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Functionalism

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Title: Functionalism


1
Functionalism
  • Albert Parker
  • May 3, 2001

2
Two Camps
  • Dualist
  • Mind is formal and abstract
  • Substance two radically different kinds of
    substances in the universe material objects and
    immaterial minds (Descartes)
  • Property - two radically different kinds of
    properties in the universe material properties
    (like weight) and immaterial properties (like
    pain)
  • Materialist
  • Mind is the wet and slimy stuff in our heads
  • Behaviorism mind reduces behavior or
    dispositions to behavior
  • Physicalism mental states are brain states
  • Functionalism mental states are defined by
    causal relations
  • Strong AI minds are programs implemented in
    computers

  • (Searle MLS, p46-7 and SA 31)

3
How do we observe the mind?
  • Dualists Problem Metaphysical Gap
  • The mind can be observed through introspection.
    It is just the minds of others that cannot be
    observed.
  • Materialists Problem Leibniz Gap
  • It must be confessed, moreover, that perception,
    and that which depends on it, are inexplicable by
    mechanical causes, that is, by figures and
    motions. And supposing that there were a
    mechanism so constructed as to think, feel and
    have perception, we might enter into it as into a
    mill. And this granted, we should find only on
    visiting it, pieces which push one against
    another, but never anything by which to explain a
    perception. This must be sought in the simple
    substance, and not in the composite or in the
    machine (CMB, Cummins 4)

Analysis of consciousness bogged down for lack of
analytical tools! (Psychology crippled and
behaviorism was spawned by taking the mind out of
psychology) (6-7)
4
What to do?
  • For the materialist, Functionalism provides a
    bridge over the Leibniz gap Mental states are
    defined in terms of their abstract causal roles
    within the wider information processing system.
    A given mental state is characterized in terms of
    its abstract causal relations to environmental
    input, to other internal states and to output
    (Churchland, NP, 351).
  • Example 1 Pump is a functional kind, being
    implemented by hearts, propellor and case,
    vibrator and one-way valve, centrifuges, piston
    and sleeve arrangements (MBC, Cummmins 7).
  • Example 2 Mouse Trap is a functional kind, being
    implemented by spring traps, cage traps, a sack
    of grain attached to a trip wire, a cat or
    specially bred killer rat
  • Example 3 Being in pain is a state carried out
    characterized by its causal relations to
  • behavior wincing and crying out
  • external input skin being burned
  • other internal states the desire to make the
    pain go away and belief of what will bring
    relief.
  • Functional kinds are specified by their roles and
  • not by the material in which they are
    instantiated. (Churchland, NP, 351).

5
How does Functionalism Deal with the Leibniz Gap?
  • Functionalism mental concepts are revealed
    through function not in terms of intrinsic
    features. That is, deal with function, to heck
    with the form.
  • Leibniz Gap occurs because function cant be read
    from form
  • Hence, Functionalism is a bridge over the Gap.
  • trying to understand perception by studying
    only neurons is like trying to understand bird
    flight by studying only feathers (Marr 27)
  • once we have explained the causal basis of
    consciousness in terms of the firing of neurons
    in the various cortical layers, it seems we still
    have a phenomenon left over (Searle MLS, p55)

6
Whose Idea was this?
  • Emile Durkheim created the functional orientation
    by codifing the distinction of structure and
    function in the social sciences. He published
    his functional analysis in a number of empirical
    studies
  • The Division of Labor in Society (1893)
  • The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912)
  • Durkheim recognized the potential problems
    of functionalism that critics like John Searle
    and Patricia Churchland still espouse today in
    reaction to neurophilosophical functionalism
  • To discover the need that a structure
    functions to meet does not necessarily reveal its
    cause - the sequence of events that created the
    structure in the first place. To assume it does
    puts the cart before the horse. (Turner 17)
  • J. Dewey The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology
    (1896) is the opening shot of Functionalism in
    Psychology (Bergmann 678).
  • H. Putnam Minds and Machines in Dimensions of
    the Mind (1960) was the first to argue that minds
    are things that we can conceive solely in terms
    of input, output, and various functional
    relations. (Hardcastle 2-3)

7
Some Functionalist Achievements
  • von Neumann architecture (1943-1957) Still used
    in todays desk-tops, lap-tops, calculators and
    palm pilots that grace every office and half the
    homes in America (von Neumann xii)
  • Barlows First Dogma (1972) A description of
    that activity of a single nerve cell which is
    transmitted to and influences other nerve cells
    and of a nerve cells response to such influences
    from other cells, is a complete enough
    description for a functional understanding of the
    nervous system (Barlow 380)
  • Theory of the Cellebar Cortex (1969) This
    regular
  • cortical structure is interpreted as a
    simple but powerful memorizing
  • device for learning motor skills (Marr
    14)

8
something was going wrong
  • I was myself caught up in this excitement (of
    the 60s). Truth, I also believed, was
    basically neutral, and the central aim of all
    research was a thorough functional analysis of
    the structure of the central nervous system the
    way seemed clear but somewhere underneath,
    something was going wrong the cerebellar study
    suggested that one could hope to understand
    cortical structure in functional terms but at
    the same time it did not much enlighten one
    about the motor system - it did not, for example,
    tell one how to go about programming a mechanical
    arm (Marr 14-15)
  • Functionalism looks nice on paper to those who
    know nothing about how brains work. (Freeman
    115).
  • Functionalism is merely the last gasp of
    classical psychology. (Bergmann 678)
  • The functionalist strategem is a smoke screen
    for the preservation of error and confusion It
    needs to be revealed for the shortsighted and
    reactionary position it is. (MBC, Churchland
    506-7)
  • If you are tempted to functionalism, I believe
    you do not need refutation, you need help.
    (Searle, TRM, 9)

9
Whats wrong with Functionalism?
  • ABSURDITIES CAN BE DEFENDED for example,
    alchemy, in the face of elemental chemistry, can
    be defended using the functionalist stratagem,
    thusly
  • Ensouled in mercury or sulphur is an
    abstract functional state. Mercury, for
    example, actually refers to the disposition to
    reflect light,to liquefy under heat, to unite
    with other matter, etc. (these are functional
    kinds). It is the total syndrome of occurent and
    causal properties of a metal or substance that
    matters, not the corpuscularian details of the
    substrate (function matters, not the
    implementation). Alchemy, it is concluded,
    comprehends a level of organization in reality
    that is distinct from, and irreducible to, the
    organization found at the level of corpuscularian
    chemistry. (MBC Churchland 507).
  • NEED DETAILS! - the success of implementing
    Neural Networks illustrates that an elementary
    understanding of brain microstructure funds a
    fertile conception of what cognition really is.
    (MBC Churchland 198)
  • QUALIA can not be reduced to something else,
    because if you could they would be something
    else, and they are not something else. (Searle,
    RM 51)

10
Lets Patch This Up!
  • Oceans of Ink have been spilled in the debate
    over functionalism (Hasker 29)
  • Valerie Hardcastle Functionalism is neither
    very strong nor very controversial.
  • Jaegwon Kim global reductionism is not possible,
    but some local reductions are qualia are
    intrinsic properties if anything is, and to
    functionalize them is to eliminate them as
    intrinsic properties. (Hardcastle 29).
  • Elliot Sober Functionalism got off on the wrong
    foot. The problem is that function is ambiguous
    (97)

11
New Paradigm or Paradigm Shift?
  • John Searle Most of the recently fashioned
    materialist concepts of the mind such as
    behaviorism, functionalism and physicalism end
    up denying that there are any such things as
    minds as we ordinarily think of them Now, why
    do they do that? (MBS 15). (We need to stop
    using) the antique and obsolete vocabulary of
    mental and physical, mind and body (MLS
    47). Any satisfactory account of the mind must
    take into account consciousness, intentionality,
    subjectivity, and mental causation (MBS 17).
  • Reactions Many of them, especially
    the younger
  • generation, agree with me, but I am amazed
    at the
  • number and vehemence of the defenders (SA
    29)
  • David Marr Almost never can a complex system of
    any
  • kind be understood as a simple
    extrapolation from the
  • properties of the individual components
    (there are three)
  • levels at which an information processing
    device must be understood (24-5)

Computational Theory What is goal of computation
and logic of the strategy?
Representation and algorithm What is
representation of the input and output and the
algorithm map?
Hardware Implementation How are the
representation and the algorithm realized
physically?
12
My Take
  • Cummins states that if a theory is any good, it
    must be explanative in and of itself. Some
    functionalist defenses to attacks sound like the
    non-intuitive hook-hook argument illustrated on
    page 3 of MBC handout.
  • Functionalism has problems in its pure form
    (everything is function, defined in terms of
    inputs and outputs). NOTE The new paradigms
    presented here (at least Marrs) have
    functionalist components.
  • Searles paradigm may be a new one. Marrs is
    a shift.

13
References
  • H. B. Barlow. Single snits and sensation a
    neural doctrine for perceptual psycology?
    Perception 1.
  • G. Bergmann. The Contribution of John B.
    Watson. J. M. Scher editor. Theories of the
    Mind. The Free Press. New York, 1962.
  • P. S. Churchland. Neurophilosophy. The MIT
    Press. Cambridge, 1986.
  • R. Cummins and D. D. Cummins. Minds Brains and
    Computers The Foundations of Cognitive Science.
    Blackwell Publishers. Malden, MA, 2000.
  • W. J. Freeman and C. A. Skarda. Mind/Brain
    Science Neuroscience on Philosophy of Mind. E.
    Lepore and R. V. Gulick editors. John Searle and
    His Critics. Basil Blackwell. Cambridge, 1991.
  • V. Hardcastle. How to Build a Theory in
    Cognitive Science. State University of New York
    Press. New York, 1996.
  • W. Hasker. The Emergent Self. Cornell
    University Press. Ithaca, 1999.
  • D. Marr. Vision. W.H. Freeman and Company. New
    York, 1982.
  • J. von Neumann. The Computer and the Brain.
    Yale University Press. New Haven, 2000.
  • J. Searle. Is the Brains Mind a Computer
    Program?. Scientific American. Jan 1990, p
    118.
  • J. Searle. Minds, Brains and Science. Harvard
    University Press. Cambridge, 1984.
  • J. Searle. Mind, Language, and Society. Basic
    Books. New York, 1998.
  • J. Searle. Rediscovery of the Mind.. The MIT
    Press. Cambridge, 1992.
  • E. Sober. Putting the Function Back into
    Functionalism. W. G. Lycan editor. Mind and
    Cognition. Basil Blackwell. Cambridge, 1990.
  • J. H. Turner and A. Maryanski. Functionalism.
    The Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Company. Menlo
    Park, CA, 1979.
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