908187314
Abstract
There is much discussion about whether the human mind is a computer, whether the human brain could be emulated on a computer, and whether at all physical entities are computers (pancomputationalism). These discussions, and others, require criteria for what is digital. 1 I propose that a state is digital if and only if it is a token of a type that serves a particular function - typically a representational function for the system. This proposal is made on a syntactic level, assuming three levels of description (physical, syntactic, semantic). It suggests that being digital is a matter of discovery or rather a matter of how we wish to describe the world, if a functional description can be assumed. Given the criterion provided and the necessary empirical research, we should be in a position to decide on a given system (e.g. the human brain) whether it is a digital system and can thus be reproduced in a different digital system (since digital systems allow multiple realization).
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United Kingdom (GB)How to cite
APA:
Müller, V.C. (2013). What is a digital state? In 6th AISB Symposium on Computing and Philosophy: The Scandal of Computation - What is Computation? - AISB Convention 2013 (pp. 11-16). GBR.
MLA:
Müller, Vincent C.. "What is a digital state?" Proceedings of the 6th AISB Symposium on Computing and Philosophy: The Scandal of Computation - What is Computation?, Held at the AISB Convention 2013, GBR 2013. 11-16.
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