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14 - Computation as conversation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 October 2011

Johan van Benthem
Affiliation:
Universiteit van Amsterdam
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Summary

The analysis of information and interactive agency in this book crucially involved ideas from computer science. Conversation and games are processes with stepwise changes of information states. And even without a computer around – only hearts and minds – these updates resemble acts of computation: sequential for individuals, and parallel for groups. Conversation as computation turned out a fruitful metaphor – and we recall some illustrations below. But ideas also flow the other way. One can take the logical dynamics stance to computer science, inverting the metaphor to computation is conversation. We illustrate the latter direction, too, ‘epistemizing’ and ‘gamifying’ various algorithmic tasks. This fits with how modern computer systems have moved away from single physical devices to societies of agents engaged in a wide variety of tasks. Thus, in the end, our two directions belong together. Humans and machines mix naturally in logical theory, witness the dynamics of email users in Chapter 4. And joint agency by humans and machines is also a cognitive reality in practice, as we will emphasize in Chapter 16.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

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  • Computation as conversation
  • Johan van Benthem, Universiteit van Amsterdam
  • Book: Logical Dynamics of Information and Interaction
  • Online publication: 07 October 2011
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511974533.015
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  • Computation as conversation
  • Johan van Benthem, Universiteit van Amsterdam
  • Book: Logical Dynamics of Information and Interaction
  • Online publication: 07 October 2011
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511974533.015
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Computation as conversation
  • Johan van Benthem, Universiteit van Amsterdam
  • Book: Logical Dynamics of Information and Interaction
  • Online publication: 07 October 2011
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511974533.015
Available formats
×