Functionalism - Facultatea de Filosofie

Functionalism

As Levine indicates, from a functionalist viewpoint, the status of a mental state is not
given by its internal constitution but by its function. For instance, a thought or a pain
depends on its function or its role in the cognitive system. “More precisely,
functionalist theories take the identity of a mental state to be determined by its causal
relations to sensory stimulations, other mental states, and behavior.” (Levine 2004)

Functionalism is a neutral approach between materialism and dualism. However, in
general they are materialists: each mental state is identical to a neural state.

Turing (Turing 1950) replaced the “Can machines think?” with “Is it theoretically
possible for a finite state digital computer, provided with a large but finite table of
instructions, or program, to provide responses to questions that would fool an
unknowing interrogator into thinking it is a human being?” (Levine 2004) This is
Turing test. For Turing, thoughts = internal states and verbal outputs → Later -
functionalism (Putnam 1960 1967). (Levine 2004)

Functionalism had different trends: “machine functionalism”, “psychofunctionalism”
and “analytic functionalism”. Their sources were early AI theories, empirical
behaviorism, and logical behaviorism. (Levine 2004)

(1) Machine Functionalism

Against the identity theory- Putnam (1960, 1967) creatures without brains like
Martians or silicon-based robots are not in the same mental states as us but they can
share –in principle- the same beliefs. (Clark 2001, p. 14) Within the framework
created by logic and formal systems, Turing machines and computers we can say that
the common thing among humans, Martians and robots is not the particular physical
systems, not their behavior or internal organization but the “abstract, formal
organization of the system”. (Clark, idem) This would be that the functions realized
by different physical systems are the same.

For Putnam machine state functionalism means that a mind = a Turing machine (finite
state digital computer) + a set of instructions (a “machine table” or program) → its
operation:

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“If the machine is in state Si, and receives input Ij, it will go into state Sk and produce
output Ol (for a finite number of states, inputs and outputs).” (Levine 2004)

Essentially for functionalism is that the program (software) can be run on
different sorts of computer hardware → Multiple Realizations.

(2) Psycho-Functionalist Theories

Against behaviorism, cognitive psychologists consider that the behavior is the result
of mental states and processes. (Fodor 1968 in Levine 2004)

“On a theory of this sort, what makes some neural process an instance of memory
trace decay is a matter of how it functions, or the role it plays, in a cognitive system;
its neural or chemical properties are relevant only insofar as they enable that process
to do what trace decay is hypothesized to do. And similarly for all mental states and
processes invoked by cognitive psychological theories.” (Levine 2004)

(3) Analytic Functionalism

Analytic functionalism – “‘topic-neutral’ translations, or analyses, of our ordinary
mental state terms or concepts.” There are causal relations between a mental state and
stimulations, behavior, and other mental states. (Levine 2004)

Psycho-Physical Identity Theory- (Smart, 1962; Place, 1956) pain = C-fiber
stimulation- not have the same meaning, they can denote the same state.

According to Levine- an objection

Max Black (reported in Smart, 1962): terms with different meanings can denote the same state only
expressing different properties or “modes of presentation” of that state. → If terms like ‘pain’,
‘thought’ and ‘desire’ are not equivalent in meaning to any physicalistic descriptions, they can denote
physical states only by expressing irreducibly mental properties of them. Thus, even if ‘pain’ and ‘C-
fiber stimulation’ pick out a single type of neural state, this state must have two types of properties,

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physical and mental, by means of which the identification can be made. This argument has come to be
known as the “Distinct Property Argument” – against materialistic theory of mind.

Intentional States
According to Levine, the intentional states such as beliefs, thoughts, and desires
(sometimes called “propositional attitudes”) – in functional terms (versus Searle 1992,
G. Strawson 1994, intentional states have qualitative character).
“Externalism”: mental states represented with the help of certain features of the
environments in which those individuals are embedded. (Levine 20040

Thus, if one individual's environment differs from another's, they may count as having different
intentional states, even though they reason in the same ways, and have exactly the same “take” on those

environments from their own points of view. (Levine 2004)
Externalism- Putnam’s “Twin Earth” (1975):

Twin Earth- a (hypothetical) planet on which things look, taste, smell and feel exactly the way they do
on Earth, but which have different underlying microscopic structures; for example, the stuff that fills
the streams and comes out of the faucets, though it looks and tastes like water, has molecular structure

XYZ rather than H2O. (Levine 2004)
Our term “water” - different meaning for us than for our Twin Earth counterparts. →
The beliefs regarding natural kinds are different.
Conclusion: Without the individual’s environment, functionalism – no
representational content of intentional states. (Levine 2004)

Functionalism and Qualia
Functionalism – no qualia or “what it's like” (Nagel, 1975) to have them. (Levine
20040

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Inverted and Absent Qualia

The “inverted qualia” objection- Ned Block (1980b; see also Block and Fodor, 1972):
“An individual who satisfies the functional definition of our experience of red, but is
experiencing green instead.” (Levine 2004)

The “absent qualia” objection: “creatures functionally equivalent to normal humans
whose mental states have no qualitative character at all.” (Levine 2004)

The “Chinese nation” thought-experiment- Block (1980b):

The population of China – to duplicate the functional organization of a brain- receiving the equivalent
of sensory input from an artificial body and passing messages back and forth via satellite. Block - such
a “homunculi-headed” system … would not have mental states with any qualitative character (other
than the qualia possessed by the individuals themselves), and thus that states functionally equivalent to
sensations or perceptions may lack their characteristic “feels”.

In response- (Dennett, 1978; Levin, 1985; Van Gulick, 1989): are such creatures
possible? The counterexamples = only crude examples of functional definitions.
(Levine 2004)

Functionalism, Zombies, and the “Explanatory Gap”

The “inverted” and “absent” qualia objections - as challenges exclusively to functionalist theories, both
conceptual and empirical, and not generally to physicalistic theories of experiential states; the main
concern was that the purely relational resources of functional description were incapable of capturing
the intrinsic qualitative character of states such as feeling pain, or seeing red. (Indeed, in Block's 1980,
p.291, he suggests that qualitative states may best be construed as “composite state[s] whose
components are a quale and a [functional state],” and adds, in an endnote (note 22) that the quale

“might be identified with a physico-chemical state”.) (Levine 2004)

→ These objections - the “conceivability argument” against physicalism- Kripke
(1972) and Chalmers (1996) from Descartes - the Sixth Meditation - the relation
between epistemology and ontology: clear and distinct mental and sensorial
perceptions → the existence of the mind and body.

Chalmers's version of the argument (1996)- the “Zombie Argument”:

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- The first premise: it is conceivable that there are molecule-for-molecule duplicates of

oneself with no qualia (call them “zombies”, following Chalmers, 1996).

- The second premise: zombies are possible, and functionalism — or, more broadly,
physicalism — is false. (Levine 2004)

Joseph Levine (1983, 1993): the “explanatory gap” between physical and mental
states.
Functionalism’s reply: zombies are not really conceivable or can not be “conceptual
analyses of qualitative concepts (such as what it's like to see red or what it's like to
feel pain) in purely functional terms” + “the conceivability of zombies neither implies
that such creatures are possible nor opens up an explanatory gap”. (Levine 2004)

The Knowledge Argument
Thomas Nagel (1974) and Frank Jackson (1982): “a person could know all the
physical and functional facts about a certain type of experience and still not “know
what it's like” to have it.” (Levine 2004)
Functionalism and physicalism’s replies: “these special first-personal concepts need
not denote … any irreducibly qualitative properties.” (Levine 2004)
Pain = C-fiber stimulation → Multiple Realization: “functionalism offers an account
of mental states that is compatible with materialism, without limiting the class of
those with minds to creatures with brains like ours.” (Levine 2004)
Janet Levin
Levin J. “Functionalism”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2004 Edition),
Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/functionalism/

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