What is a Computer? A Survey

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

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.

Categories

Keywords

Reprint years

DOI

10.1007/s11023-018-9465-6

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 92,227

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

My notes

Similar books and articles

Computer, Proof, and Testimony.Kai-Yee Wong - 2012 - Studies in Logic 5 (1):50-67.
Computers, information and ethics: A review of issues and literature. [REVIEW]Dr Carl Mitcham - 1995 - Science and Engineering Ethics 1 (2):113-132.
Information systems ethics: A practitioner survey. [REVIEW]Thomas Hilton - 2000 - Journal of Business Ethics 28 (4):279 - 284.
Computer vision for artists and designers: pedagogic tools and techniques for novice programmers. [REVIEW]Golan Levin - 2006 - AI and Society 20 (4):462-482.
Computer ethics: The role of personal, informal, and formal codes. [REVIEW]Margaret Anne Pierce & John W. Henry - 1996 - Journal of Business Ethics 15 (4):425 - 437.
Computing as a Science: A Survey of Competing Viewpoints. [REVIEW]Matti Tedre - 2011 - Minds and Machines 21 (3):361-387.
Marginality in the Information Age: The Socio-Demographics of Computer Disquietude. A Short Research Note.Agnetha Broos & Keith Roe - 2005 - Communications 30 (1):91-96.
Criteria for Evaluating a Computer Aid to Clinical Reasoning.C. Whitbeck & R. Brooks - 1983 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 8 (1):51-66.
Are We Sims? How Computer Simulations Represent and What this Means for the Simulation Argument.Claus Beisbart - 2014 - The Monist 97 (3):399-417.
A Philosophy of Computer Art.Dominic Lopes - 2009 - New York: Routledge.
The unreasonable effectiveness of computer physics.Joseph Dreitlein - 1993 - Foundations of Physics 23 (6):923-930.
Philosophy of Computer Science.William J. Rapaport - 2005 - Teaching Philosophy 28 (4):319-341.
Preliminary Results Of The Survey On Natural Theological Arguments.Helen De Cruz - 2012 - .
Two Issues in Computer Ethics for Non-Programmers.Mark E. Wunderlich - 2010 - International Journal of Applied Philosophy 24 (2):255-264.
Two Issues in Computer Ethics for Non-Programmers.Mark E. Wunderlich - 2010 - International Journal of Applied Philosophy 24 (2):255-264.

Analytics

Added to PP
2018-05-25

Downloads
87 (#195,950)

6 months
17 (#151,744)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

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.

Add more citations

References found in this work

The Rediscovery of the Mind.John R. 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.

View all 81 references / Add more references