Monism - Functionalism Flashcards
Functionalism is a physicalist theory what does this mean?
It means that the mind and body are one and that the mind is the brain which is physical and part of the body.
What is functionalism?
.Functionalism conceives of the mind as a function. Mental states are identified by their functional role, by what they do rather than what they are made of, so can be ‘multiply realised’, for example through human brains or through a non-biological system such as a computer.
.The mind is basically seen as a computer programming system similar to a computer program.
.May be possible to one day upload the contents of our brains onto a computer.
What is Dawkins functionalist view?
.Humans are survival machines that are programmed to preserve (genes)
.Functionalist but focuses on DNA rather than computers.
.We are carriers of our DNA and our body is a survival machine for these genes
.There is no such thing as a soul
.The only way to survive death is through passing on your DNA
What is qualia and why is it a problem for Functionalism?
.Qualia asks the question of ‘what is it like’ to have a subjective experience, what is it like to smell a flower or feel the pain of a paper cut?
.Wittgenstein - ‘Try describing the smell of a cup of coffee’, it is impossible because i is a subjective experience so how could we possibly upload this into a computer? we need bodies.
What is the hard problem of consciousness?
.This is the main problem that qualia raises, how can we reduce conscious, subjective experiences to purely physical ones?
.Consciousness implies dualism ):
What was Nagel’s argument against functionalism?
What is it like to be a bat?
.All animals may have conscious experiences but these are totally unimaginable to us.
.We could never know what it is like to see in sound waves like a bat.
.This is something we cannot reduce to a physical description, physicalism may be correct but we should not dismiss the subjective experience.
