Functionalism (WIP)

Question 1

How can the functionalist position be expressed?

Answer 1

1. All mental states can be characterised in terms of functional roles which can be multiply realised,
2. What makes something a mental state is not the internal composition or constitution that it has, but rather the role or function that it has in the system of which it is a part.

Question 2

How can we define a functional state?

Answer 2

1. In terms of the causal relations that it has to: environmental effects on the body (inputs); other types of mental states; and bodily behaviour (outputs),
2. Unlike behaviourism, what is important is not just the outward stimulus and the outward response. Rather what is important also essentially includes the internal causal relations.

Question 3

What is machine-state functionalism?

Answer 3

1. An early theory developed by Putnam in response to the problems of behaviourism,
2. Anything with a mind can be seen as having a certain kind of computational mechanism as constituting its mind,
3. We are probabilistic automata, by this meaning that the programming of our mental software does not necessarily determine one unique output for a given input but may instead specify a possible range that could result,
4. There would be a probability that we would change into another state and give a certain output, but not a deterministic certainty. However, this is taken to be a difference of degree, rather than type.

Question 4

How does the inverted spectrum apply to functionalism?

Answer 4

1. Suppose that perhaps I and a duplicate of me were born such that our qualia were inverted, such that when the duplicate sees anything I see as yellow, it is seen as what would be my blue,
2. This applies to all colour qualia, so that the entire spectrum is inverted,
3. As we were raised in the same contexts, we use the same colour words for the same objects, so we would both call a banana ‘yellow’, though the duplicate has what I would call my blue quale,
4. In functionalism, it is perfectly conceivable and possible for all our functional states to be identical, so for the input-stimuli, the internal causal relations of my cognitive system, and the output behaviour to be exactly the same,
5. So my duplicate and I, even though we see things with different quales, we both describe them the same, all the associations have also been transferred, so that there is no external way of telling a difference between us,
6. My duplicate and I would be identical on the functionalist account even though there is a fundamental mental difference because of the different qualia.