PP111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Inferior Temporal Gyrus, Multiple Realizability, Reductionism
Document Summary
Some consequences of a reductionist form of materialism. If 2 people have all the same mental states, the they will have all the same brain-states. Functionalist theory of mind: a non-reductionist form of the materialist theory of mind that allows for the same types of mental states to have different physical constitutions (different physical realizations, ex. A human and a computer could be the same. Mental equivalence to us doesn"t equal physical equivalence to us but mental equivalence to us = functional equivalence to us. Functionalism is, then, a form of nonreductionist materialism. Materialism" since mental states remain physical states, but it is nonreductionist" because no generalizations can be made about the physical basis or constitution of any type of mental state. (79) Could a machine think: machine, an artifact manufactured from inorganic materials, think: whatever it is that we do when we think. The original question, can machine think?" i believe to be too meaningless to deserve discussion .