Jack Copeland – författare

Alan Turing has long proved a subject of fascination, but following the centenary of his birth in 2012, the code-breaker, computer pioneer, mathematician (and much more) has become even more celebrated with much media coverage, and several meetings, conferences and books raising public awareness of Turing's life and work.This volume will bring together contributions from some of the leading experts on Alan Turing to create a comprehensive guide to Turing that will serve as a useful resource for researchers in the area as well as the increasingly interested general reader. The book will cover aspects of Turing's life and the wide range of his intellectual activities, including mathematics, code-breaking, computer science, logic, artificial intelligence and mathematical biology, as well as his subsequent influence.

Alan Turing has long proved a subject of fascination, but following the centenary of his birth in 2012, the code-breaker, computer pioneer, mathematician (and much more) has become even more celebrated with much media coverage, and several meetings, conferences and books raising public awareness of Turing's life and work.This volume will bring together contributions from some of the leading experts on Alan Turing to create a comprehensive guide to Turing that will serve as a useful resource for researchers in the area as well as the increasingly interested general reader. The book will cover aspects of Turing's life and the wide range of his intellectual activities, including mathematics, code-breaking, computer science, logic, artificial intelligence and mathematical biology, as well as his subsequent influence.

Presupposing no familiarity with the technical concepts of either philosophy or computing, this clear introduction reviews the progress made in AI since the inception of the field in 1956. Copeland goes on to analyze what those working in AI must achieve before they can claim to have built a thinking machine and appraises their prospects of succeeding. There are clear introductions to connectionism and to the language of thought hypothesis which weave together material from philosophy, artificial intelligence and neuroscience. John Searle's attacks on AI and cognitive science are countered and close attention is given to foundational issues, including the nature of computation, Turing Machines, the Church-Turing Thesis and the difference between classical symbol processing and parallel distributed processing. The book also explores the possibility of machines having free will and consciousness and concludes with a discussion of in what sense the human brain may be a computer.

This element describes an emerging and intriguing topic: computational indeterminacy. Indeterminacy occurs when a fixed physical system potentially computes several different functions, and there is no fact of the matter which of these is actually being computed by the system. The phenomenon of computational indeterminacy has potential significance for a number of fields, including neuroscience and cognitive science, artificial intelligence (AI), the theory of algorithms, and circuit design. Here we address foundational and philosophical issues. We also explain how the indeterminacy phenomenon impacts on current thinking about the nature of physical computation. Computational indeterminacy is the subject of a growing number of articles in specialist journals, and The Indeterminacy of Computation introduces the topic to a wider audience. The style is clear and informal, with many helpful diagrams. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

This element describes an emerging and intriguing topic: computational indeterminacy. Indeterminacy occurs when a fixed physical system potentially computes several different functions, and there is no fact of the matter which of these is actually being computed by the system. The phenomenon of computational indeterminacy has potential significance for a number of fields, including neuroscience and cognitive science, artificial intelligence (AI), the theory of algorithms, and circuit design. Here we address foundational and philosophical issues. We also explain how the indeterminacy phenomenon impacts on current thinking about the nature of physical computation. Computational indeterminacy is the subject of a growing number of articles in specialist journals, and The Indeterminacy of Computation introduces the topic to a wider audience. The style is clear and informal, with many helpful diagrams. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.