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Computation, San Diego Style

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Oron Shagrir
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Abstract

What does it mean to say that a physical system computes or, specifically, to say that the nervous system computes? One answer, endorsed here, is that computing is a sort of modeling. I trace this line of answer in the conceptual and philosophical work conducted over the last 3 decades by researchers associated with the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). The linkage between their work and the modeling notion is no coincidence: the modeling notion aims to account for the computational approach in neuroscience, and UCSD has been home to central studies in neurophilosophy, connectionism, and computational neuroscience.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 77 , Issue 5 , December 2010 , pp. 862 - 874
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

Thanks to Yonatan Loewenstein, Gualtiero Piccinini, and a journal referee. This research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation grant 725/08.

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