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Computers, Gualtiero Piccinini
Computers, Gualtiero Piccinini
Gualtiero Piccinini
I offer an explication of the notion of computer, grounded in
the practices of computability theorists and computer scientists. I begin by
explaining what distinguishes computers from calculators. Then, I offer a
systematic taxonomy of kinds of computer, including hard-wired versus
programmable, general-purpose versus special-purpose, analog versus
digital, and serial versus parallel, giving explicit criteria for each kind.
My account is mechanistic: which class a system belongs in, and which
functions are computable by which system, depends on the system’s
mechanistic properties. Finally, I briefly illustrate how my account sheds
light on some issues in the history and philosophy of …