Mechanistic Theories in Cognitive Science: The Import of Turing’s Thesis

The current controversies about mechanism (or computationalism) in Cognitive Science (CS, for short) cannot be properly understood without having a relatively clear idea of what mechanism in CS is. Turing’s thesis (TT, for short) contributes to clarifying the meaning of the expressions ‘mechanistic theory’ and ‘mechanism’. This is the basic view, whose motivations are made explicit in section 2, of the import of TT for the philosophy of CS. In particular, TT enables one to set a necessary condition (hereinafter referred to as Cf) on theories in CS to count as mechanistic. This is a functional condition requiring that the laws accounting for the input/output behavior of the subjects in the domain of the theory be expressible in terms of Turing computable functions.

[1]  James B. Hartle,et al.  Computability and physical theories , 1986, 1806.09237.

[2]  A. Turing.  On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem. , 1937 .

[3]  Stephen C. Kleene,et al.  Turing's analysis of computability, and major applications of it , 1988 .

[4]  Hava T. Siegelmann,et al.  Analog computation via neural networks , 1993, [1993] The 2nd Israel Symposium on Theory and Computing Systems.

[5]  Colin Howson,et al.  Mathematics in Philosophy , 1992 .

[6]  John R. Searle,et al.  The Rediscovery of the Mind , 1995, Artif. Intell..

[7]  H T Siegelmann,et al.  Dating and Context of Three Middle Stone Age Sites with Bone Points in the Upper Semliki Valley, Zaire , 2007 .

[8]  Rolf Herken,et al.  Alan Turing and the Turing Machine.Turing's Analysis of Computability, and Major Applications of it.The Confluence of Ideas in 1936.Turing in the Land of O.Mathematical Logic and the Origin of Modern Computers , 1991 .

[9]  Wilfried Sieg,et al.  K-graph machines : generalizing Turing's machines and arguments , 1996 .

[10]  Wilfried Sieg,et al.  Mechanical Procedures and Mathematical Experience , 1991 .

[11]  D W Massaro,et al.  Information processing models: microscopes of the mind. , 1993, Annual review of psychology.

[12]  Rolf Herken,et al.  The Universal Turing Machine: A Half-Century Survey , 1992 .

[13]  H. Keisler,et al.  The Kleene Symposium , 1980 .

[14]  Margaret A. Boden,et al.  Computer models of mind , 1988 .

[15]  Hao Wang.  On Physicalism and Algorithmism: Can machines think? , 1993 .

[16]  Charles D. Parsons,et al.  Platonism and Mathematical Intuition in Kurt Gödel's Thought , 1995, Bulletin of Symbolic Logic.

[17]  Bertrand Russell,et al.  Bertrand Russell: Philosopher of the Century , 1967 .

[18]  K. A. Ericsson,et al.  Verbal reports as data. , 1980 .

[19]  L. De Forest.  A Half Century , 1950 .

[20]  H. Putnam.  Representation and Reality , 1993 .

[21]  Alexander George.  Mathematics and mind , 1994 .

[22]  Allen Newell,et al.  Human Problem Solving. , 1973 .

[23]  S. Guccione,et al.  Mind the truth: Penrose's new step in the Gödelian argument , 1993, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[24]  R. Penrose,et al.  Shadows of the Mind , 1994 .

[25]  Alan M. Turing,et al.  Systems of Logic Based on Ordinals , 2012, Alan Turing's Systems of Logic.

[26]  G. Kreisel.  A Notion of Mechanistic Theory , 1974 .

[27]  A. Church.  An Unsolvable Problem of Elementary Number Theory , 1936 .

[28]  Georg Kreisel,et al.  Which number theoretic problems can be solved in recursive progressions on Π11-paths through O? , 1972, Journal of Symbolic Logic.

[29]  Robin Gandy,et al.  Church's Thesis and Principles for Mechanisms , 1980 .

[30]  A. Newell.  Unified Theories of Cognition , 1990 .

[31]  Patrick Suppes,et al.  Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science , 1963 .

[32]  John Haugeland.  Mind design , 1985 .

[33]  W. Freeman.  Second Commentary: On the proper treatment of connectionism by Paul Smolensky (1988) - Neuromachismo Rekindled , 1989 .

[34]  J. Fodor.  The Modularity of mind. An essay on faculty psychology , 1986 .

[35]  Michael Barr,et al.  The Emperor's New Mind , 1989 .

[36]  P. Martin-Lof,et al.  Constructive mathematics and computer programming , 1984, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences.

[37]  Rolf Herken,et al.  Retrieved July 19 2004 Universal Turing Machine , 2011 .

[38]  D. Marr,et al.  Artificial Intelligence - A Personal View , 1976, Artif. Intell..

[39]  John R. Searle,et al.  Consciousness, explanatory inversion, and cognitive science , 1990, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[40]  F. Crick.  Thinking about the brain. , 1979, Scientific American.