The representational entity in physical computing

Stepney, Susan; Kendon, Viv

Abstract

We have developed abstraction/representation (AR) theory to answer the question “When does a physical system compute?” AR theory requires the existence of a representational entity (RE), but the vanilla theory does not explicitly include the RE in its definition of physical computing. Here we extend the theory by showing how the RE forms a linked complementary model to the physical computing model. We show that the RE does not need to be a human brain, by demonstrating its use in the case of intrinsic computing in a non-human RE: a bacterium.

Citation

Stepney, S., & Kendon, V. (2021). The representational entity in physical computing. Natural Computing, 20(2), 233-242. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11047-020-09805-3

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 1, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Sep 18, 2020
• Publication Date: 2021-06
• Deposit Date: Oct 7, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 7, 2020
• Journal: Natural Computing
• Print ISSN: 1567-7818
• Electronic ISSN: 1572-9796
• Publisher: Springer
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 20
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 233-242
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11047-020-09805-3
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1260733