PHL340H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Multiple Realizability, Thermostat, Body Party
Document Summary
Functionalism: defines mental states using causes and effects or their functional roles : eg/ thermostat (cause: heating, effect: cooling, eg/ pain (cause: damage, effect: move away from damage, eg/ belief (cause: perception/memory/reasoning, effect: belief/action) Cause: experiences (encoding), memory trace at an earlier time (storage: char. Effect: memories (retrieval), memory trace at a later time (storage) Functionalists are physicalists: hold that mental states are identical to physical states: realizer functionalism: a mental state is identical to whatever state in a creature"s brain, body or world realizes the functional role distinctive of that mental state. Pain = whatever state is caused by bodily damage and goes onto cause the states that realize the relevant beliefs and desires. Functionalism allows for multiple realizability: which says that multiple mental states can be realized by different types of physical states: eg/ think of certain creatures with similar brain functions as humans.
