What is a Computer? A Survey

Minds and Machines 28 (3):385-426 (2018)
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Abstract

A critical survey of some attempts to define ‘computer’, beginning with some informal ones, then critically evaluating those of three philosophers, and concluding with an examination of whether the brain and the universe are computers.

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10.1007/s11023-018-9465-6

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William J. Rapaport
State University of New York, Buffalo

Citations of this work

Embodied Cognition and the Grip of Computational Metaphors.Kate Finley - forthcoming - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy.
The philosophy of computer science.Raymond Turner - 2013 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Do Computers "Have Syntax, But No Semantics"?Jaroslav Peregrin - 2021 - Minds and Machines 31 (2):305-321.
Insights in How Computer Science can be a Science.Robert W. P. Luk - 2020 - Science and Philosophy 8 (2):17-46.

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References found in this work

The Rediscovery of the Mind.John Searle - 1992 - MIT Press. Edited by Ned Block & Hilary Putnam.
What numbers could not be.Paul Benacerraf - 1965 - Philosophical Review 74 (1):47-73.
On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem.Alan Turing - 1936 - Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society 42 (1):230-265.
A computational foundation for the study of cognition.David Chalmers - 2011 - Journal of Cognitive Science 12 (4):323-357.

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