Syntax, Semantics, and Computer Programs

Philosophy and Technology 33 (2):309-321 (2020)
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Abstract

Turner argues that computer programs must have purposes, that implementation is not a kind of semantics, and that computers might need to understand what they do. I respectfully disagree: Computer programs need not have purposes, implementation is a kind of semantic interpretation, and neither human computers nor computing machines need to understand what they do.

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10.1007/s13347-019-00365-8

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William J. Rapaport
State University of New York, Buffalo

Citations of this work

What is a Simulation Model?Juan M. Durán - 2020 - Minds and Machines 30 (3):301-323.
Computational Artifacts: the Things of Computer Science.Raymond Turner - 2019 - Philosophy and Technology 10 (2):47-69.

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References found in this work

On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem.Alan Turing - 1936 - Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society 42 (1):230-265.
Explanation: a mechanist alternative.William Bechtel & Adele Abrahamsen - 2005 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 36 (2):421-441.
Physical Computation: A Mechanistic Account.Gualtiero Piccinini - 2015 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.

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