Radical embodiment and morphological computation: Against the autonomy of (some) special sciences

Calvo, Paco and Symons, John (2008) Radical embodiment and morphological computation: Against the autonomy of (some) special sciences. In [2008] Reduction and the Special Sciences (Tilburg, April 10-12, 2008).

Abstract

An asymmetry between the demands at the computational and algorithmic levels of description furnishes the illusion that the abstract profile at the computational level can be multiply realized, and that something is actually being shared at the algorithmic one. A disembodied rendering of the situation lays the stress upon the different ways in which an algorithm can be implemented. However, from an embodied approach, things look rather different. The relevant pairing, I shall argue, is not between implementation and algorithm, but rather between algorithm and computation. The autonomy of psychology is a result of the failure to appreciate this point.