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It is not the case that This ontological disagreement about what computation *is* persists even when practitioners converge on the same formal results.
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Reasons For
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Reason for
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1.
If practitioners converge on formal results and methods, their ontological disagreements are either terminological or epistemically irrelevant.
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2.
Shared formal frameworks already encode shared commitments about computation's nature; ontological disputes often reflect philosophical preference, not substantive disagreement.
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3.
The ability to translate between different conceptualizations of computation suggests underlying unity rather than genuine metaphysical incompatibility.
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Reasons Against
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Reason against
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1.
Formal results describe *what* computation produces, not *what* it fundamentally is or how it should be conceptualized.
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2.
Practitioners disagree on whether computation is physical process, abstract symbol manipulation, information transformation, or causal mechanism.
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3.
Agreement on outputs/algorithms masks deeper disagreement about computational essence, similar to instrumentalism vs realism in physics.
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