•  1918
    Why think that the brain is not a computer?
    APA Newsletter on Philosophy and Computers 16 (2): 22-28. 2016.
    In this paper, I review the objections against the claim that brains are computers, or, to be precise, information-processing mechanisms. By showing that practically all the popular objections are either based on uncharitable interpretation of the claim, or simply wrong, I argue that the claim is likely to be true, relevant to contemporary cognitive (neuro)science, and non-trivial.
  •  1135
    Beyond Formal Structure: A Mechanistic Perspective on Computation and Implementation
    Journal of Cognitive Science 12 (4): 359-379. 2011.
    In this article, after presenting the basic idea of causal accounts of implementation and the problems they are supposed to solve, I sketch the model of computation preferred by Chalmers and argue that it is too limited to do full justice to computational theories in cognitive science. I also argue that it does not suffice to replace Chalmers’ favorite model with a better abstract model of computation; it is necessary to acknowledge the causal structure of physical computers that is not accommod…Read more
  •  1087
    Objections to Computationalism: A Survey
    Roczniki Filozoficzne 66 (3): 57-75. 2018.
    In this paper, the Author reviewed the typical objections against the claim that brains are computers, or, to be more precise, information-processing mechanisms. By showing that practically all the popular objections are based on uncharitable interpretations of the claim, he argues that the claim is likely to be true, relevant to contemporary cognitive science, and non-trivial.
  •  928
    The Hard Problem Of Content: Solved (Long Ago)
    Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric 41 (1): 73-88. 2015.
    In this paper, I argue that even if the Hard Problem of Content, as identified by Hutto and Myin, is important, it was already solved in natu- ralized semantics, and satisfactory solutions to the problem do not rely merely on the notion of information as covariance. I point out that Hutto and Myin have double standards for linguistic and mental representation, which leads to a peculiar inconsistency. Were they to apply the same standards to basic and linguistic minds, they would either have to e…Read more
  •  910
    Reverse-engineering in Cognitive-Science
    In Marcin Miłkowski & Konrad Talmont-Kaminski (eds.), Regarding Mind, Naturally, Cambridge Scholars Press. pp. 12-29. 2013.
    I discuss whether there are some lessons for philosophical inquiry over the nature of simulation to be learnt from the practical methodology of reengineering. I will argue that reengineering serves a similar purpose as simulations in theoretical science such as computational neuroscience or neurorobotics, and that the procedures and heuristics of reengineering help to develop solutions to outstanding problems of simulation.
  •  776
    Is Evolution Algorithmic?
    Minds and Machines 19 (4): 465-475. 2009.
    In Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, Daniel Dennett claims that evolution is algorithmic. On Dennett’s analysis, evolutionary processes are trivially algorithmic because he assumes that all natural processes are algorithmic. I will argue that there are more robust ways to understand algorithmic processes that make the claim that evolution is algorithmic empirical and not conceptual. While laws of nature can be seen as compression algorithms of information about the world, it does not follow logically tha…Read more
  •  640
    Dlaczego Wittgenstein nie był dualistą
    Przeglad Filozoficzny - Nowa Seria 44 (4): 69-83. 2002.
  •  613
    Hegel, Nietzsche i konserwatyzm
    Principia 199-221. 1999.
    Deleuze uważa, ze nie można pogodzić Hegla i Nietzschego. Hegel jest wedle niego abstrakcyjny, a Nietzsche - konkretny. Tymczasem pojęcia "konkret" i "abstrakcja" należą do ideologicznego arsenału konserwatyzmu. Rozpatruję nie tyle prawdziwość tezy Deleuza, co jej genealogię. Hegel i Nietzsche kontynuują oświeceniowe poszukiwania "człowieka konkretnego". "Człowiek konkretny" to wytwór drugiej fazy oświecenia (rodzaj "kompensacji" w znaczeniu Marquarda): przekształcenie parenetyki w filozofię his…Read more
  •  602
    Wyjaśnianie w kognitywistyce
    Przeglad Filozoficzny - Nowa Seria 86 (2): 151-166. 2013.
    The paper defends the claim that the mechanistic explanation of information processing is the fundamental kind of explanation in cognitive science. These mechanisms are complex organized systems whose functioning depends on the orchestrated interaction of their component parts and processes. A constitutive explanation of every mechanism must include both appeal to its environment and to the role it plays in it. This role has been traditionally dubbed competence. To fully explain how this role is…Read more
  •  579
    Computation and Multiple Realizability
    In Vincent C. Müller (ed.), Fundamental Issues of Artificial Intelligence, Springer. pp. 29-41. 2016.
    Multiple realizability (MR) is traditionally conceived of as the feature of computational systems, and has been used to argue for irreducibility of higher-level theories. I will show that there are several ways a computational system may be seen to display MR. These ways correspond to (at least) five ways one can conceive of the function of the physical computational system. However, they do not match common intuitions about MR. I show that MR is deeply interest-related, and for this reason, dif…Read more
  •  572
    Many philosophers use “physicalism” and “naturalism” interchangeably. In this paper, I will distinguish ontological naturalism from physicalism. While broad versions of physicalism are compatible with naturalism, naturalism doesn't have to be committed to strong versions of physical reductionism, so it cannot be defined as equivalent to it. Instead of relying on the notion of ideal physics, naturalism can refer to the notion of ideal natural science that doesn't imply unity of science. The notio…Read more
  •  569
    Naturalizing the Mind
    In Marcin Miłkowski & Konrad Talmont-Kamiński (eds.), Regarding Mind, Naturally, Cambridge Scholars Press. 2013.
    The introduction to the volume and the overview of the idea of naturalizing the mind.
  •  540
    Replicability and reproducibility of computational models has been somewhat understudied by “the replication movement.” In this paper, we draw on methodological studies into the replicability of psychological experiments and on the mechanistic account of explanation to analyze the functions of model replications and model reproductions in computational neuroscience. We contend that model replicability, or independent researchers' ability to obtain the same output using original code and data, an…Read more
  •  522
    On the Social Nature of Linguistic Prescriptions
    Psychology of Language and Communication 17 (2): 175-187. 2013.
    The paper proposes an empirical method to investigate linguistic prescriptions as inherent corrective behaviors. The behaviors in question may but need not necessarily be supported by any explicit knowledge of rules. It is possible to gain insight into them, for example by extracting information about corrections from revision histories of texts (or by analyzing speech corpora where users correct themselves or one another). One easily available source of such information is the revision history …Read more
  •  502
    The claim defended in the paper is that the mechanistic account of explanation can easily embrace idealization in big-scale brain simulations, and that only causally relevant detail should be present in explanatory models. The claim is illustrated with two methodologically different models: Blue Brain, used for particular simulations of the cortical column in hybrid models, and Eliasmith’s SPAUN model that is both biologically realistic and able to explain eight different tasks. By drawing on th…Read more
  •  494
    Unification Strategies in Cognitive Science
    Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric 48 (1). 2016.
    Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary conglomerate of various research fields and disciplines, which increases the risk of fragmentation of cognitive theories. However, while most previous work has focused on theoretical integration, some kinds of integration may turn out to be monstrous, or result in superficially lumped and unrelated bodies of knowledge. In this paper, I distinguish theoretical integration from theoretical unification, and propose some analyses of theoretical unification d…Read more
  •  476
    From Wide Cognition to Mechanisms: A Silent Revolution
    with Robert Clowes, Zuzanna Rucińska, Aleksandra Przegalińska, Tadeusz Zawidzki, Joel Krueger, Adam Gies, Marek McGann, Łukasz Afeltowicz, Witold Wachowski, Fredrik Stjernberg, Victor Loughlin, and Mateusz Hohol
    Frontiers in Psychology 9. 2018.
    In this paper, we argue that several recent ‘wide’ perspectives on cognition (embodied, embedded, extended, enactive, and distributed) are only partially relevant to the study of cognition. While these wide accounts override traditional methodological individualism, the study of cognition has already progressed beyond these proposed perspectives towards building integrated explanations of the mechanisms involved, including not only internal submechanisms but also interactions with others, groups…Read more
  •  467
    Evaluating Artificial Models of Cognition
    Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric 40 (1): 43-62. 2015.
    Artificial models of cognition serve different purposes, and their use determines the way they should be evaluated. There are also models that do not represent any particular biological agents, and there is controversy as to how they should be assessed. At the same time, modelers do evaluate such models as better or worse. There is also a widespread tendency to call for publicly available standards of replicability and benchmarking for such models. In this paper, I argue that proper evaluation o…Read more
  •  454
    Mechanistic Computational Individuation without Biting the Bullet
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. 2019.
    Is the mathematical function being computed by a given physical system determined by the system’s dynamics? This question is at the heart of the indeterminacy of computation phenomenon (Fresco et al. [unpublished]). A paradigmatic example is a conventional electrical AND-gate that is often said to compute conjunction, but it can just as well be used to compute disjunction. Despite the pervasiveness of this phenomenon in physical computational systems, it has been discussed in the philosophical l…Read more
  •  450
    In this paper, I argue that computationalism is a progressive research tradition. Its metaphysical assumptions are that nervous systems are computational, and that information processing is necessary for cognition to occur. First, the primary reasons why information processing should explain cognition are reviewed. Then I argue that early formulations of these reasons are outdated. However, by relying on the mechanistic account of physical computation, they can be recast in a compelling way. Nex…Read more
  •  439
    Social intelligence: how to integrate research? A mechanistic perspective
    Proceedings of the European Conference on Social Intelligence (ECSI-2014). 2014.
    Is there a field of social intelligence? Many various disciplines ap-proach the subject and it may only seem natural to suppose that different fields of study aim at explaining different phenomena; in other words, there is no spe-cial field of study of social intelligence. In this paper, I argue for an opposite claim. Namely, there is a way to integrate research on social intelligence, as long as one accepts the mechanistic account to explanation. Mechanistic inte-gration of different explanatio…Read more
  •  424
    In this paper, we defend a novel, multidimensional account of representational unification, which we distinguish from integration. The dimensions of unity are simplicity, generality and scope, non-monstrosity, and systematization. In our account, unification is a graded property. The account is used to investigate the issue of how research traditions contribute to representational unification, focusing on embodied cognition in cognitive science. Embodied cognition contributes to unification even…Read more
  •  390
    Integrating cognitive (neuro)science using mechanisms
    Avant: Trends in Interdisciplinary Studies (2): 45-67. 2016.
    In this paper, an account of theoretical integration in cognitive (neuro)science from the mechanistic perspective is defended. It is argued that mechanistic patterns of integration can be better understood in terms of constraints on representations of mechanisms, not just on the space of possible mechanisms, as previous accounts of integration had it. This way, integration can be analyzed in more detail with the help of constraintsatisfaction account of coherence between scientific representatio…Read more
  •  390
    Satisfaction conditions in anticipatory mechanisms
    Biology and Philosophy 30 (5): 709-728. 2015.
    The purpose of this paper is to present a general mechanistic framework for analyzing causal representational claims, and offer a way to distinguish genuinely representational explanations from those that invoke representations for honorific purposes. It is usually agreed that rats are capable of navigation because they maintain a cognitive map of their environment. Exactly how and why their neural states give rise to mental representations is a matter of an ongoing debate. I will show that anti…Read more
  •  389
    Heroizm idylliczny - Epikur w oczach Nietzschego
    Przeglad Filozoficzny - Nowa Seria 28 (4): 121-135. 1998.
    Nietzsche's treatment of Epicurus is an interesting example of philosophical hermeneutics. Epicurus bas tren notoriously misinterpreted, claims Nietzsche, because bis mask bas been taken for bis true face. Traditionally Epicurus is presented as a utilitarian or hedonist avant la lettre. This is a simplification motivated by a desire to deprecate bis philosophy. To Nietzsche Epicurus was „an idyllic hero”, a teacher with anistocratic predilections aun his own concept of good, critical of the trad…Read more
  •  387
    Computational Mechanisms and Models of Computation
    Philosophia Scientiae 18 215-228. 2014.
    In most accounts of realization of computational processes by physical mechanisms, it is presupposed that there is one-to-one correspondence between the causally active states of the physical process and the states of the computation. Yet such proposals either stipulate that only one model of computation is implemented, or they do not reflect upon the variety of models that could be implemented physically. In this paper, I claim that mechanistic accounts of computation should allow for a broad v…Read more
  •  385
    Computational Mechanisms and Models of Computation
    Philosophia Scientiae 18 215-228. 2014.
    In most accounts of realization of computational processes by physical mechanisms, it is presupposed that there is one-to-one correspondence between the causally active states of the physical process and the states of the computation. Yet such proposals either stipulate that only one model of computation is implemented, or they do not reflect upon the variety of models that could be implemented physically. In this paper, I claim that mechanistic accounts of computation should allow for a broad …Read more
  •  363
    Thinking about Semantic Information
    Avant: Trends in Interdisciplinary Studies 11 (2): 1-10. 2020.
    In his recent book, Daniel Dennett defends a novel account of semantic information in terms of design worth getting (Dennett, 2017). While this is an interesting proposal in itself, my purpose in this commentary is to challenge several of Dennett’s claims. First, he argues that semantic information can be transferred without encoding and storing it. Second, this lack of encoding is what makes semantic information unmeasurable. However, the argument for both these claims, presented by Dennett as …Read more
  •  349
    Unification by Fiat: Arrested Development of Predictive Processing
    with Piotr Litwin
    Cognitive Science 44 (7). 2020.
    Predictive processing (PP) has been repeatedly presented as a unificatory account of perception, action, and cognition. In this paper, we argue that this is premature: As a unifying theory, PP fails to deliver general, simple, homogeneous, and systematic explanations. By examining its current trajectory of development, we conclude that PP remains only loosely connected both to its computational framework and to its hypothetical biological underpinnings, which makes its fundamentals unclear. Inst…Read more