Epistemology & Cognition Lab

Prof. Nir Fresco

A revised attack on computational ontology

Nir Fresco, Phillip J. Staines

There has been an ongoing conflict regarding whether reality is fundamentally digital or analogue. Recently, Floridi has argued that this dichotomy is misapplied. For any attempt to analyse noumenal reality independently of any level of abstraction at which the analysis is conducted is mistaken. In the pars destruens of this paper, we argue that Floridi does not establish that it is only levels of abstraction that are analogue or digital, rather than noumenal reality. In the pars construens of this paper, we reject a classification of noumenal reality as a deterministic discrete computational system. We show, based on considerations from classical physics, why a deterministic computational view of the universe faces problems (e.g., a reversible computational universe cannot be strictly deterministic).

Publication language English
Pages 101-122
Journal Minds and Machines
Volume 24
Issue number 1
Publication status Published - 01.01.2014

Keywords

Deterministic
Digital
Digital computation
Digital ontology
Discrete
Entropy
Levels of abstraction
Reversible computation

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Philosophy
Artificial Intelligence
Access to Document
10.1007/s11023-013-9327-1
Other files and links
Link to publication in Scopus