Philosophy of computer science - Wikipedia Philosophy of computer science From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search The philosophy of computer science is concerned with the philosophical questions that arise within the study of computer science. There is still no common understanding of the content, aim, focus, or topic of the philosophy of computer science,[1] despite some attempts to develop a philosophy of computer science like the philosophy of physics or the philosophy of mathematics. Due to the abstract nature of computer programs and the technological ambitions of computer science, many of the conceptual questions of the philosophy of computer science are also comparable to the philosophy of science, and the philosophy of technology.[2] Contents 1 Overview 2 Church–Turing thesis 3 P versus NP problem 4 See also 5 References 6 Further reading 7 External links Overview[edit] Many of the central philosophical questions of computer science are centered on the logical, ontological and epistemological issues that concern it.[3] Some of these questions may include: What is computation? Does the Church–Turing thesis capture the mathematical notion of an effective method in logic and mathematics?[4][5] What are the philosophical consequences of the P vs NP problem? What is information? Church–Turing thesis[edit] The Church–Turing thesis and its variations are central to the theory of computation. Since, as an informal notion, the concept of effective calculability does not have a formal definition, the thesis, although it has near-universal acceptance, cannot be formally proven. The implications of this thesis is also of philosophical concern. Philosophers have interpreted the Church–Turing thesis as having implications for the philosophy of mind.[6][7] P versus NP problem[edit] The P versus NP problem is an unsolved problem in computer science and mathematics. It asks whether every problem whose solution can be verified in polynomial time (and so defined to belong to the class NP) can also be solved in polynomial time (and so defined to belong to the class P). Most computer scientists believe that P ≠ NP.[8][9] Apart from the reason that after decades of studying these problems no one has been able to find a polynomial-time algorithm for any of more than 3000 important known NP-complete problems, philosophical reasons that concern its implications may have motivated this belief. Scott Aaronson, the American computer scientist then at MIT, said: If P = NP, then the world would be a profoundly different place than we usually assume it to be. There would be no special value in "creative leaps", no fundamental gap between solving a problem and recognizing the solution once it's found. Everyone who could appreciate a symphony would be Mozart; everyone who could follow a step-by-step argument would be Gauss. See also[edit] Computer-assisted proof: Philosophical objections Philosophy of artificial intelligence Philosophy of information Philosophy of mathematics Philosophy of science Philosophy of technology References[edit] ^ Tedre, Matti (2014). The Science of Computing: Shaping a Discipline. Chapman Hall. ^ Turner, Raymond; Angius, Nicola (2020), "The Philosophy of Computer Science", in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2020 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 2020-05-21 ^ Turner, Raymond (January 2008). "The Philosophy of Computer Science". Journal of Applied Logic. 6 (4): 459. doi:10.1016/j.jal.2008.09.006 – via ResearchGate. ^ Copeland, B. Jack. "The Church-Turing Thesis". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ^ Hodges, Andrew. "Did Church and Turing have a thesis about machines?". ^ Copeland, B. Jack (November 10, 2017). "The Church-Turing Thesis". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ^ For a good place to encounter original papers see Chalmers, David J., ed. (2002). Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-514581-6. OCLC 610918145. ^ William I. Gasarch (June 2002). "The P=?NP poll" (PDF). SIGACT News. 33 (2): 34–47. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.172.1005. doi:10.1145/564585.564599. S2CID 36828694. Retrieved 26 September 2018. ^ Rosenberger, Jack (May 2012). "P vs. NP poll results". Communications of the ACM. 55 (5): 10. Further reading[edit] Matti Tedre (2014). The Science of Computing: Shaping a Discipline. Chapman Hall. Scott Aaronson. "Why Philosophers Should Care About Computational Complexity". In Computability: Gödel, Turing, Church, and beyond. Timothy Colburn. Philosophy and Computer Science. Explorations in Philosophy. M.E. Sharpe, 1999. ISBN 1-56324-991-X. A.K. Dewdney. New Turing Omnibus: 66 Excursions in Computer Science Luciano Floridi (editor). The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Computing and Information, 2004. Luciano Floridi (editor). Philosophy of Computing and Information: 5 Questions. Automatic Press, 2008. Luciano Floridi. Philosophy and Computing: An Introduction, Routledge, 1999. Christian Jongeneel. The informatical worldview, an inquiry into the methodology of computer science. Jan van Leeuwen. "Towards a philosophy of the information and computing sciences", NIAS Newsletter 42, 2009. Moschovakis, Y. (2001). What is an algorithm? In Enquist, B. and Schmid, W., editors, Mathematics unlimited — 2001 and beyond, pages 919–936. Springer. Alexander Ollongren, Jaap van den Herik. Filosofie van de informatica. London and New York: Routledge, 1999. ISBN 0-415-19749-X Tedre, Matti (2014), The Science of Computing: Shaping a Discipline, ISBN 9781482217698 Taylor and Francis. Ray Turner and Nicola Angius. "The Philosophy of Computer Science". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Matti Tedre (2011). Computing as a Science: A Survey of Competing Viewpoints. Minds & Machines 21, 3, 361–387. Ray Turner. Computational Artefacts-Towards a Philosophy of Computer Science. Springer. [1] External links[edit] The International Association for Computing and Philosophy Philosophy of Computing and Information at PhilPapers A draft version of Philosophy of Computer Science by William J. Rapaport Philosophy of Computation at Berkeley v t e Computer science Note: This template roughly follows the 2012 ACM Computing Classification System. Hardware Printed circuit board Peripheral Integrated circuit Very Large Scale Integration Systems on Chip (SoCs) Energy consumption (Green computing) Electronic design automation Hardware acceleration Computer systems organization Computer architecture Embedded system Real-time computing Dependability Networks Network architecture Network protocol Network components Network scheduler Network performance evaluation Network service Software organization Interpreter Middleware Virtual machine Operating system Software quality Software notations and tools Programming paradigm Programming language Compiler Domain-specific language Modeling language Software framework Integrated development environment Software configuration management Software library Software repository Software development Control variable Software development process Requirements analysis Software design Software construction Software deployment Software maintenance Programming team Open-source model Theory of computation Model of computation Formal language Automata theory Computability theory Computational complexity theory Logic Semantics Algorithms Algorithm design Analysis of algorithms Algorithmic efficiency Randomized algorithm Computational geometry Mathematics of computing Discrete mathematics Probability Statistics Mathematical software Information theory Mathematical analysis Numerical analysis Information systems Database management system Information storage systems Enterprise information system Social information systems Geographic information system Decision support system Process control system Multimedia information system Data mining Digital library Computing platform Digital marketing World Wide Web Information retrieval Security Cryptography Formal methods Security services Intrusion detection system Hardware security Network security Information security Application security Human–computer interaction Interaction design Social computing Ubiquitous computing Visualization Accessibility Concurrency Concurrent computing Parallel computing Distributed computing Multithreading Multiprocessing Artificial intelligence Natural language processing Knowledge representation and reasoning Computer vision Automated planning and scheduling Search methodology Control method Philosophy of artificial intelligence Distributed artificial intelligence Machine learning Supervised learning Unsupervised learning Reinforcement learning Multi-task learning Cross-validation Graphics Animation Rendering Image manipulation Graphics processing unit Mixed reality Virtual reality Image compression Solid modeling Applied computing E-commerce Enterprise software Computational mathematics Computational physics Computational chemistry Computational biology Computational social science Computational engineering Computational healthcare Digital art Electronic publishing Cyberwarfare Electronic voting Video games Word processing Operations research Educational technology Document management Book Category Outline WikiProject Commons v t e Philosophy of science Concepts Analysis Analytic–synthetic distinction A priori and a posteriori Causality Commensurability Consilience Construct Creative synthesis Demarcation problem Empirical evidence Explanatory power Fact Falsifiability Feminist method Functional contextualism Ignoramus et ignorabimus Inductive reasoning Intertheoretic reduction Inquiry Nature Objectivity Observation Paradigm Problem of induction Scientific law Scientific method Scientific revolution Scientific theory Testability Theory choice Theory-ladenness Underdetermination Unity of science Metatheory of science Coherentism Confirmation holism Constructive empiricism Constructive realism Constructivist epistemology Contextualism Conventionalism Deductive-nomological model Hypothetico-deductive model Inductionism Epistemological anarchism Evolutionism Fallibilism Foundationalism Instrumentalism Pragmatism Model-dependent realism Naturalism Physicalism Positivism / Reductionism / Determinism Rationalism / Empiricism Received view / Semantic view of theories Scientific realism / Anti-realism Scientific essentialism Scientific formalism Scientific skepticism Scientism Structuralism Uniformitarianism Vitalism Philosophy of Physics thermal and statistical Motion Chemistry Biology Geography Social science Technology Engineering Artificial intelligence Computer science Information Mind Psychiatry Psychology Perception Space and time Related topics Alchemy Criticism of science Descriptive science Epistemology Faith and rationality Hard and soft science History and philosophy of science History of science History of evolutionary thought Logic Metaphysics Normative science Pseudoscience Relationship between religion and science Rhetoric of science Science studies Sociology of scientific knowledge Sociology of scientific ignorance Philosophers of science by era Ancient Plato Aristotle Stoicism Epicureans Medieval Averroes Avicenna Roger Bacon William of Ockham Hugh of Saint Victor Dominicus Gundissalinus Robert Kilwardby Early modern Francis Bacon Thomas Hobbes René Descartes Galileo Galilei Pierre Gassendi Isaac Newton David Hume Late modern Immanuel Kant Friedrich Schelling William Whewell Auguste Comte John Stuart Mill Herbert Spencer Wilhelm Wundt Charles Sanders Peirce Wilhelm Windelband Henri Poincaré Pierre Duhem Rudolf Steiner Karl Pearson Contemporary Alfred North Whitehead Bertrand Russell Albert Einstein Otto Neurath C. D. Broad Michael Polanyi Hans Reichenbach Rudolf Carnap Karl Popper Carl Gustav Hempel W. V. O. Quine Thomas Kuhn Imre Lakatos Paul Feyerabend Jürgen Habermas Ian Hacking Bas van Fraassen Larry Laudan Daniel Dennett Category  Philosophy portal  Science portal This computer science article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philosophy_of_computer_science&oldid=999054557" Categories: Philosophy of computer science Computer science Computer science stubs Hidden categories: All stub articles Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version Languages العربية Deutsch Español فارسی Français 日本語 Português Suomi தமிழ் Türkçe 粵語 Edit links This page was last edited on 8 January 2021, at 07:44 (UTC). Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers Contact Wikipedia Mobile view Developers Statistics Cookie statement