Modeling Neural Processes as Analog Computations

该奖项支持大脑作为计算系统的理论研究。它的动机是计算神经科学的发展，越来越清楚的是，大脑的计算意义与数字计算完全不同，数字计算是计算机科学的主导。研究人员将通过借鉴神经科学的当前研究和模拟计算的历史研究，开发一个神经计算的哲学解释。这个跨学科项目的结果将有助于从理论上理解心理学家和神经科学家关于心灵和大脑的计算性质的有趣主张。研究结果将在计算神经科学和科学哲学的会议和研讨会上发表。这项研究的结果将发表在一本适合认知科学界研究人员的跨学科专著中。更广泛地说，这些发现将被纳入课程，以帮助科学和人文学科的学生更好地理解这类主张。尽管神经科学和理论计算研究之间的早期智力交流，但人们不再清楚大脑计算的主张究竟是什么意思。因为大脑不可能是一台数字计算机，而图灵机是这种计算机的理论基础，所以大脑具有计算性的说法要么是空洞的，要么是隐喻性的，要么是需要对计算进行原则性的解释。本研究项目将提供这样一个帐户。它将有助于推进神经科学的哲学，并将为计算神经科学家的大脑是一台计算机的主张提供急需的理论支持，这是一个有趣的想法，尚未被仔细阐述。目前关于计算的想法在很大程度上忽略了模拟计算，这曾经是计算实践的一个蓬勃发展的范例。模拟计算的复兴将增加我们的智力储备，使我们能够将其他系统视为计算系统。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award supports theoretical research into the brain as a computational system. It is motivated by developments in computational neuroscience where it has become increasingly clear that the sense in which the brain is computational is completely different from digital computation, the kind that predominates computer science. The researcher will develop an empirically-informed philosophical account of neural computation by drawing on current research in neuroscience and in historical research on analog computation. The results of this interdisciplinary project will contribute to the theoretical understanding of intriguing claims by psychologists and neuroscientists about the computational nature of the mind and brain. Findings are to be presented at conferences and workshops in computational neuroscience and in philosophy of science. The results of this research are to be published in an interdisciplinary monograph suitable for researchers in the cognitive science community. More broadly, the findings will be incorporated in courses to help students in both the sciences and humanities to make better sense of these kinds of claims.Despite the early intellectual exchanges between neuroscience and the study of theoretical computation, it is no longer clear precisely what is meant by claims that the brain computes. Because the brain cannot be a digital computer of the kind whose theoretical underpinnings are found with the Turing Machine, claims that the brain is computational are either vacuous or metaphorical, or in need of a principled account of computation. This research project will provide such an account. It will serve to advance philosophy of neuroscience, and it will provide much-needed theoretical support to computational neuroscientists' claims that the brain is a computer, an intriguing idea that has yet to be carefully articulated. Current ideas about computation have largely ignored analog computation, which was once a thriving paradigm for computational practice. The rehabilitation of analog computation would add to our intellectual repertoire for thinking about other systems as computational.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.