The representational entity in physical computing

Stepney, Susan and Kendon, Viv (2021) The representational entity in physical computing. Natural Computing, 20 (2). pp. 233-242. ISSN 1572-9796 (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11047-020-09805-3)

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Abstract

We have developed abstraction/representation (AR) theory to answer the question "When does a physical system compute?" AR theory requires the existence of a representational entity (RE), but the vanilla theory does not explicitly include the RE in its definition of physical computing.Here we extend the theory by showing how the RE forms a linked complementary model to the physical computing model. We show that the RE does not need to be a human brain, by demonstrating its use in the case of intrinsic computing in a non-human RE: a bacterium.

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