Herbert Jaeger studied mathematics and psychology in Freiburg (Germany), got his PhD Computer Science / AI in Bielefeld (Germany) and then did a postdoc fellowship at the (then) German National Research Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science (GMD) in Sankt Augustin (Germany), where he subsequently founded the research unit ‘Modeling Intelligent Dynamical Systems’ (MINDS); then from 2001 to 2019 he served as professor in the CS department of Jacobs University Bremen (Germany). Since 2019 he has been Professor for Computing in Cognitive Materials at the University of Groningen. Current research focus: mathematical foundations for a theory of computing on the basis of non-digital physical substrates. Jaeger retired in June 2025 and now has almost enough time for his research.

Abstract: What does brainlike computing mean? And what does mean mean?

What does it *mean* when a brainlike system ‘computes’? This is the question of the *semantics* of neuromorphic computing. In classical digital computing, several mutually connected workouts of computational semantics have matured to textbook standard. These formal frameworks allow one to characterize, analyse and prove, for instance, whether a computer program actually does what the user meant it to achieve; whether two different programs actually compute ‘the same’ task; which tasks can be ‘programmed’ at all; or what hardware requirements must be met to implement a given program. In brief, semantic theory allows one to analyse how abstract models of computational processes interface with reality – both at the bottom level of the physical reality of computer hardware, and at the top level of real-world user tasks. Neuromorphic computing theory can learn a lot from looking at the digital world, but also needs to find its very own view on semantics.