Computational Determinism
The idea of “computational determinism” presents an interesting parallel to technological determinism, yet with crucial distinctions that deserves careful examination. Indeed, whilst technological determinism argues that technology drives historical and social development, computational determinism suggests that the mathematical foundations of computer science inexorably shape how computers operate, both in theory and in the wider social world. This perspective, however, often fails to account for the complex interplay between computational theory, materiality and social context, particularly the political economic factors that are crucial for understanding social phenomena (see Berry, 2014). I argue that at the heart of computational determinism lies a set of foundational theories in computer science that have been generalised far beyond their original scope. The seductive simplicity of these models has led some theorists to make a problematic leap: from mathematical abstraction to on
