Gordana Dodig’s scientific contributions

Presented at ECAP 2009 Barcelona COMPUTING BEYOND TURING MACHINE MODEL Gordana Dodig Crnkovic Mälardalen University, Sweden. gordana.dodig-crnkovic@mdh.se Abstract. A number of contemporary philosophers and computer scientists have noticed the necessity of considering computation beyond Turing machine model. New research results from computer science, physics, logics, bioinformatics and related research fields provide strong and increasing support for this necessity. Generalization of the concept of computation is addressed in essentially two ways: 1. Generalization of the model, extending the idea of algorithm to a non-halting process (Wegner, Burgin, Rice). 2. Generalization of the physical realization of computation process (Copeland, Lloyd, MacLennan, Cooper, Hogarth, Dodig-Crnkovic). The two above are necessarily linked. As soon as a new kind of physical process is identified as computation we need an adequate theoretical model. Likewise, a new model will necessarily be linked with its implementations. In search for a new generalized model of computation, we specifically address interactive computation (Wegner, Goldin), which unlike Turing machine (basically an isolated box processing an algorithm that must halt) implies communication of the computing process with the external world during the ongoing process of computation. The search for new physical computation processes aims at enrichment of the conventional computing repertoire. Present-day computers have developed from the tools for mechanizing calculations into adaptive devices interacting with the physical world, which itself may be conceived of as a computer (Zuse, Fredkin, Wolfram, Chaitin, Lloyd). In that sense Natural computing represents the extension of the domain of physical phenomena which are understood as computational processes and goes beyond Turing model of computation in its expressiveness and applicability. TRACK: 1. Philosophy of Computer Science 2. Biocomputing, Evolutionary and Complex Systems See description of ECAP 2009 in: European Computing and Philosophy Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic The Reasoner 3 (9):18-19 (2009)