Putnamizing the Liquid State

Echo state networks, liquid state machines, context reverberation networks– these all perform what has come to be known as “reservoir computing.” This approach to neural computation has been getting much attention lately. I wish to show that not only is it of scientific and technological interest, but of philosophical interest as well. It is not so much that reservoir computing raises new philosophical problems, but that it casts a quarter-century old debate about how physical systems implement computations (arising from arguments made by Putnam and Searle) in a vivid new context.