cbo@utai.UUCP (Calvin Bruce Ostrum) (09/26/86)
Michael Maxwell (michaelm@bcsaic) writes: | I recently read Paul Churchland's book "Matter and Consciousness"... | The author describes dualism, as advocated by Descartes... | He then describes functionalism. You can't trust Paul Churchland (or his spouse Patricia) to be a totally unbiased exegete of the standard positions in the philosophy of mind, since the Churchlands themselves hold views that are thought to be insane by most of the advocates of most of the positions. This comes out a little in his textbook, as well as in Patricia Churchland's new book Neurophilosophy, and his older (1979) book Scientific realism and the plasticity of mind. | can't the "software" of minds (assuming for the sake of discussion that there | is such a software!) be identified with the dualist's "ghost"? | what am I missing? This is a popular way of construing functionalism. What you are missing is best expressed with the notion of supervenience. (Roughly, philosophers say that A supervenes upon B if there cant be a difference in A without there being a difference in B.) Functionalists are usually physicalists in that they believe that the mental supervenes upon the physical. Dualists (unless they are epiphenominalists) believe that the mental does NOT supervene on the physical. This is a radical difference; mental facts are taken by the dualist to be ontologically distinct from physical facts. I wont go into this in more detail unless there is further discussion about it. In many ways, modern functionalism is a disguised dualism. Churchland dislikes this, and so do I. While supervening on the physical removes the mental at least partially from the realm of the twilight zone, simple supervenience does not go far enough to say that the mind is actually physical. This is because simple supervenience of brute mental facts does not guarantee that mental laws supervene on the physical. Thus, if mental properties have their essence determined by participation in mental law, the mental still seems to remain sui generis in crucial respects. Churchland is annoyed by this, considering functionalism to be very reactionary: it saves old mental categories by the slight of hand of simple supervenience. I agree fully with this. Some philosophers, such as Haugeland (refs avail on request) advocate a version of supervenience that would allow sui generis mental properties. This, I think, is a cheap way to slip dualism of some form back into circulation. Other philosophers, such as Kim, claim that one cannot even have the weak "brute facts" supervenience of Haugeland without having a supervenience of properties and laws as well. I side with Kim (for sure!) although I am not satisfied with his arguments. * * * All of this suggests some good discussion topics: what are the various kinds of supervenience? Which kinds imply which other kinds? For various X, Y, and Z, does X supervene-Y upon Z? (Most philosophical questions are captured in these questions). Is functionalism plausible (using roughly the hardare/software model) as a philosophy of mind? (I say: NO WAY!). What about Churchland's versions of eliminative materialism? Can they even be coherently expressed? (I can give some outline on this if there is any interest). What do Churchland's arguments against Belief-Desire Folk Psychology actually amount to? If functionalism can't accomodate them, can some other philosophy of mind? * * * "In the mid-seventies I discovered that my patience with most main- stream philosophy had run out" ---Patricia Churchland. Calvin Bruce Ostrum, University of Toronto Department of Computer Science uucp: {ihnp4 decwrl utzoo uw-beaver decvax allegra linus}!utcsri!utai!cbo arpa: cbo%toronto@csnet-relay csnet: cbo@toronto