Desiderata of a Theory of Computation

The chapter outlines the various demands that arise in a philosophical account of physical computation. It discusses two lists of desiderata put forward by Smith (1996, 2002) and Piccinini (2007, 2015), and argues that a key desideratum is to formulate classification criteria that distinguish computing from non-computing physical systems. It further suggests that the distinction between these criteria for distinguishing computing from non-computing systems (the-right-things-compute and the-wrong-things-don’t-compute) might differ from the criteria for classifying different kinds of computation. It also argues that we need not require substantive demands about the objectivity and the utility of computation in advance.