570 research outputs found
Exploring the landscapes of "computing": digital, neuromorphic, unconventional -- and beyond
The acceleration race of digital computing technologies seems to be steering
toward impasses -- technological, economical and environmental -- a condition
that has spurred research efforts in alternative, "neuromorphic" (brain-like)
computing technologies. Furthermore, since decades the idea of exploiting
nonlinear physical phenomena "directly" for non-digital computing has been
explored under names like "unconventional computing", "natural computing",
"physical computing", or "in-materio computing". This has been taking place in
niches which are small compared to other sectors of computer science. In this
paper I stake out the grounds of how a general concept of "computing" can be
developed which comprises digital, neuromorphic, unconventional and possible
future "computing" paradigms. The main contribution of this paper is a
wide-scope survey of existing formal conceptualizations of "computing". The
survey inspects approaches rooted in three different kinds of background
mathematics: discrete-symbolic formalisms, probabilistic modeling, and
dynamical-systems oriented views. It turns out that different choices of
background mathematics lead to decisively different understandings of what
"computing" is. Across all of this diversity, a unifying coordinate system for
theorizing about "computing" can be distilled. Within these coordinates I
locate anchor points for a foundational formal theory of a future
computing-engineering discipline that includes, but will reach beyond, digital
and neuromorphic computing.Comment: An extended and carefully revised version of this manuscript has now
(March 2021) been published as "Toward a generalized theory comprising
digital, neuromorphic, and unconventional computing" in the new open-access
journal Neuromorphic Computing and Engineerin
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