Todays Lecture

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Todays Lecture

• A comment about your Third Assignment and final
  Paper
• Preliminary comments on Functionalism
• Hilary Putnam

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A comment about your Third Assignment and final
Paper

• Im going to take the long weekend to grade your
  Third Assignments.
• I am giving you a bonus day of grace to get your
  final Paper in to me.
• Three things to note about this proposal
• (1) It means that IF you get your paper to me, or
  the assignment drop box, by 400 p.m. on August
  11th, THEN you will not receive any late
  penalties for your paper.
• (2) This extra day of grace only applies to your
  Paper.
• (3) Technically, this does not change the due
  date for the paper (which remains August 8th).

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Third in-class quiz

• Do remember that due to my oversight in not
  giving a third in-class quiz, and what I imagine
  would have been your stellar performance in
  answering whatever question I would have asked,
  each of you have received an automatic 2 out of
  2 for that quiz that wasnt.

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Preliminary comments on Functionalism

• Mind-Brain Identity Theory contends that types of
  mental states are nothing more than types of
  brain states.
• Functionalism contends that an internal state of
  an individual counts as a type of mental state if
  it performs the relevant causal role, in relation
  to other states of the central nervous system or
  non-neuronal physiological processes, and is
  causally efficacious in contributing to the
  subsequent behavior of the organism that
  possesses it (see FP, p.391).

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Preliminary comments on Functionalism

• What would be an example of a claim made by a
  Mind-Brain Identity Theorist?
• The most famous is the claim that Pain is the
  firing of c-fibers.
• It doesnt matter what c-fibers are, just think
  of a particular area of the brain associated with
  pain and replace the reference to c-fibers with
  that.
• What the Mind-Brain Identity Theorist is claiming
  here is that pain is a physical state, in
  particular a physical state of the brain, or
  central nervous system (see FP, p.411).

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Preliminary comments on Functionalism

• This claim is likened to the claim that Heat is
  mean molecular kinetic energy (see FP, p.426).
• Heat, that is, is nothing more than mean
  molecular kinetic energy. Of course this cant be
  quite right, but the point is relatively clear.
• Pain, for the Mind-Brain Identity Theorist is,
  consequently, a publicly observable event. Though
  the feeling of pain is still in some important
  sense private, the actual ontic entity is not.
• Thus, if Mind-Brain Identity Theory is right, we
  would have a way around the problem of other
  minds.

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Preliminary comments on Functionalism

• Mind-Brain Identity Theory is a way of moving
  beyond some of the deficiencies of either Logical
  or Metaphysical Behaviorism.
• Metaphysical Behaviorism, remember, reduces
  mental states to dispositions to act. Logical
  Behaviorism, remember, reduces talk of mental
  states to talk of dispositions to act.

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Preliminary comments on Functionalism

• Neither kind of Behaviorism seems to deal well
  with, among other things, claims of sensation.
• Consider the claim Im in pain. This is not
  merely, as Metaphysical Behaviorists would have
  us believe, a kind of pain behavior, akin to a
  yelp or wince (see FP, p.409 for Smarts
  discussion of this point). There is something it
  is like to be in pain. It is, or involves, a
  feeling.
• Mind-Brain Identity Theorists do not see this as
  a good enough reason to re-embrace Cartesian
  Dualism after all there are other, equally
  difficult problems with Cartesian Dualism (see
  Ryles discussion of some of these problems in
  your readings).

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Preliminary comments on Functionalism

• Nor will Mind-Brain Identity Theorists embrace a
  Property Dualism, where consciousness is a
  non-physical property produced by the brain.
• Their reluctance in this regard is harder to
  justify or motivate. It may be best explained by
  their commitment to (metaphysical) Materialism or
  Physicalism.
• For example Smart, in his essay, claims that
  sensations, states of consciousness, do seem to
  be the one sort of thing left outside the
  physicalist picture, and for various reasons I
  just cannot believe that this can be so. The
  above is largely a confession of faith (FP,
  p.410).

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Preliminary comments on Functionalism

• It could also be the case that Property Dualism
  reintroduces problems of interactionism, albeit
  at more localized areas of the brain than is
  true for Cartesian Dualism.

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Preliminary comments on Functionalism

• Functionalism was developed to compensate for the
  perceived deficiencies of Mind-Brain Identity
  Theory.
• Though also a Physicalist theory of mind,
  functionalism seems to be better equipped to
  accommodate kinds of minds that it seems possible
  to conceive exist albeit in individuals who do
  not possess central nervous systems (e.g.
  androids, Deities, angels, perhaps clouds of
  interstellar gas, et cetera).

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Preliminary comments on Functionalism

• Do note, however, that a rejection of type-type
  Mind-Brain Identity Theory does not require one
  to reject a type-token Mind-Brain Identity
  theory. In a type-token Identity Theory, mental
  states are, in the case of humans and other
  terrestrial animals, identical to actual states
  in the relevant central nervous systems, though
  they may be instantiated in very different
  biological systems or forms of life (i.e. that
  lack central nervous systems).

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Preliminary comments on Functionalism

• Hilary Putnams Functionalism is known as Machine
  Functionalism. His theoretical model for
  understanding mind is the Turing Machine (Ill
  explain this in a second). This is, however, not
  the only kind of Functionalist Theory of Mind.
• Teleological Functionalism is the view that
  mental states are individuated based on their
  function, purpose, or role in the mental system.
  Put crudely, to have a certain belief about your
  environment is to have a neurophysiological state
  that contains information about that aspect of
  the environment as a part of its function in, or
  its place in the design of, the
  neurophysiological processes and mechanisms
  responsible for processing incoming data from the
  bodys various receptors and then producing a(n
  appropriate) behavioral response.

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Preliminary comments on Functionalism

• Homuncular Functionalism sees the mind broken up
  into sub-components with particular functions to
  play in the overall mental system, with each
  sub-component itself broken up into yet smaller
  components with their own particular functions in
  the overall design of the system. These
  sub-components work together to process incoming
  data from the bodys receptors and produce a(n
  appropriate) behavioral response. Each component
  is individuated based on its role in the mental
  system.
• The brain is construed, under this account, as a
  physical system made up of sub-components that
  can be mapped onto the hierarchy of control
  present in the proposed mental system.

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Preliminary comments on Functionalism

• Hilary Putnams Functionalist Theory of Mind is
  often referred to as Machine Functionalism. It is
  so named because Putnam likens the mind to a
  Turing Machine ... the mind, under this account,
  is a complex computational device.

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Preliminary comments on Functionalism

• A Turing Machine is a really simple computational
  device ... its also an abstract computational
  device (you cant go and pick one up at your
  local computer store).
• Imagine that a Turing Machine travels along an
  infinite paper tape. This tape is divided up into
  squares containing symbols from a finite alphabet
  or symbol system. What the Turing Machine does is
  either move forwards, backwards, erase the symbol
  on a given square of tape, write a symbol on a
  given square of type or change its internal state
  relative to its current input (the square on the
  tape it is currently reading) and its current
  internal state (which is a readiness state that
  consists of a rule that instructs the Machine in
  what it must do relative to its input) (see FP,
  p.421).

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Preliminary comments on Functionalism

• For Putnam, the mind is relevantly similar to a
  Turing Machine in that it too is responsive to
  input, and relative to the internal states it is
  currently in, will respond to that input in one
  of a finite set of ways.
• A individuated mental state, according to Machine
  Functionalism, is a contributing factor to the
  overall internal state of an individual that is
  itself, as a whole, functionally equivalent to
  the internal state of a Turing Machine.
• No one mental state is functionally equivalent to
  the internal state of a Turing Machine (see
  Baileys discussion of this on pages 422-23 of
  your FP).

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Hilary Putnam

• Hilary Putnam was born in 1926 and died really
  recently (Ill look up the date).
• He worked in, among other things, metaphysics
  (particularly philosophy of mind), philosophy of
  science and philosophy of language.
• Though he is famous for first proposing
  Functionalism as a Theory of Mind, he has also
  contributed a great deal to philosophical
  analyses of linguistic meaning and reference, and
  to the debate over whether we can sensibly talk
  of theory-independent truth (see FP, pp.419-20).

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The Nature of Mental States I

• This section of Putnams paper clarifies what he
  means by identity.
• Putnam rejects the view that the identity claim
  being A is being B (FP, p.425) must (1) arise
  from the meanings of the terms A and B and
  (2) must be philosophically informative by
  yielding a reductive analysis of one thing into
  another, more ontologically basic or primitive,
  thing (FP, p.425).

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The Nature of Mental States I

• Putnam is rejecting, first, that identity claims
  must be analytic. He thinks that we can make
  philosophically informative identity claims about
  things in the world based on experience (believe
  or not some philosophers find this claim
  contentious) (FP, p.426). He also thinks that, to
  proffer a philosophically informative identity
  claim, you need not seek a reductive analysis
  (FP, p.427).

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The Nature of Mental States I

• The primary point Putnam seems to be making in
  this section is that the identity claims of
  Mind-Brain Identity Theory can be legitimately
  assessed using empirical data, and should be
  primarily assessed using empirical data (FP,
  pp.427-28).

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The Nature of Mental States II

• Putnam opens up this section with two important
  claims (1) Pain is not a brain state and (2)
  there is another empirical hypothesis of mind
  that does a better job of accommodating what we
  know of the mind than Mind-Brain Identity Theory
  (FP, p.428).
• Putnam suggests that pain, or the state of being
  in pain, is a functional state of the whole
  organism (FP, p.428).

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The Nature of Mental States II

• Two things of note here (1) Though the input
  receptors and motor output processes or
  mechanisms are specifiable in the individuals to
  whom we ascribe minds, or mental states, (2) the
  mental states are not to be thought of as
  (actually) realized as individual physical or
  physiological states in (the central nervous
  systems of) the relevant individuals (FP, p.428).

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The Nature of Mental States II

• For any given minded organism or individual, we
  have any number of possible models or
  interpretations (i.e. Machine Tables) of that
  organisms mind.
• A Machine Table, remember, contains a list of
  possible (overall) internal states (of readiness)
  that an individual can possess, and instructions
  for what it will do relative to both its current
  state and the received input (see Baileys
  discussion of a Machine Table on page 421 of your
  FP).

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The Nature of Mental States II

• Each model or interpretation provides a way of
  understanding and predicting the behavior of the
  relevant individual relative to the received
  inputs and motor outputs (i.e. behavior).
• There is no concern in this approach to specify
  how the internal states (of readiness), and the
  instructions for what the individual will
  probably now do relative to the received data and
  its current (overall) state (of readiness), are
  physically realized in that individual (FP,
  p.428).

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The Nature of Mental States II

• The empirical hypothesis that being in pain is a
  functional state of the relevant individual is
  broken down in the following way
• (1) The relevant individuals, who is capable of
  feeling pain, are Probabilistic Automata (FP,
  p.428) or Turing Machines (FP, p.428).
• (2) The relevant individual, who is capable of
  feeling pain, possesses a Description of a
  certain kind (i.e. can be understood using a
  particular Machine Table) (FP, p.428).
• (3) The relevant individual, who is capable of
  feeling pain, is not composed of parts that
  themselves have Descriptions (FP, p.429).

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The Nature of Mental States II

• (4) For the relevant individual spoken of in (2),
  she can be said to be in pain if, in a
  Description applicable to her, there is a subset
  of the sensory inputs such that she ... is in
  pain when and only when some of her ... sensory
  inputs are in that subset (FP, p.429).

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The Nature of Mental States II

• Putnam adds that the relevant individual (i)
  Must be able to learn from experience, (ii) has
  preferences for certain internal states, (iii)
  has receptors that alert the individual to damage
  to its physical body and (iv) that the sensory
  input subsets associated with pain rank low in
  the list of the preferences mentioned in (ii)
  (FP, p.429).

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The Nature of Mental States III and IV

• In these next sections Putnam considers and
  rejects Mind-Brain Identity Theory and
  Behaviorism as competing hypotheses to his
  Machine Functionalism.

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The Nature of Mental States III

• Note that Putnams Machine Functionalism is not
  incompatible with Dualism and that both the input
  states and over all internal states (of
  readiness) are not physical per se (FP, p.429).
• He contrasts these features of his theory with
  that of Mind-Brain Identity Theory (FP,
  pp.429-30).
• Do note that Putnam is not disavowing physicalism
  here. Its just that, even if his metaphysics
  turns out to be false, his theory of mind may
  still survive.

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The Nature of Mental States III

• Problems facing the Mind-Brain Identity Theorist
• (1) They must specify the kind of
  physical-chemical state that is pain such that,
  for any given individual who is in pain, she has
  the right kind of central nervous system and is
  in that right physical-chemical state. This
  doesnt seem so bad until you realize that the
  Mind-Brain Identity Theorist must have an
  analysis that is applicable to every individual
  who can feel pain, be they mammals, reptiles,
  cephalopods, or extra-terrestrials AND not be
  applicable to those individuals who cant feel
  pain (FP, p.430).

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The Nature of Mental States III

• (2) The Mind-Brain Identity Theorist is not just
  limiting their focus to pain states...their
  theory applies to all psychological states (or
  mental states). The Mind-Brain Identity Theory
  will fail, then, if there is only one case of two
  individuals possessing a similar psychological
  state while differing in the physical makeup of
  their respective central nervous systems. Putnam
  thinks it is highly probable that this will be
  true somewhere in the universe (FP, p.430).

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The Nature of Mental States III

• The perceived edge in favor of Putnams Machine
  Functionalism
• We ascribe mental states such as pain based on
  the similarities of behavior across species. The
  analogues that ground the ascription of such
  mental states across species are much more likely
  to evince similarities in the functional
  organization of the relevant species members
  than in their respective central nervous systems
  (FP, pp.430-31).

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The Nature of Mental States IV

• Metaphysical Behaviorism appears to have an
  important advantage over Mind-Brain Identity
  Theory and Machine Functionalism. Because,
  according to the Metaphysical Behaviorist, being
  in pain consists of possessing a disposition to
  behave in a certain way, it appears to coincide
  with how we ascribe pain to another (e.g. by
  observing how they behave, rather than knowing
  either the particular brain states they are
  currently in, or their functional organization)
  (FP, p.431).

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The Nature of Mental States IV

• But this, argues Putnam, is only an apparent
  advantage. All that is needed for either
  Mind-Brain Identity Theory or Machine
  Functionalism to succeed is for the relevant
  markers of pain used by either theorist (to
  ascribe pain) to be reliable indicators of the
  relevant state or property of the individual in
  question (FP, p.431).

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The Nature of Mental States IV

• Problems facing Metaphysical Behaviorism
• (1) They need to properly specify the relevant
  behavioral dispositions for the relevant
  psychological state without appealing to the very
  state itself (FP, p.431).
• (2) It seems conceivable to imagine two
  individuals, one being in pain while the other is
  not in pain, exhibiting relevantly similar
  behavior (FP, p.432).
• (3) It seems more plausible to explain behavior
  with reference to internal causally efficacious
  psychological states than to identify said states
  with the behavior itself (FP, p.432).