Lecture 5: Functionalism

Question 1

Smart on mental processes

Answer 1

Smart believes types of mental phenomena are types of physical phenomena, that can be individuated (distinguished) in terms of their causal-functional role

Question 2

Putnam’s response to Smart

Answer 2

• We share mental phenomena with animals, so we need to specify shared physical phenomena for all mental states/processes
• We use behaviour to ascribe mental states, so the functional role is important
• We assume inputs & outputs & IO relations, but no particular physical substance

Question 3

identity theory

Answer 3

Mental state/process types are physical-state/process types which are functionally individuated.

Question 4

functionalism

Answer 4

Mental-state/process types are functional-state/process types which may be differently realized in different creatures.

Question 5

token physicalism

Answer 5

all realizations of mental state types are physical realizations

Question 6

2 types of functionalism

Answer 6

Rylean functionalism & psychofunctionalism

Question 7

Rylean functionalism

Answer 7

MD is about genuine internal states of systems insofar as these states play particular causal roles in generating its behaviour (‘real’ dispositions) + the ‘causal role’ of a given mental state can include causal relations in which it stands to other mental states

Question 8

inputs (Rylean functionalism)

Answer 8

observable states of affairs & other mental phenomena

Question 9

outputs (Rylean functionalism)

Answer 9

observable behaviours or other mental phenomena

Question 10

psychofunctionalism

Answer 10

CF roles determined by cognitive psychology, based on observable discriminative and behavioral capacities of the system

Question 11

inputs (psychofunctionalism)

Answer 11

from perceptual modules: carry symbolic environmental information

Question 12

outputs (psychofunctionalism)

Answer 12

sent to motor modules that produce behaviour

Question 13

what type of functionalism is more sophisticated?

Answer 13

psychofunctionalism

Question 14

psychofunctionalism and cognitive psychology

Answer 14

In psychofunctionalism, CP is methodically autonomous because distinct although related tasks

Question 15

methodically autonomous

Answer 15

distinctive domain of inquiry & laws discoverable independently of progress in other sciences

Question 16

task of cognitive psychology

Answer 16

determine the functional organization of intelligent systems & formulate laws

Question 17

what does cognitive psychology hypothesize?

Answer 17

particular FOs that would allow observed capacities must be realizable in the system, can choose between FO models using physicalism

Question 18

task of cognitive neuroscience

Answer 18

• examine particular realizations
• identify neural realizations that play the required functional roles

Question 19

Churchland’s objection

Answer 19

in our species, we can’t abstract from neuropsychology

Question 20

Fodor & Putnam’s response to Churchland

Answer 20

intraspecies identities unclear (plasticity), even if identities for beliefs & desires are less likely for sensations & emotions (qualia), even if identities the generalizations may be cross-species

Question 21

Turing machine

Answer 21

device whose operations can be completely described in terms of a set of functions defined upon inputs, outputs, and states of the system

Question 22

how are the functions of a Turing machine represented?

Answer 22

by a machine table

Question 23

why are Turing machines relevant?

Answer 23

because they bear on the mind-body problem and on on how purely physical systems can accomplish their cognitive capacities

Question 24

computational theory of the mind

Answer 24

The capacities of various systems (twm & twom) can be explained in terms of functional decomposition, where complex abilities of the system as a whole are explained by decomposing the system into parts that have simpler capacities & modelling how the operations of the parts are organized and coordinated

Question 25

Challenges of functionalism

Answer 25

• How to specify the functional roles (inputs, outputs, relationships between MS)?
• How to capture the class of things that (intuitively) have mental states?
• How to correctly ascribe mental states to twm?

Question 26

absent qualia problem (liberalism)

Answer 26

ascribe mental states to entities that don’t have them

Question 27

solution to the absent qualia problem

Answer 27

qualitative mental states are essentially composite

Question 28

Chauvinism

Answer 28

failure to ascribe mental states to creatures that surely do or could have them

Question 29

inverted spectrum problem

Answer 29

Given FO, can we claim that an intelligent system is really in one specific kind of mental state?

Question 30

what type of functionalism is the Turing machine associated with?

Answer 30

psychofunctionalism

Question 31

Block’s people of China example

Answer 31

• Suppose we can describe your functional organization at a given time using a giant machine table with a billion squares
• Supposed we assign 1 billion people one square each in this table and connect them via technology so that each can communicate when necessary to the other
• Then, by construction, the entire system would be functionally equivalent to you over the given interval, if it received the inputs you do and produced the same outputs via state transitions
• So, if your having a particular mental life at t is just your realizing a particular model of functional organization at t then the artificial system should share all aspects of your mental life at t
• But, suppose your mental state at t included feeling slightly feverish
  Then, the functionalist must say that the artificial system also has these mental states