Gualtiero Piccinini

Italian-American philosopher who has developed a mechanistic account of computation — computation is a specific kind of physical process, not a merely formal or functional property — and applied it to the mind-body problem.

Physical Computation: a mechanistic account — a physical system computes a function if and only if its operations implement a relevant function according to a design plan or natural function. Neurocognitive Mechanisms: computation in the brain is a physical process subject to mechanistic explanation, not just functional organization.