Remodeling Rationality: An Inquiry into Unorthodox Modes of Logic and Computation

Abstract

This dissertation investigates unorthodox models of computational rationality. Part I examines the histories of such models as nonclassical formalisms of mathematical logic from Brazil, nonbinary Turing machines from postcolonial India, and frameworks of information science from postrevolutionary Cuba. Part II analyzes contemporary developments in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly attempts to incorporate ethics and aesthetics into mathematical models of optimization. Part III presents experimental methods of indexing and searching information, developed in response to epistemological and political critiques of dominant search engines. Altogether, the dissertation argues that computational rationality, despite its grand aspirations to universality, is open to radically distinct alternatives.