Overview
- Presents recent advances in natural computation, intended as computation found in nature, computation performed by natural materials and computation inspired by nature
- Analyzes the relevance of the relationship between human representation and machine representation, the contrast between symbolic representation and processing on the one hand and nature-inspired, non-symbolic forms of computation on the other hand, with a special focus on connectionism
- Includes a selection of contributions from the Symposium on Natural Computing/Unconventional Computing and Its Philosophical Significance held during the AISB/IACAP World Congress 2012 in Birmingham, UK
- Edited and written by leading experts in the field
Part of the book series: Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics (SAPERE, volume 7)
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Table of contents (17 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This book is about nature considered as the totality of physical existence, the universe, and our present day attempts to understand it. If we see the universe as a network of networks of computational processes at many different levels of organization, what can we learn about physics, biology, cognition, social systems, and ecology expressed through interacting networks of elementary particles, atoms, molecules, cells, (and especially neurons when it comes to understanding of cognition and intelligence), organs, organisms and their ecologies?
Regarding our computational models of natural phenomena Feynman famously wondered: “Why should it take an infinite amount of logic to figure out what one tiny piece of space/time is going to do?” Phenomena themselves occur so quickly and automatically in nature. Can we learn how to harness nature’s computational power as we harness its energy and materials?
This volume includes a selection of contributions from the Symposium on Natural Computing/Unconventional Computing and Its Philosophical Significance, organized during the AISB/IACAP World Congress 2012, held in Birmingham, UK, on July 2-6, on the occasion of the centenary of Alan Turing’s birth. In this book, leading researchers investigated questions of computing nature by exploring various facets of computation as we find it in nature: relationships between different levels of computation, cognition with learning and intelligence, mathematical background, relationships to classical Turing computation and Turing’s ideas about computing nature - unorganized machines and morphogenesis. It addresses questions of information, representation and computation, interaction as communication, concurrency and agent models; in short this book presents natural computing and unconventional computing as extension of the idea of computation as symbolmanipulation.
Editors and Affiliations
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Computing Nature
Book Subtitle: Turing Centenary Perspective
Editors: Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic, Raffaela Giovagnoli
Series Title: Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37225-4
Publisher: Springer Berlin, Heidelberg
eBook Packages: Engineering, Engineering (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-642-37224-7Published: 06 April 2013
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-642-42870-8Published: 12 April 2015
eBook ISBN: 978-3-642-37225-4Published: 21 March 2013
Series ISSN: 2192-6255
Series E-ISSN: 2192-6263
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: VI, 269
Topics: Computational Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind, Theory of Computation