•  13
    Medium Independence and the Failure of the Mechanistic Account of Computation
    Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 10 (n/a). 2023.
    Current orthodoxy takes representation to be essential to computation. However, a philosophical account of computation that does not appeal to representation would be useful, given the difficulties involved in successfully theorizing representation. Piccinini's recent mechanistic account of computation proposes to do just that: it couches computation in terms of what certain mechanisms do without requiring the manipulation or processing of representations whatsoever (Piccinini 2015). Most crucia…Read more
  •  45
    Icons, Magnitudes, and Their Parts
    Critica 55 (163): 129-154. 2023.
    Analog representations come in different types. One distinction is between those representations that have parts that are themselves representations and those that do not (i.e., those for which the Parts Principle is true and those for which it is not). I offer a unified account of analog representation, showing what all types have in common. This account clarifies when the Parts Principle applies and when it does not, thereby illuminating why the Parts Principle is less interesting than one mig…Read more
  •  795
    Panpsychism and AI consciousness
    Synthese 200 (3): 1-22. 2022.
    This article argues that if panpsychism is true, then there are grounds for thinking that digitally-based artificial intelligence may be incapable of having coherent macrophenomenal conscious experiences. Section 1 briefly surveys research indicating that neural function and phenomenal consciousness may be both analog in nature. We show that physical and phenomenal magnitudes—such as rates of neural firing and the phenomenally experienced loudness of sounds—appear to covary monotonically with th…Read more
  •  108
    The physicality of representation
    Synthese 199 (5-6): 14725-14750. 2021.
    Representation is typically taken to be importantly separate from its physical implementation. This is exemplified in Marr’s three-level framework, widely cited and often adopted in neuroscience. However, the separation between representation and physical implementation is not a necessary feature of information-processing systems. In particular, when it comes to analog computational systems, Marr’s representational/algorithmic level and implementational level collapse into a single level. Insofa…Read more
  •  116
    Analogue Computation and Representation
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 74 (3): 739-769. 2023.
    Relative to digital computation, analogue computation has been neglected in the philosophical literature. To the extent that attention has been paid to analogue computation, it has been misunderstood. The received view—that analogue computation has to do essentially with continuity—is simply wrong, as shown by careful attention to historical examples of discontinuous, discrete analogue computers. Instead of the received view, I develop an account of analogue computation in terms of a particular …Read more
  •  47
    The Moral Psychology of Guilt (edited book)
    Rowman & Littlefield International. 2019.
    Philosophers and psychologists come together to think systematically about the nature and value of guilt, looking at the biological origins and psychological nature of guilt, and then discussing the culturally enriched conceptions of this vital moral emotion.
  •  59
    Continuous Neural Spikes and Information Theory
    Review of Philosophy and Psychology 11 (3): 647-667. 2020.
    Can information theory be used to understand neural signaling? Yes, but assumptions have to be made about the nature of that signaling. The traditional view is that the individual neural spike is an all-or-none phenomenon, which allows neural spikes to be viewed as discrete, binary pulses, similar in kind to the signals in digital computers. Under this assumption, the tools of information theory can be used to derive results about the properties of neural signals. However, new results from neuro…Read more
  •  66
    Toward Analog Neural Computation
    Minds and Machines 28 (1): 77-91. 2018.
    Computationalism about the brain is the view that the brain literally performs computations. For the view to be interesting, we need an account of computation. The most well-developed account of computation is Turing Machine computation, the account provided by theoretical computer science which provides the basis for contemporary digital computers. Some have thought that, given the seemingly-close analogy between the all-or-nothing nature of neural spikes in brains and the binary nature of digi…Read more
  •  7
    Changes in Events Alter How People Remember Recent Information
    with Khena M. Swallow, Deanna M. Barch, Denise Head, Derek Holder, and Jeffrey M. Zacks
    Observers spontaneously segment larger activities into smaller events. For example, “washing a car” might be segmented into “scrubbing,” “rinsing,” and “drying” the car. This process, called event segmentation, separates “what is happening now” from “what just happened.” In this study, we show that event segmentation predicts activity in the hippocampus when people access recent information. Participants watched narrative film and occasionally attempted to retrieve from memory objects that recen…Read more
  •  401
    Analog and digital, continuous and discrete
    Philosophical Studies 155 (1): 117-131. 2011.
    Representation is central to contemporary theorizing about the mind/brain. But the nature of representation--both in the mind/brain and more generally--is a source of ongoing controversy. One way of categorizing representational types is to distinguish between the analog and the digital: the received view is that analog representations vary smoothly, while digital representations vary in a step-wise manner. I argue that this characterization is inadequate to account for the ways in which represe…Read more
  •  262
    Get the Latest Upgrade: Functionalism 6.3.1
    Philosophia Scientae 17 (2): 135-149. 2013.
    Functionalism is a popular solution to the mind–body problem. It has a number of versions. We outline some of the major releases of functionalism, listing some of their important features as well as some of the bugs that plagued these releases. We outline how different versions are related. Many have been pessimistic about functionalism’s prospects, but most criticisms have missed the latest upgrades. We end by suggesting a version of functionalism that provides a complete account of the mind.
  •  105
    Is Consciousness a Spandrel?
    Journal of the American Philosophical Association 1 (2): 365--383. 2015.
    ABSTRACT:Determining the biological function of phenomenal consciousness appears necessary to explain its origin: evolution by natural selection operates on organisms’ traits based on the biological functions they fulfill. But identifying the function of phenomenal consciousness has proven difficult. Some have proposed that the function of phenomenal consciousness is to facilitate mental processes such as reasoning or learning. But mental processes such as reasoning and learning seem to be possi…Read more