Postgraduates work in progress

Speaker: Luke Kersten

Title: Deepening Wide Computationalism

Abstract: Computational theories of mind have been with us now for nearly 60 years. In that time, computation has been conceived of as everything from sub-symbolic processing to generic information processing. Yet one view that has received surprisingly little attention within this family is what has been called ‘wide computationalism’, the view that at least some of the units of computational processes reside outside the individual. The aim of this paper is to reinvigorate interest in wide computation by further developing the ‘mechanistic’ account. My goal is to show that wide computationalism provides a viable theoretical and methodological option for cognitive science when married to mechanistic accounts. I begin by squaring wide computationalism with two of the leading accounts of mechanistic computation, showing how and why wide computationalism emerges as a natural product of mechanistic approaches. Next, I explore some of the methodological dimensions of the view, articulating two conditions for identifying wide computing mechanisms. Finally, I conclude by responding to potential objections and highlight some of the advantages associated adopting the mechanistic account.