Bechtel, William and Shagrir, Oron (2014) The Non-­‐Redundant Contributions of Marr’s Three Levels of Analysis for Explaining Information Processing Mechanisms. [Preprint]

PDF bechtelandshagrir.The_Non-reducdant_contribution.pdf Download (225kB)

Abstract

Are all three of Marr’s levels needed? Should they be kept distinct? We argue for the distinct contributions and methodologies of each level of analysis. It is important to maintain them because they provide three different perspectives required to understand mechanisms, especially information processing mechanisms. The computational perspective provides understanding of how a mechanism functions in broader environments that determine the computations it needs to perform (and may fail to perform). The representation and algorithmic perspective offer an understanding of how information about the environment is encoded within the mechanism and what are the patterns of organization that enable the parts of the mechanism to produce the phenomenon. The implementation perspective yields an understanding of the neural details of the mechanism and how they constrain function and algorithms. Once we adequately characterize the distinct role of each level of analysis, it is fairly straightforward to see how they relate.

---

Export/Citation:

EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL

Social Networking:

Share |

---

Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Bechtel, William bechtel@ucsd.edu Shagrir, Oron oron.shagrir@gmail.com
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Complex Systems General Issues > Explanation
Depositing User:	Professor William Bechtel
Date Deposited:	22 Dec 2014 16:14
Last Modified:	22 Dec 2014 16:14
Item ID:	11225
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Complex Systems General Issues > Explanation
Date:	19 December 2014
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/11225

Monthly Views for the past 3 years

Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years

Plum Analytics

Actions (login required)

View Item