Functionalism Project

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CONTENTS

F

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DECLARATION________________________________________________ I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS________________________________________ II ABSTRACT__________________________________________________ III

INTRODUCTION: FUNCTIONALISM AND EMBODIED, EMBEDDED MIND__1

Functionalism, in a few words ____________________________________________ 2Embodied Cognition as Undermining Functionalism _______________________ 3Embodied and Embedded Cognition as Extended Functionalism ____________ 6Where do we go from here? ______________________________________________ 8

CHAPTER 1: FUNCTIONALISM IN DETAIL___________________________9

! The "ac#ground and the S$irit ________________________________________ 91.1.1 Behaviourism _____________________________________________________________ 101.1.2 Mind-body Identity Theory __________________________________________________ 111.1.3 Materialism ______________________________________________________________ 131.1.4 Anti-reduction and methodological autonomy ___________________________________ 13

!% &ethods for defining functional roles _________________________________ 11.2.1 Turing Machines and Machine tables __________________________________________ 1!1.2.2 Le is! "amsey-sentence method o# #untionali$ation _______________________________ 1"

!' Commonsense (s! Em$irical functionalism ___________________________ 181.3.1 %ommonsense #unctionalism _________________________________________________ 18

1.3.2 &m'irical #unctionalism ____________________________________________________ 19!) The liberalism*chau(inism dilemma __________________________________ 21

1.4.1 The charge o# chauvinism ___________________________________________________ 211.4.2 (unctionalism and abstraction _______________________________________________ 21.4.3 (unctionalism and Multi'le "eali$ation ________________________________________ 2!

!+ Functionalism without multi$le reali ation and chau(inism? ___________ 28!- Sum u$ and Conclusions ____________________________________________ 33

CHAPTER 2: THE BOD#$DETAIL MODEL: SHAPIRO%S ARGUMENT______36

%! "od. &atters ________________________________________________________ 38%!% The "od./s 0ole in 1erce$tion _______________________________________ 39

2.2.1 A s)ill-based model o# 'erce'tion _____________________________________________ 22.2.2 *ensory substitution and 'lasticity ____________________________________________ !


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%!' "od. Conce$ts ______________________________________________________ "2.3.1 %once'ts and Meta'hors ____________________________________________________ 82.3.2 Body and language ________________________________________________________ 82.3.3 Individual embodiment vs. social embeddedness _________________________________ !8

%!) 2ea#. &inds ________________________________________________________ 60%!+ Conclusions ________________________________________________________ 6

CHAPTER 3: E&TENDED FUNCTIONALISM_________________________"0

'! Extended com$utation _______________________________________________ "13.1.1 &+'loitative "e'resentation __________________________________________________ "23.1.2 ,ide com'utationalism _____________________________________________________ "3

'! % "allard et al!3 The com$utational role of (ision ________________________ "6'!' 4is$ositional beliefs and extended functionalism ______________________ "8'!) Extended Functionalism and the "od. ________________________________ 80

3.4.1 Body as a #unctional notion __________________________________________________ 82

3.4.2 The negotiable body _______________________________________________________ 83.4.3 Body and Mind a one-to-one match _________________________________________ 86

'!+ Status ______________________________________________________________ 8"

CONCLUSION_________________________________________________9

BIBLIOGRAPH#_______________________________________________96


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In recent years it has becom e close to orthodoxy in the p hilosophy of mind to

view the mind and cognition as essentially embodied and embedded. This

view has d eveloped as an opposition to a t endency within cognitive sci ence t o

view mind and cognition as a m atter of purely internal computation. So far

the focus has been on developing the theses within the embodied and

embedded framework and with less attention being given to how this

framework relates to the views that w ere prevalent i n the immediately

preceding philosophical debates on mind. An exception to this is Lawrence

Shapiro’s book “The Mind Incarnate” (2004). Here Shapiro argues, among

other things, that the embodied, embedded approach undermines a

functionalist program. In contrast and as a response t o Shapiro’s ar gument,

Andy Clark, in his article “Pressing the Flesh” (2006), claims that t he

embodied, embedded approach can be seen as a form of extended

functionalism.

My aim in this project will be to explore the logical space between

functionalism and the em bodied, embedded approach. In this I will focus on

the question of w hether t hese two positions ar e com patible or whether t he

embodied, embedded approach undermines functionalism, as suggested by

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Shapiro. My answer t o the latter q uestion is g oing to be that t his i s n ot t he

case. However, before we get t o this result t here is a lot of g round to be

covered and a few philosophical obstacles that need to be pointed out and

overcome. In the remaining paragraphs o f t he Introduction I w ill introduce

the different positions, give an outline of the p ossible t ension between them

and develop and present the cen tral questions of t he p roject.

Functionalism, in a few words

In basic terms functionalism in philosophy of mind is the m etaphysical claim

that mental states ar e individuated in terms o f the effect the world has o n

them (input), the effect they have on each other ( internal interaction) and the

effect t hat t hey have on the world (output) (Braddon-Mitchell and Jackson

2007).

To take a si mplied and standard example, consider the m ental state pain . A

functionalist account could charact erise pain as a state t hat i s o ften caused by

tissue d amage, that tends t o produce t he b elief that there i s s omething wrong

with the body and the d esire not t o be in this state, and in the absence of

stronger desires may cause moaning or even crying. According to

functionalism, a creature that h as so mething that p lays t his rol e is i n pain.

(Levin, 2004)

What i t is t hat occu pies t his rol e is o f less i mportance. The case is si milar i n

connection with other f unctional kinds. In this w ay, what is important about

something being a thermostat i s the way, it controls the temperature by

turning heating or cooling apparatus on or off. Such a device might be

constructed in different ways, however i f it plays t he appropriate role it is a

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thermostat. In the sam e way, what is important about being a left w inger on a

hockey team is h ow this p osition is coordinated with the res t of t he t eam. It

seems r easonable t o say that what it is t o be a left w inger does not depend on

whether i t is Fernando or Pet er t hat p lays this p osition. Who plays the role

might affect the outcome of the m atch, of course, but it would not affect the

concept of what a left w inger is . In the same way whether a mental state i s a

thought, bel ief, d esire etc. depends not o n what i t i s that o ccupies the

functional r ole, rather it d epends exclusively on its relation to the bigger

system of other m ental states, sensory input and behaviour. In this w ay the

functional identication is n eutral to what kinds o f states t hat occupy the rol e.

As a result, mental states can be realized by many different kinds of states.

This i s w hat is cal led multiple real ization.

Different versions of functionalism have been developed since its rst

appearance in the 1960’s. Over t ime it has becom e a general approach to

distinguish between commonsense functionalism and empirical

functionalism. I w ill elaborate on this distinction and on functionalism in

general in the rst chapter: Functionalism in detail.

Embodied Cognition as Undermining Functionalism

The second chapter w ill concern Shapiro’s ar gument that f unctionalism is

undermined by research w ithin the ar ea of embodied cognition. According to

Shapiro, it is i n the sp irit of functionalism to characterise m ind in a w ay that

abstracts away from the hardware (the body), on which the mind is

implemented. The result is that the body is neutral in the sense that

“characteristics of bodies make no difference to the kind of mind one

possesses.”(Shapiro (2004) p . 175.) This k ind of bo dy neutrality implies t hat

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similar m inds can exist in bodies w ith very distinct properties. However, this

assumption, according to Shapiro, is sh own to be false i n the light of recent

research in the area o f embodied cognitive science - research that shows t hat a

creature’s em bodiment i mposes con straints on what ki nd of p sychological

prole it can have. Shapiro takes h is p oint of d eparture by distinguishing

between three different lines of resear

that characteristics of bodies m ake a difference to the kind of mind one

possesses.

The rst area of r esearch is con cerned with the b ody’s r ole i n perception and

the sense in which characteristics an d specic actions of the body play a

signicant r ole in determining the nature of thought. Shap iro gives an

example o f this ki nd of thought concerning auditory perception. According to

Shapiro, our abi lity to locate a sound source d epends o n facts ab out our ear s.

One such fact is that we have exactly two ears and not one or m ore than two.

Another f act is t hat these ears ar e p laced on both side o f a head of a certain

size. One result i s t hat t here will be a certain time difference b etween the

sound received at each ear. To locate the source of a sound the human

auditory system incorporates these facts in its processing. According to

Shapiro, different setups of auditory sensory sy stems yi eld different setups of

the p rocessing involved in locating a so und source. Because t he body, in this

way, makes a “d ifference t o how an organism hears”, Shapiro suggests, that

the bo dy can not be n eutral to the kind of mind an organism can h ave (Shapiro

(2004) p. 189).

The second direction that Shapiro refers to within the em bedded, embodied

research program concerns the way our concepts and the way in which we

conceive o f the world depend on details of our embodiment. The cent ral idea

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is that or ganisms w ith different kinds of bodies “w ill conceive the world

differently and will think differently.” (Shapiro (2004) p .183) A s an example

Shapiro refers to the work of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson on the role of

the body in structuring metaphors. The central idea of this w ork is t hat the

type o f our body plays a si gnicant role in structuring our basic con cepts an d

that t hese basic concepts in turn structure more abstract concepts and

metaphors. According to this research , basic co ncepts l ike ‘front’, ‘back’, ‘up

and ‘down’ are d irectly related to the sh ape an d type of our bo dies. Shapiro

takes t his to support the cl aim that the co ntent of mental states an d thereby

the p erspective t hat one has up on the world is dependent on the type of body

that one h as.

The third direction within the em bodied cognition research program, which

Shapiro takes t o undermine functionalism, is what he cal ls ext ended mind. 1

The m ain feature o f this vi ew is t hat the m ind and the b ody are so i ntimately

tied together that it does no t make sen se t o maintain the d ivision between the

two. Shapiro argues t hat if we g ive up this d ivision then, naturally, difference

in bodies w ill entail differences i n mind. (Shapiro (2004) p.183)

The w ork cited above sho ws, according to Shapiro, that a d ifference i n body—

even a difference in the ne details of e mbodiment – makes a d ifference in

mind. If the b ody is involved in our p sychological processes i n this intimate

way, this i ndicates, according to Shapiro, that it requires a h umanlike b ody to

have humanlike psychological c apacities. I w ill c all t his line of embodied

approach: the Body-detail model . According to this m odel, it is not enough to

recognise that the mind is intimately connected to abody; we also have to

1

This label originates from Clark and Chalmers (1997). Ho e!er" Clark and Chalmers intended thelabel for the !ie that the reali#ation of the mind is e$tended not onl% to the bod%" b&t also to the

'h%si al and so ial orld that s&rro&nds &s.

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specify the characteristics o f t his b ody. In the sense that Sh apiro takes it as

being in the spirit of funct

the body-detail model of embedded, embodied cognition undermines

functionalism, according to Shapiro.

To get a better u nderstanding of S hapiro’s claim it i s useful t o notice that

Shapiro uses the term ‘body’ in a slightly different w ay to which it is

commonly used. Normally when we talk about bodies the term refers to the

entire co llection of all body parts su ch as f eet, muscles, entrails et c., including

the brain and central nervous system. Shapiro’s use of the term body is

intended to exclude the brain and the cen tral nervous system (Shapiro (2004)

pp. 70) 2. This use of the term body is helpful when we are dealing with

embodied and embedded approaches to mind, because these views take

themselves t o be opposing views t hat take t he b rain as t he sol e su bstrate of

mind. What proponents of embedded, embodied approaches want to

emphasise is exactly how our bod ies and environment – as op posed to only

our brain— are i ntimately linked to cognition. Because of this ad vantage I will

follow Shapiro’s u se of t he t erm ‘body’ throughout this t hesis.

Embodied and Embedded Cognition as Extended Functionalism

Contrary to proponents of the Body-detail model, Clark argues t hat there i s a

way in which the embodied approach can be seen as a f orm of extended

functionalism. This w ill be t he focus o f chapter 3. On this l ine o f thought, the

body’s contribution is just a

and environment that as a whole sometimes implements the functional prole

that co nstitutes mind and cognition. Whereas traditional functionalism2 *ha'iro (2++4) treats the ,&estion abo&t the relation bet een mind and bod% as distin t from the,&estion of the relation bet een mind and brain (o'.sit. 71)

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analyses input, ou tput and states internal t o the individual, ext ended

functionalism includes n on-biological parts of the en vironment a s hat might

be called the 'material real

One of the examples of s uch an extended functionalist app roach could,

according to Clark (In Press), be t he following: in the p rocess of solving some

kinds of accounting problems, an accountant, call her Ada, uses a m ethod of

rapidly scanning columns on one page and copying certain numbers to a

piece of paper and then shifting her attention between the t wo papers. Using

this strategy, involving external p rops and the repeated shifting from one

page t o the o ther, the t ask is cut up into smaller an d less demanding tasks. In

this way the workload on Ada’s memory is signicantly reduced. Clark

suggests t hat this p rocess is be st analysed in “extended functionalist terms as

a set of p roblem-solving state t ransitions w hose i mplementation happens to

involve a distributed combination of biological m emory, motor actions,

external symbolic st orage and just-in-time perceptual access.” (Clark (In Press)

p.12)

Another e mbodied approach that, according to Clark, can be interpreted as a

form of extended functionalism is t he w ork of Ballard et al (1997). Their work

is based on experiments in which subjects were given the task of copying a

certain structure of coloured blocks. The subjects w ere placed in front of a

computer s creen with three cl early distinguishable zo nes: one a rea co ntaining

the original s tructure; a reserve area with blocks in different col ours that

could be picked up by clicking on the mouse, and an empty area where a

model of the original structure could be built. Ballard et al found that t he

subjects sol ved this p roblem with the h elp of repeated rapid saccades t o the

original - xating only on the p art of the o riginal necessary for the co mpletion

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of the n ext part of the p rocess: for exam ple, picking up a b lock with a cert ain

colour. According to Ballard et al , this su ggests that t he subjects were only

storing smaller p ieces o f information about the colour or t he position of the

block, taking advantage of the fact that

retrieved by xating on the o riginal. Clark suggests t hat we should view this

as an extended functionalist approach because B allard et al’s t heory “analyses

a co gnitive t ask as a seq uence o f less i ntelligent sub-tasks, using recog nizable

computational and information-processing concepts, but applies those

concepts w ithin a lager o rganizational whole.” (Clark (in press). p. 11)

By acknowledging the body’s contribution as in this way a part of a bigger

system, extended functionalism leaves room for t he possibility that c reatures

with different kinds of bodies c an share s imilar m inds.

Where do we go from here?

An important task is to investigate how well dened the body-detail model

and the extended functionalist ap proach are as positions. Further, how

different ar e they and what i s the underlying difference that makes t hem

come to apparently opposite conclusions about t he relations between the

embodied, embedded approaches and functionalism? Is t here a possibility

that t he two positions could be reconciled? One possibility might be to

formulate f unctional roles i n terms o f specic ch aracteristics o f the b ody. That

is, to formulate a functional role so that on ly creatures w ith certain bodies an d

sensory systems will be able to play that rol e. This possibility is also

considered by both Clark and Shapiro (Clark (In Press) p.16) (Shapiro (2004)

p. 174). Would this be too m uch em bodiment for the functionalist to a dmit?

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These q uestions w ill concerns t rough the t hesis, however, an obvious rst step

on our w ay to settle the question of the relation between the embodied,

embedded approaches and functionalism is to explore the position of

functionalism in further d etail. This w ill be t he t ask of the f ollowing chapter.

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In this c hapter I will survey a ch art of the co mplex landscape o f functionalism.

Firstly, looking into the background and origin of the position will provide a n

insight into the i ntentions b ehind the p osition. This w ill also provide u s w ith

an idea of what ‘the sprit’ of f unctionalism might be considered to be.

Secondly, I will investigate the notion of functional role and the models for

giving such presented by proponents of functionalism. These models will

provide the background for u nderstanding the difference between the two

dominant versions of functionalism: commonsense functionalism and

empirical f unctionalism. Finally, I w ill discuss w hether f unctionalism in its

different ver sions can avoid the pitfalls o f bo th liberalism (attributing mental

states to systems that do not have them) and chauvinism (falsely denying

mental states to systems that in fact have them) 3. A special f ocus in this

connection will be the relation between functionalism and multiple

realization.

! The "ac#ground and the S$irit

In order t o get a feeling of what functionalism is an d to illuminate w hat ‘the

spirit of’ functionalism might be, it will be fruitful to look into how and on

3 /0iberalism and / ha&!inism as &sed b% lo k 19 +.

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what foundations this theory w as d eveloped in the 1960’s. One major s ource

of inspiration available at t his time was the rst h esitant beginnings of

computer sci ence and its ea rly success. In particular, the distinction between

software and hardware, between function and structure inspired the

distinction between role and occupant found in functionalism. The relation

between software and hardware was viewed as a particularl

the relation between mind and body. An important source of inspiration from

computer s cience w as t he i nvention by Alan Turing of abstract and theoretical

machines d ened by functions characterizing the relations between input,

output and internal states o f t he machine. I w ill return to this i ssue in my

exposition of Hillary Putnam’s ear ly method for d ening the functional role

of mental terms. But rst let us h ave a look at the p hilosophical background

which functionalism can be seen as a react ion to. In this con text functionalism

can be seen as having developed out of d issatisfaction with the solutions

provided by the d ominating theories of mind at the t ime: Behaviourism and

The Mind-Body Identity Theory.

1.1.1 Behaviourism

Behaviourism, as a theory of m ind, is the thesis t hat m ental states can be

dened in terms of relations bet ween the input of stimuli and the output of

physical behaviour. If, for exam ple, I have a desire to drink a glass o f water,

this d esire can be d ened as h aving a set of dispositions t o act in a cert ain way- on e of these being the disposition to reach out for t he glass, if I get t he

opportunity. Notice t hat this i s a simpler ap proach than the o ne p resented by

functionalism where internal m ental s tates a re taken into consideration as

well. According to proponents of functionalism, the problem with

behaviourism is that it seems possibl

has t he right kind of behavioural dispositions t o the right kind of stimuli, but

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without having the right kind of m ental state linked with these. Think of a

creature, m aybe extraterrestrial, w ho displays the particular behavioural

dispositions of having pain when receiving stimuli of tissue d amage, but who

is o nly pretending to be in pain – acting as i f in pain just to fool us eart hlings

(for examples of t his sort see Putnam (1963)). Behaviourism would falsely

attribute the mental property of having pain to such an actor. Accordingly,

behaviourism is considered by functionali

community today to be too liberal i n its ascr iption of m ental properties t o

creatures an d systems. In contrast, a functionalist account would not take the

actor to be in pain. The reason being that s uch a creature would lack the

proper i nternal r elations, for ex ample, it will not tend to believe that t here i s

something w rong w ith its body.

1.1.2 Mind-body Identity Theory

In contrast to behaviourism, the m ind-body identity theory is con sidered by

functionalists to be too chauvinistic in its ascription of m ental st ates. Theidentity theory claims t hat in the sam e w ay as w ater i s identical to H 2O and

temperature identical to mean molecular k inetic en ergy, so are mental states

identical to physical states. A very si mplied although much used example is

to identify the mental s tate pain with C-bre stimulation in the brain. 4

Identifying a mental state with a brain state, however, makes the theory

vulnerable to the accusation of being chauvinistic ( i.e. falsely denying systems

mental properties). This h as t he result that on ly creatures w ith brains can be

attributed mental states. In this l ight traditional research within AI, where t he

goal is t o develop an articial system with humanlike mental states, seems t o

be a non-starter. Further,

4 This is of a&se a !er% sim'lified identifi ation and the e$'ression C-fibre stim&lation is onl% to betaken as a stand-in for a more om'le$ brain state.

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Shapiro (2004) p. 28 citing research of vo n Melchner, Pallas a nd Sur ( 2000))

Taking these as d ifferent realisations s how that mind, or at least some m ental

capacities, can be m ultiply realised. The m ind-body identity theory, according

to functionalists, has a problem accounting for t his f act.

Because f unctionalism can accommodate m ultiple re alization, proponents of

functionalism have argued, it is prima facie preferable to the mind-body

identity theory a s a t heory about the n ature o f mental states.

1.1.3 Materialism

What functionalists have i n mind when they speak of multiple realization is

that a mental kind can be realized by distinct physical kinds. In this sen se,

Functionalism is materialistic in spirit. Materialism is the view that,

fundamentally, all things t hat exi st are ' material' or p hysical. Arguing that t he

kind of states, which are m ost likely to be a ble t o carry out the f unctional roles

are p hysical states, David Lewis ( 1966) presents h is f unctionalist account as a nargument aga inst d ualism. However, strictly speaking, materialism is not

implied by functionalism. In fact, functionalism is compatible with some

kinds o f d ualism. Again, this i s b ecause t he functional descriptions i nvolved

are n eutral about the n ature o f the o ccupier o f the rol e ( This n eutrality will be

explained further i n section 1.2). The o nly kinds of dualism incompatible w ith

functionalism are p ositions l ike epiphenomenalism and parallelism that denycausal interactions f rom the mental t o the physical. Properties lacking ability

to affect the p hysical domain will not be su itable can didates f or occup ying a

functional role.

1.1.4 Anti-reduction and methodological autonomy

Characterizing the spirit of f unctionalism it i s also important t o note that

functionalism has been seen by many as bei ng able to provide a materialistic

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account that i s n on-reductive. The general line of ar gument i s t hat becau se

psychological ki nds can be realized in diverse physical ki nds (multiple

realization) psychological kinds can not be reduced to physical kinds. This h as

led functionalist like Jerry Fodor ( 1974) to the conclusion that r egularities a t

the psychological level, although implemented on a physical level, cannot be

reduced to regularities on this underlying level. In this light, end orsing

functionalism can be seen as a w ay to ‘save’ the m ethodological autonomy of

psychology. Accordingly, psychology has i ts ow n level of description that is

above the details of neuroanatomy, physiology, chemistry and physics.

Psychology uncovers special laws which cannot be deduced from and thus

not reduced to the l aws of physics.

1.1.5 The s irit o! !unctionalism

In the light of t he dissatisfaction with the mind-body identity theory and

behaviourism, functionalism can be seen as an attempt to provide a

materialistic an d mechanistically inspired account of the mental that promises

the m ethodological autonomy of psychology and that at the same t ime avoids

the pitfalls of bot h liberalism and chauvinism. This seems to sum up the

intentions behind functionalism and thus g ives u s a picture of w hat can be

considered to be t he sp irit of f unctionalism. Now, we can begin to understand

Shapiro’s cl aim that it is i n the sp irit of functionalism to regard the m ind as “ a

programme t hat can be characterized in abstraction from the b rain/body that

realizes it” (Shapiro (2004) p. 175). Before we discuss whether this is

necessarily a con sequence of functionalism I will say a b it more abo ut how we

should understand functionalism and functional roles, and present som e

different versions o f the p osition.

!% &ethods for defining functional roles

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Over the years various different versions of functionalism have been

developed. The best way to get an overview of this is to start by looking

at the two main methods for d ening mental states in a functionalist way. The

rst method is set in terms of Turing Machines and machine tables. The

second is Lewis’ method for dening terms using Ramsey sentences.

1.2.1 Turing Machines and Machine tables

As noted, functionalism, in its early days was inspired by work within

computer science. Hillary Putnam (1960 and 1967) introduced the idea ofmodelling a functional theory of mind over Turing Machines. A Turing

Machine is a purely theoretical and abstract construction dened by two

different functions. Function 1: From input and states t o output. Function 2:

From input and states to other states. A machine of this kind can be

characterised in a m achine t able t hat, for e very possible co mbination of states

and input, lists the instructions for t hese functions. These instructions haveform of conditionals o f t he following kind: If t he machine is i n state S and

receive i nput I then it emits ou tput O.

A coke machine is an example of an ordinary machine that can be described

this w ay:

Coke Machine S1 S250 pence input Emit no output

Go to S2

Emit a Coke

Go to S11 pound input Emit a Coke Emit a Coke and 50 pence

Go to S1

Fig: 1 Machine table of coke machine (UK version of example from Block 1980)

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This m achine t able sp ecies t hat if the co ke m achine i s i n S1 and receives an

input of 50 p ence t he machine emits n o output and goes to state S2. If the

machine, while in S2, receives an other 50 p ence t he m achine w ill emit a cok e

and return to state S1 and so on. I will not go through the w hole t able but I

think that the idea sh ould be cl ear f rom these con ditionals. One t hing to note

is that t he system’s response to input d epends on its internal s tate when

receiving the i nput.

Putnam’s idea was that organisms with mental states can be described

analogues to Turing machines. 5 H ence, a m ental state i s eq uivalent to a Turing

machine st ate. In this co nnection, it is i mportant to notice t hat t he st ates i n a

Turing machine are functionally dened by the way they are connected to

each other in the way that the machine table describes. When we described

the coke m achine we did not have to say anything about what materials the

machine w as m ade of, only the relations b etween the internal states an d the

in- and output. N either did we sp ecify anything about the con struction of the

internal s tate of t his machine. What i t i s to be in these internal s tates is

specied implicitly in the rel ations b etween the st ates an d the p roduction of

output from input as i t is shown in the m achine table. Any system that has

internal states t hat interact in this w ay will have su ch states as S 1 a nd S2.

Putnam points out t hat an important feature of this account is that t he

physical realization of the sen se o rgans r esponsible f or t he v arious i nputs, and

of the motor o rgans i s sp ecied, but that t he ‘states’ themselves are sp ecied

only implicitly by the m achine t able (Putnam (1967)). This h as t he feature t hat

the theory says n othing about the nature of the occupier of t he role. The

n his arti le from 19 7 &tnam models his f&n tionalism o!er robabilisti 5&tomatons instead ofT&ring 6a hines. n robabilisti 5&tomatons transitions bet een states are defined in 'robabilitiesrather than being deterministi .

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occupier co uld, in theory, be brain-states, silicon states, physical or ev en non-

physical states. Like software t he m ind can be run on many different kinds of

hardware.

A problem with Putnam’s m odel, however, is that a m achine s tate is a s tate of

the w hole system and consequently the m odel has difficulties accounting for

systems t hat are i n several internal states at the sam e t ime. (Levin 2004)

1.2.2 "e#is$ %amsey-sentence method o! !untionali&ation

Another way to see how functional denitions are supposed to work is

looking at L ewis’ (1972) m ethod for providing functional de nitions using

Ramsey sent ences. This m ethod has t he ad vantage o f being able to account for

systems w ith several simultaneous i nternal states. One co uld say that Lewis’

method denes a s ystem’s m ental state al l at once. (Levin 2004)

Take the exam ple of dening pain as a m ental state. In this case we have a

theory of m ental states ( an extremely simplied one) where pain is t he state

which tends to be cau sed by tissue d amage, causes worry and the em ission of

“Ouch“. Worry, in turn, causes brow wrinkling (Example from Block 1980).

If we re place t he m ental state terms pain and worry with variables (x and y)

and transform the t heory into an existentially quantied sentence w e get what

is called the Ramsay sentence of the t heory.

x, y (x is caused by t issue damage & causes the emission of “Ouch” & causes state

y & y causes brow wrinkling.)

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This r eads: there are t wo states x a nd y such that x is caused by tissue d amage

and causes both the emission of “Ouch” and state y, which in turn causes

brow wrinkling.

Now we can d ene what it is to be in pain and worry in the following w ay:

Pain

An organism or system S is in pain = t

tissue dam age an d causes bot h t he emission of “Ouch”, and the s tate y, and the s tate y

causes br ow wrinkling and S is i n state x.

Worry

An organism or system S is worried = ther

tissue dam age an d causes bot h the em ission of “Ouch” and the st ate y, and the s tate y

causes br ow wrinkling and S is i n state y.

Notice t hat in the a bove d enitions t he mental state t erms ar e rep laced with

variables, while input and output remain specied. Again this says n othing

about the structure of t he involved mental states. Anything with an internal

state t hat plays t hese cau sal roles i s w orried and in pain.

!' Commonsense (s! Em$irical functionalism

Having the m ethods for dening the functional roles i n place t he n ext concern

is w hich k ind of theory w e should use as t he foundation for ou r denition of

these f unctional roles. There a re two main directions t hat functionalism has

taken on this q uestion. So-called commonsense f unctionalists t ake an a priori

approach, while empirical functionalists h old that we should take a p osteriori

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empirical psychological theories as o ur p oint of departure. In what follows I

will give a m ore d etailed exposition of both these d irections.

1.3.1 'ommonsense !unctionalism

According to commonsense functionalists (e.g. Lewis (1972) and Armstrong

(1968)) ou r g uideline for d ening the appropriate functional roles for o ur

mental states is our common knowledge about the relations between

particular input, internal cau sal interaction and output. This knowledge

provides the background for what could be called a commonsense

psychology. Lewis (1972) suggests that we think of "common-sensepsychology as a term-introducing scientic theory, though one invented

before there was any such institut

256) According to Lewis we construe this theory out of ou r extensive

repertoire o f platitudes ab out mental states — as f or exam ple, 'headache is a

kind of p ain'— and other p latitudes ab out t he causal relations of m ental

states, sensory stimuli, and motor r esponses ( Loc ci t). We h ave already seen pain analysed in such a commonsensical way. It is common knowledge that

pain is cause d by tissue damage or d amage to the body; it is also general

knowledge t hat this cr eates a d esire t o escape t hat situation and so o n. This i s

similar t o the w ay that we d ene o rdinary terms l ike mousetrap , alarm clock or

ball pen in broad functional terms. A mousetrap is something that has the

functional role of catching mice; an alarm clock has the functional role ofkeeping and showing the time and making a loud noise at the right time an d

so o n. The functional role o f an alarm clock gives u s t he m eaning of what it is

to be an alarm clock. If something keeps and shows the time and makes a

loud noise at a certain set t ime it is an alarm clock. Likewise, an a priori

analysis of pai n nds t he com mon sense functional role ass ociated with pain

and this r ole g ives u s t he m eaning of the t erm ‘pain’.

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1.3.2 (m irical !unctionalism

This variety of functionalism holds that, instead of being guided by

commonsense we should be gu ided by the ndings of the science of empirical

psychology (e.g. Putnam, Fodor). A typical way to express t his v iew is t hat

mental states are o ccupants o f functional roles an d that which functional role

determines w hich mental states t hat a subject is in, is a matter f or sc ience

(perhaps cognitive psychology or neuroscience) (Braddon-Mitchell and

Jackson (2007)). This yields a different ki

output than that which is open to commonsense functionalism.

Commonsense functionalism is r estricted to specifying input and output in

terms of w hat is externally observable an d common knowledge (e.g. inputs

that are characterised in terms of ob jects present cl ose to the subject, and

outputs in terms of bo dily movements). In contrast empirical functionalism

can use the knowledge that we acquire via experiments e.g. knowledge of

neural signalling. (Block (1980))

The t ypical description of em pirical functionalism replaces t he co mmonsense

functional r ole directly with the empirical f unctional r ole. H owever, as

Braddon-Mitchell and Jackson (2007) points out, it seems that the

commonsense functional role m ust enter i nto the picture at some p oint. This

is because having only the neuroscientic facts about a person would not

suffice to give ordinary people with no knowledge of neuroscience any

knowledge about what that person thinks. They suggest that the

commonsense functional role, instead of having the role of xing the m eaning

of the mental terms, as it has according to commonsense functionalism,

employs t he function of xing the r eference o f these t erms.

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Braddon-Mitchell and Jackson distinguish between two general versions

where the commonsense role xes the reference. In the rst, the commonsense

role xes t he n ature o f the st ate t hat plays t he ro le, e.g. on neurophysiological

states. In the second version the commonsense role xes another more

detailed role t hat underpins t he co mmonsense r ole. In this cas e “ What settles

that a subject i s i n M [a certain mental s tate] i s t he internal f unctional r ole

which underpins the common sense functional role associated with M.”

(Braddon-Mitchell and Jackson (2007) P. 85) T he interesting role for sci ence

becomes to investigate which internal

functional roles. This l atter versi on is t he more sen sible way to go, according

to Braddon-Mitchell and Jackson. This bec omes obv ious w hen we r ealize t hat

the rst version contradicts t he w ay in which we d ened multiply realization.

If the functional r ole refers directly to the neural s tate we end up with

chauvinism, similar i n kind to that which the m ind-body identity theory has

been accused of. However, as we shall see in

more promising versions of empirical functionalism have been accused of

being chauvinistic.

!) The liberalism*chau(inism dilemma

Now that we h ave an overview of what functionalism is and different versions

of it, it is t ime t o ask ourselves h ow this p icture ts w ith the p icture t hat we

drew of the sp irit of functionalism, just a little w hile a go. Remember t hat one

of the essential reasons for endorsing functionalism was to avoid the

chauvinism of the mind-body identity theory. We have al ready seen t hat some

versions of empirical functionalism seem to have problems avoiding

chauvinism and providing us w ith the right kind of m ultiply realization. In

his ar ticle “Troubles w ith Functionalism” Block argues t hat the d ilemma for

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functionalism is “t hat a ny physical description of inputs and outputs ….yields a

version of functionalism that i s i nevitably chauvinist or l iberal” (Block (1980)

p. 295). Let us t ake a look at why he t hinks t hat this i s t he ca se.

1.4.1 The charge o! chauvinism

We’ll start by considering Block’s ch allenge to commonsense functionalism.

Block o bserves t hat commonsense functionalists

“tend to specify inputs and outputs in the manner of

behaviourists: outputs in terms of movements of arms and legs,sound emitted and the like; inputs in terms of l ight and sound

falling on the eyes and ears….Such descriptions are blatantly

species-specic. Humans have ar ms and legs, but snakes d o not-

and whether or not snakes have mentality, one can easily

imagine snakelike creatures t hat do . Indeed, one can imagine

creatures w ith all manner o f input-output devices, e.g., creaturesthat communicate and manipulate by emitting strong magnetic

elds “( Block (1980) p. 294).

On this account Block holds that the general version of commonsense

functionalism leads to a k ind of chauvinism: human body chauvinism. In this

sense, Block is su ggesting that be cause t he identication of m ental states i slimited by the fact that the input and outputs ar e sp ecies-specic, we d o not

get t he kind of m ultiple realization the functionalists w ere o riginally looking

for.

Turning to the question of empirical functionalism Block’s charge of

chauvinism is a charge o f internal organization chauvinism. Remember t hatempirical functionalism is con cerned with the functional organization of the

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internal cognitive mechanisms an d processes as ar e t he o bjectives o f empirical

psychology such a s input and outputs of the cent ral nervous system described

in neurophysiological terms (Braddon-Mitchell and Jackson (2007)). Now,

Block invites us t o imagine that we meet some Martians an d nd that in a

commonsense functional way they are very much like us. However, in the

empirical functional way w e d iffer signicantly.

“When we get to know Martians, we nd them about as

different from us as hu mans we know. We develop extensive

cultural and commercial intercourse with them. We study each

other's science and philosophy journals, go to each other's

movies, read each other's no vels, etc. Then Martian and Earthian

psychologists com pare notes, only to nd that i n underlying

psychology, Martians and Earthians are very different… Now

imagine that what Martian and Earthian psychologists nd

when they compare notes is that Martians and Earthians d iffer

as i f they were the en d products of maximally different design

choices (compatible with rough Functional equ ivalence in

adults). Should we reject ou r assumption that M artians can

enjoy our lms, believe their o wn apparent s cientic results,

etc.?…..[T]here m ay be m any ways o f lling in the d escription of

the Martian-human differences in which it would be re asonable

to suppose there simply is no fact of the matter, or even to

suppose t hat the Martians do not d eserve mental ascriptions.

But surely there are many ways o f lling in the description of

the M artian-Earthian difference I sketched on which i t would be

perfectly clear t hat even if Martians be have differently from us

on subtle psychological experiments, they nonetheless think

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desire en joy, etc. To suppose ot herwise would be crude h uman

chauvinism.” ( Block (1980) pp. 291-93)

The con sequence o f identifying mental states on the b asis of theories of neural

inputs and outputs as we humans have t hem seem to be that only creatures

with neurons or w ith the r ight kind of neu ral set up can have m ental states

like ours. This is w hat you might call a n europhysiological chauvinism (term

from Braddon-Mitchel and Jackson (2007)).

1.4.2 )unctionalism and abstraction

One way for both commonsense and empirical functionalists to avoid the

charge of chauvinism is to characterise i nputs an d outputs in more ab stract

ways. I f, in our example w ith the cok e m achine instead of cokes, 50 cen t coins

and 1 pound coins, we had characterized these as output 1, Input 1 and Input

2, then every machine that had some inputs and outputs standing in the same

functional relation as t hat of ou r coke machine w ill have the sam e internalstates as this (Braddon-Mitchell an d Jackson (2007)). In regard to mental

states, any creature or sys tem which had inputs an d outputs an d similar

internal f unctional relations would be functionally isomorphic to you and

have the same mental states as yo u. This would guarantee that systems

without brains or w ith different bod ies ar e not excluded from the realm of

psychological subjects f rom the o utset. That is, it would ensure t he p ossibilityof the kind of multiple realization with which Putnam and others were

concerned in arguing against the mind-body identity theory. However,

according to Block, the problem with such a characterisation is t hat i t is t oo

liberal. Block invites u s t o imagine that w e set up all people in China in a

network linked via radio communication that communicates with a body

somewhere in the world. This system is set up in such a way that it is

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commonsense functionally equivalent to a human brain and body. Would

such a sys tem have m ental states? Commonsense functionalists would have to

say that it has. In the case o f empirical functionalism, if someone a rranged the

economy of Bolivia in such a way that i t had similar r elations o f internal

states, input and output as a h uman being, we would have to say that it has

mental states ( Block 1980). Block argues t hat s ince t hese would be absurd

assumptions, these v ersions of functionalism would be u ntenable. Block h olds

that i t is o ur i ntuition that t his k ind of system would lack qualitative mental

states. That is, there w ould not be so mething “it is l ike” to be t hese sy stems.

However, one might object that what is involved in the exam ple seems to be

outside the reach of our i ntuitions. It is p ossible that i f w e really understood

the complex functional story of the Bolivian economy when organized this

way or t he China brain, the thought that it has m ental states m ight not be

absurd. At least i t seems reasonable to say that because of our lack in

knowledge of this ki nd our intuitions i n this case can only be very vague.

Bechtel and Mundale (1999) present an alternative o ption for functionalists to

avoid the pitfall of chauvinism. I w ill give an exposition of t his i n a short

while; however there is on e t hing that we n eed to shed light on rst and that

is t he rel ation between functionalism and multiple real ization.

1.4.3 )unctionalism and Multi le %eali&ation

Often multiple realization is m entioned in the same breath as f unctionalism,

and as w e have seen multiple realization plays a major r ole in the general

debate concerning chauvinism versus liberalism. But what exac tly is the

logical relation between these t wo notions? D oes f unctionalism entail multiple

realization? A nd does m ultiple real ization entail functionalism?

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Let us st art with the second question. The sh ort answer i s: No. It is p ossible

for s omething to be m ultiple real izable ev en though it is n ot individuated in

terms of functional role. Standard examples ar e g eometrical kinds l ike squ are ,

cube, sphere an d circle (Mandik (2007)). What makes s omething a cu be is that

it is a hexahedron with six equal squares as f aces. This i s an intrinsic p roperty.

Something can be a c ube w ithout having any causal relations to anything else.

A cube is a geometrical, not a functional kind. Further, cubes can have

different physical properties, be real ized in different materials l ike f oam, stone

or w ood. It can also have different s izes o f squares, be solid or h ollow and

have d ifferent masses. In this w ay cube seem s t o be m ultiply realizable. If we

had an account on which mental states w ere individuated in terms of intrinsic

properties, these could still be multiple realized. It m ay be that m ultiple

realization of mental s tates, if true, gi ves us a good reason to prefer

functionalism to mind-body identity theory, but it does not support

functionalism denitively.

Even more i nteresting for our cu rrent d iscussion is t he second question of

whether w e can have f unctionalism without multiple realization. The idea of

functional ki nds being multiple realizable seems to be general. Take for

example the functional kind of mouse trap. Mouse traps come in al sorts of

shapes, materials and make ups. The same seem to be the case with

corkscrew, watch and left winger. Taking mental kinds to be functional kinds

in a similar w ay, functionalists h ave argued that m ental states l ike pain or

hunger can likewise b e realized in different p hysical structures e.g. in brain

states in mammals, electronic states in extremely complex (and not yet

developed) computers or i n some kind of plasma in extraterrestrial creatures.

However, even though multiple realizability seems to be a p roperty shared by

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many functional kinds, this d oes n ot necess arily show that all functional kinds

are multiple realizable. A ccording to Shapiro, “ad option of a functional

perspective toward the mind does not entail that

the mind is multiply realizable.” ((Shapiro 2004), p. 22). This is the case,

according to Shapiro, becau se it is possible to have a description of a

functional role t hat ap plies o nly, as a matter o f necessi ty, to a single p hysical

kind. One o f his exam ples i nvolves t he d rill bit of a m achine d esigned to drill

in extremely hard minerals. Drill bit is an example of an ordinary functional

kind. What is s ignicant to being of t he k ind dril l bit is t o have t he ca pacity to

drill a hole when rotated in to a surface. However, Shapiro invites u s to

consider that “if diamond are t he o nly substance t hat in fact are h ard enough

to drill through very hard surfaces, then dril l bit picks o ut a p hysical kind no

less t han it refers t o a f unctional kind”(Shapiro ( 2004) p.21).

Notice, however, that w hether o r n ot d iamonds, in this cas e, are the only

substance h ard enough for t he d rilling job is an empirical question. Thus, it

concerns t he n omological possibility of dril l bit being m ultiple realizable. T his

is d istinct from the question of the metaphysical possibility of drill b it being

multiple real izable. Even if diamonds t urns o ut to be t he only substance t hat

can realize the special ki nd of d rill bit i n our w orld and in all the possible

worlds t hat share o ur l aws of na ture, this d oes n ot e xclude t here b eing other

possible worlds w here other p hysical kinds can do the job as w ell. The fact

that t he functionalist descri ption of the functional r ole is n eutral, at least to

some extent, abou t the nature of the realization, seem to ensure the

metaphysical possibility of a k ind being multiple real izable. However, as w e

have s een Shapiro argue, this is no t the cas e w hen we ar e con cerned with the

nomological possibility. The situation is similar when we consider the

question in relation to mental states.

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To sum up: a functionalist approach does e ntail multiple r ealization when we

are co ncerned with the metaphysical possibility; however, this i s n ot t he case

when the question comes to the nomological possibility of multiple

realization.

It i s t he nomological possibility of m ultiple realization that con cerns B echtel

and Mundale in the article “Multiple Realizability Revisited” (1999) I n this

article they develop a suggestion as to how we can have a functionalist

approach that does n ot involve multiple real ization or entail chauvinism.

!+ Functionalism without multi$le reali ation and chau(inism?

We have now seen that in a certain sense functionalism without multiple

realization is a possibility. As w e can formulate a functional role for drill b it

that exclusively can be occupied by diamonds, so we could formulate a

functional role for p ain that could only be occupied by humans. However, in

our p revious d iscussion of the liberalism-chauvinism dilemma we saw that

this seemed to steer u s straight i nto chauvinism. In the article “Multiple

Realizability Revisited”, (1999) Bechtel and Mundale suggest, a way forward

for denying multiple realization of m ental s tates, but n evertheless keep a

functionalist approach that has t he ad vantage o f not being chauvinistic.

The key feature o f this accou nt is t heir ar gument discrediting the cl aim that

mental states are m ultiple realizable in the way suggested by functionalism.

An exposition of this ar gument will essentially provide an insight in how they

think that i t i s p ossible to reject m ultiple realization and at t he same time

avoid chauvinism.

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According to Bechtel and Mundale the prima facie case for multiple

realization stems from a misguided understanding of w hat a brain state is.

When Putnam advances his argument against the mind-body identity theory

his main claim is that it seems implausible that we would nd the same

physical-chemical state i n the a ll different species t hat s hare t he a bility to have

psychological states like pain or hunger (see above quote p. 13 ). The

conception of a brain state as p hysical-chemical states h as been taken as a

general po int of d eparture for m ost p hilosophical discussions of multiple

realization. However, according to Bechtel and Mundale this n otion of brain

state is n ot s hared by researchers i n the neurosciences. The closest we get t o

something that c ould count as b rain states i n the neurosciences, are areas o f

activity in different p arts of t he brain. This i s a notion of brai n state that i s

much more abstract and coarse-grained than the one found in the

philosophical arguments. Bechtel and Mundale accuse the philosophers for

failing to note that “the same degree of variability is tolerated by

neuroscientists in identifying types of n eural p rocesses t hat t hey accept i n

identifying psychological types” ( Bechtel and Mundale ( 1999) p. 202)

Bechtel and Mundale point to the fact that i t is o nly on a very abstract level

that humans an d octopuses can be considered to share a psychological state

like h unger. In this cas e, hunger could be ch aracterized as som ething that is

caused by lack o f food, causes d iscomfort and food-seeking behaviour and so

on. However, if we look at hunger i n these d ifferent species w ith the aim of

asserting the individual differences, we see t hat t here are d ifferences i n, for

example, what kind of food that is soug ht, how it is done etc. The usual

practice, in identifying psychological s tates, involves abstracting away from

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such details. On similar lines neuroscientists abstract aw ay from details on

physical and chemical levels.

In fact, neuroscience is more functionalistic than it h as traditionally been

thought to be, according to Bechtel and Mundale. They point to the fact that

the n eurosciences b oth in their t ools an d project rely heavily on considerations

of behaviour an d psychological function. This h as t he result that i t is p ossible

to identify brain states across sp ecies and thereby, according to Bechtel and

Mundale, the con sequence o f making multiple r ealization less likely.

To give a simple example of this approach in neuroscience Bechtel and

Mundale refer t o Ferrier’s (1886) comparative investigations based on weak

current s timulation of br ain areas o f, among others, dogs, rats, rabbits a nd

monkeys. Figure 2 shows t he areas on the left hemispheres of monkey (left)

and dog (right) where motor response was educed when stimulated.

Fig. 2

Illustration from Ferrier 1886, reprinted in Bechtel and Mundale 1999

Each number refers to a different kind of motor response e.g. Number 1:

Opposite hind limb is adv anced as in walking, Number 5: Extension forward

of the o pposite arm (as i f reaching or t ouching something in front)

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Although Ferrier’s research is o f ol der d ate it i s illustrative of t he approach

that is al so present in today’s r esearch in neuroanatomy and neurophysiology.Although contemporary research employs further developed techniques s uch

as si ngle cel l recording, it shares t he p oint of departure i n the a ssumption that

we can compare across species and its dependence on psychological or

behavioural function. When it comes to resea

as p osition emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance

imaging (fMRI) has been developed. Here the dependence on psychological

function is eve n more ev ident, because i t relies o n the co gnitive tasks t hat the

subjects ar e asked to p erform in the exp eriments w hile scanned.

According to Bechtel and Mundale, what we sho uld learn from all this is t hat

the way we ask questions in the neurosciences is constructed in a way that

makes m ultiple realization less l ikely.

“…neuroscientists employ behaviour an d psychological function in

setting the context f or i dentity of brai n states, with the result t hat t hey

identify areas and processes in brains across sp ecies, as well as in

different brains within the same species. Not surprisingly,

psychologists employ similar contexts for identifying psychological

states, resulting in a one-to-one mapping between brain states and

psychological states” ( Bechtel and Mundale ( 1999). p.203)

In short, functional cr iteria are relevant i n identifying both psychological

states an d brain states, according to Bechtel and Mundale.

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Multiple realization of psychological states i s a bout judging similarity and

difference: rstly, similarity of psychological states an d secondly, difference o f

physical realizations. The standard arguments for m ultiple realization have

used a coarse-grained criterion when judging the sam eness o f psychological

states an d a ne-grained criterion when discriminating between brain states.

Bechtel and Mundale’s claim is that if we ch oose the sam e grains of analysis

for b oth psychological and neuroscientic i nvestigations t hen the plausibility

of multiple real ization disappears.

“One can adopt a rel atively coarse-grain, equating psychological states

over d ifferent individuals or ac ross species. If one em ploys the sam e

grain, though, one will equate activities i n brain areas a cross sp ecies,

and one-to-one mapping is preserved…Conversely, one can adopt a

very ne-grain, and differentiate psychological states between

individuals, or even in the sam e individuals ov er t ime. If one si milarly

adopts a ne-grain in analysing the brain, then one is likely to map

psychological differences on to brain differences, and brain differences

onto psychological differences.” (Bechtel and Mundale ( 1999) p. 202)

Which level of g rain that i s appropriate in judging these similarities and

differences d epends o n the context of inquiry. If, for exam ple, one takes an

evolutionary perspective a coarse-grained analysis would be appropriate.

(Bechtel and Mundale (1999) p. 203) However, according to Bechtel and

Mundale, on neither o f t hese different l evels of ab straction is it l ikely that

psychological states are multiply realized. On the coarse-grained approach

realizations i n form of br ain states w ill be similar a cross sp ecies a nd on the

ne-grained approach w e d o n ot share p sychological states.

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Finally, how does t his ap proach avoid chauvinism? Taking a coarse-grained

approach to both psychological states an d brain states m akes i t po ssible to

ascribe psychological states t o cats, dogs, rat, rabbits an d possibly many other

species and not only to humans. But what about computers and

extraterrestrials com posed of d ifferent types of c omponents? Well, we m ight

nd that t hese t hings are a lternative realizations, but according to Bechtel and

Mundale, this i s n ot obvious an d maybe it is n ot even likely. Computers t hat

have psychological abilities are l ikely to be v ery different from the co mputers

that have b een invented up till now. Bechtel and Mundale su ggest that it at

least seems possible that such computers would have ar eas t hat could be

identied as being responsible for processing different s ensory inputs or

motor ou tput. According to Bechtel and Mundale, ”this m ight provide a b asis

for a common taxonomy of the physical processing states u nderlying the

psychological function” (Bechtel and Mundale (1999) p. 204). The situation I

imagine w ould be si milar i n the case o f extraterrestrials.

At this point one could ask whether this is not exactly what we took as

standard cases o f m ultiple realization? That i s, for ex ample, realizations i n

silicon-based systems. An alternative way of r eading Bechtel and Mundale’s

point about the n otion of brain states i n the n eurosciences i s t hat this n otion in

itself i s a functional n otion that act ually permits m ultiple realization in the

standard terms. So the important i ssue here is perhaps not, as we rst

thought, about w hether or not t he account d iscredits the plausibility of

multiple realization. The really important thing to recognize is that

neuroscience is m ore functionalistic i n its o utset than rst expected and that

the cen tral issue i s ab out choosing level of grain for one’s an alysis ap propriate

for t he co ntext of inquiry.

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!- Sum u$ and Conclusions

My aim in this chapter has been to provide t he t ools for eval uating whether an

embedded and embodied approach is indeed compatible with functionalism.To sum up, the d evelopment of functionalism was connected to dissatisfaction

with the solutions provided by behaviourism and the mind-body identity

theory. Behaviourism was t oo liberal in its at tribution of mental states, whereas

the mind-body identity theory was viewed as chau vinistic. From this we

concluded that what might be thought of as t he sp irit of functionalism was t o

develop a theory that avoided these extremities, and at the same t ime kept amaterialistic approach. In order to get a better understanding of what i s

involved in dening a functional role we looked at two different m ethods of

functionalization: The m achine m ethod and the Ramsey se ntence m ethod. Both

methods p roviding denitions of functional roles t hat avoid the u se of mental

state terms an d which are neutral about the physical structure of t he mental

states. Using different sources a p riori or a p osteriori psychology yields d ifferentversions of functionalism: commonsense functionalism and empirical

functionalism respectively. However, both versions h ave been accused of being

either too liberal o r too chauvinistic. In my discussion of t he liberalism-

chauvinism dilemma on the charge of liberalism I argued, w ith Braddon-

Mitchell and Jackson, that Block’s exam ples i nvolving the Chinese brain and

the reor ganized economy of Bolivia is outside the reach of ou r intuition and,accordingly, that it seems t o be at least an open question whether or n ot such a

brain would indeed have mental states. Thus, one way to turn for the

functionalist seems t o be t owards m ore a bstract characterizations o f inputs an d

outputs. Another way out of this d ilemma, is t o recognise t he i mportant insight

delivered by Bechtel and Mundale, that the original debate on functionalism

and multiple realization has been cast i n different l evels of ab straction for

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psychological s tates and brain states –- coarse-grained and ne-grained

respectively. If we a re w illing to acknowledge that t he notion of brain state i s

itself a f unctional notion in the w ay that Bechtel and Mundale argu e, this cou ld

be a way out of the dilemma. Bechtel and Mundale also offer us another

observation worth keeping in mind: which level of gr ain that is ap propriate i s

determined by the con text of inquiry. Judgements of s ameness an d difference

are al ways r elative to one’s r easons for wanting to make t he com parison in the

rst place.

Could we use our new found distinction between a coarse-grained and ne-

grained analysis to track down the distinction between commonsense

functionalism and empirical functionalism?

To a rst approximation this w ould seem to be the cas e in the sense t hat there

seems be m ore g rounds for a m ore d etailed analysis working from the ou tset of

scientic psychology than from commonsense p sychology. However, it is worth

noticing that even scientic p sychological analysis can be m ore o r less coarse o r

ne-grained depending on the context of i nquiry. Making a coarse-grained

analysis as op posed to a ne-grained analysis, in Bechtel and Mundale u se of

the terms, is just t o focus o n the commonalities as o ppose to the differences

between individuals. In this light, Bechtel and Mundale classify

characterisations of mental states at the level of scientic information-

processing psychology as gen erally coarse-grained. Accordingly, in some cases

the a nalysis i n which an empirical functionalism can take i ts p oint of departure

can be ch aracterised as coa rse-grained. I n this way, it seems coarse-grained and

ne-grained is not a m atter of all or no thing, but a co ntinuum. Although, the

distinction does not completely track the distinction between commonsense

and empirical functionalism it will be useful to keep in mind in the following

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discussions of the body-detail model and Extended Functionalism and our

further investigations into the relation between embodied cognition and

functionalism.

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______________________________________________

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Shapiro argues t hat research within embodied, embedded cognitive sciencesconicts with the spirit of f unctionalism. According to Shapiro, it c onicts

with the b ody neutral functionalist model of mind that is ass ociated with the

claim that “characteristics of bodies m ake n o difference t o the k ind of mind

one possesses” (Shapiro (2004) p. 175). In his book “The Mind Incarnate”,

Shapiro depicts t hese b ody-neutral views as w hat he cal ls n aturalistic versi ons

of Gilbert Ryle’s dogma of the ghost in the machine, which despite theirnaturalistic p oint of d eparture hold that m ind is au tonomously residing in

and contained by the brain and the body. In “The Mind Incarnate” these

views are rep resented by what he cal ls t he seperability thesis ( henceforth ST).

ST is construed as t he v iew that the m ind is independent of the body in the

sense that the very same mind can exist in many different ki nds of bod ies

with different properties an d that, as a result, the q uestion of understandingmind can be separated from the qu estion of understanding body. As Shap iro

formulates it, ST views the mind as a “fairly self-contained organ, like a

stomach or a kidney, whose p roperties an d operations can be understood

without having to attend much to the an atomical and physiological properties

of the res t of the b ody”(Shapiro (2004) preface x ). ST is t hus t he m etaphysical

claim that identical minds can exist in different kinds of bod ies an d the

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epistemological claim that we can understand mind without attending to the

facts of the b ody. As even classical functionalist accounts can allow that minds

cannot be understood without having an understanding of bodies and the

world (the ep istemological claim) my focus w ill be o n the metaphysical claim

of ST.

In opposition to ST, Shapiro interprets research in embedded, embodied

cognitive science as sup porting what he calls the embodied mind thesis

(henceforth EMT). EMT is t he t hesis t hat “minds p rofoundly reect the b odies

in which they are con tained” ( Shapiro (2004). p. 167.) According to this t hesis,

a cr eature w ith a h umanlike m ind will have a hu manlike body; and a cr eature

with dolphin mind will have a d olphin body and so on. In fact, EMT claims

“only humanlike bodies w ill have h umanlike minds”. (Shapiro (2004) p. 182

my italics).

The following scenario makes t he opposite thesis cl ear: imagine that we, via

radio, get i n contact with some cr eatures f rom another s olar s ystem. We t alk

and interact with them in much the same way as we did with the Martians in

the earlier example from Block. On this basis we assume that they have

something very much like a hu man mind. As we have only encountered our

new friends over t he radio, we have never seen a picture or video of them.

What kind of body would such creatures have? Proponents of ST would say

that we could not know this. As far as we know our new friends could be

spherical and judge distance with the h elp of sonar. Proponents of EM T on

the other hand would expect these creatures to have a b ody very much like

the hu man body (Shapiro (2004) p. 166).

The /uman Mind and the /uman Body

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Before w e turn to the re search presented by Shapiro in favour of EMT, there

are a f ew important points worth noting about the n otions of the h uman mind

and body employed by Shapiro. The rst is that Shapiro’s argument is

concerned with entire minds and not just states. A human mind in the way

Shapiro uses t he term refers t o a collection of cognitive ca pacities su ch as f or

example, memory, per ception and use of language (Shapiro (2004) p .69).

Combined with EMT, this means that creatures with dolphin bodies cannot

have humanlike minds, but it does not imply that we cannot share mental

states l ike for exam ple, hunger o r p ain. However, whether t his is the case

depends, according to EMT, on whether they have body properties that are

sufficiently similar t o the r elevant properties of human bodies.

To understand the claim of EMT it is also important to be familiar w ith

Shapiro’s no tion of what it means to have a h uman body. Shapiro states that

when he talks abo ut human bodies he “w ill usually have in mind facts about

our gross morphology. Human beings walk upright on two legs, have two

forward-facing eyes i n their h ead, and are b ilaterally symmetrical. Our ear s

are on the sides of our heads, and we have ve ngers on each hand” (Shapiro

(2004) p. 71). In this w ay, EMT states t hat for a c reature t o have a human mind

it must share the gross morphology that is generally shared among human

beings.

%! "od. &atters

Shapiro argues ag ainst ST, referring to research in the eld of em bodied

cognition. Shapiro presents t hree lines o f research that h e takes t o support

EMT. From the introduction we have already had a taste of what these

involve, but here I will presen t the i ssues i n further d etail.

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5. Perception and thought: the i diosyncratic asp ects of the b ody play

a u nique an d ineliminable r ole in perception, such that body form

and structure d etermines t ype o f mind

. Conception and content: “The content of the mind – the manner

in which the mind conceptualizes t he world – is a function of

body type.” (Shapiro (2004) p.183)

C. The division of mind and body: the mind is realized throughout

the bod y, making the d ivision between mind and body impossible

to maintain; therefore b ody type d etermines type of mind

I will present these t hree claims an d the res earch that Shapiro offers i n their

support under t he following headings: I) The Body’s Role in Perception, II)

Body Concepts and III) Leaky Minds. Along the way I will give some

concerns questioning whether t hese results suffice to support t he strong

claims of A,B,C and EMT.

%!% The "od./s 0ole in 1erce$tion

According to Shapiro, the b ody plays a signicant and indispensable rol e in

perception. In the introduction we have already encountered Shapiro’s

example on auditory perception, where the size of the head and the

placement of the ears matters for d etermining the location of a sou nd source.

Another example is vision. Shapiro considers our depth perception.

According to Shapiro, our abi lities t o move o ur bo dies i n certain ways an d the

particular ch aracteristics of our eyes m ake a n essential difference t o our vi sual

processi ng.

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Shapiro points to t he fact that we h uman beings have t wo eyes that are p laced

with a cer tain difference bet ween them. When seeing objects in front of you,

each of your eyes projects sl ightly different coordinates o f these o bjects t o the

respective retinas. From the difference in coordinates your brain then

calculates t he rel ative d istance o f the o bjects.

“The sq uirrel looks cl oser than the t ree, which in turn looks cl oser than

the fence, because the retinal i mage of t he squirrel app ears on the

temple si des of each retinas w hereas t he image of the fence ap pears on

the n asal sides of each retina, with the t ree’s i mage n estled between the

two”(Shapiro (2004) p. 187).

According to Shapiro, what is i mportant, in this case, is t hat the p rocessing of

the b rain is tted to receive t he information from exactly two eyes – no more

and no less. In the light of t his, visual proce ssing in a spider m ust be

remarkably different from that of humans (most spiders have ei ght eyes, some

6. But there are sp iders w ith no eyes, 4 a nd up to even 12 eyes). Accordingly, if

we imagine that we could exchange the brain of a spider with a human brain,

the p rocessing done by the h uman brain would not be ap t for provi ding depth

perception. (Shapiro has an analogy of using a su bmarine i nstruction book for

ying an airplane. And as h e points out “this w ill almost certainly shorten

your ight”.) Shapiro takes this to indicate that “H uman vision needs a

human body” (Shapiro (2004) p.189).

Shapiro nds additional support for the above statement in work by

Churchland, Ramachandran and Sejnowski (1994) on the issue of parallax. If

you move your head or bod y in order to take a look around, you will notice

that t he things that ar e closest to you, will appear t o move whereas t he

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background continues to appear stable (This

These movements, according to Shapiro, are not just an aid to depth

perception but indispensable parts of the visual p rocessing. According to

Shapiro, the p icture i s si milar w hen we t urn to our ot her p erceptual abilities.

Shapiro takes t his to sho w that the body d oes no t merely inuence our mental

properties (this would seem to be a trivial observation), bu t that its

characteristics p lay an indispensable role i n our m ental operations:

“..the point I draw from my comments about eyes and ears goes

beyond the obvious claim that perceptual processes are tailored to

body structures. The point is deeper—that psychological processes

incomplete w ithout the b ody’s con tribution” (Shapiro (2004) p.190)

Shapiro further s uggests t hat

“this m eans t hat a description of various p erceptual capacities can not

maintain body neutrality, and it also means that an organism with a

nonhuman body will have nonhuman visual and auditory

psychologies.” (Shapiro (2004) p. 190)

Does t his m ean that, for exam ple, people w ith only one eye or bad eyesight

have n on-human visual psychologies? I believe t hat this is the way w e should

interpret the ab ove s tatement from Shapiro. To call it non-human may b e a bit

drastic, but Shapiro’s conclusion seems to imply that people w ith this ki nd of

visual embodiment will have a d ifferent kind of perceptual psychology than

what is standard among human beings. I think that this is likely to be true,

but the question is what conclusions we should

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(more on this later p . 47 ). Shapiro takes t he a bove res earch to show that the

body plays such a specic and important role in perception that it

charact eristics d etermining for ou r p ercep tual capacities. The resu lt, according

to Shapiro, supports EMT in the sense t hat it shows that we can not separate

mind from body, and that organisms w ith bodies of a p articular t ype w ill have

a matching mind.

2.2.1 A s*ill-based model o! erce tion

According to Shapiro (Forthcoming), we learn a similar l esson from Alva

Noë’s acco unt of perception. According to this v iew perception constitutively

depends on the body and its relations to the surrounding environment. To be

more precise, perception, according to Noë, occurs when an organism has

implicit knowledge o f how movements of its body or bo dy parts will affect the

ow of se nsory stimulation that i t r eceives, what N oë calls sensorimotor

contingencies. For example, take m y experience of a coff ee cu p on the t able in

front of me. According to the sensorimotor accou nt, this exp erience i s p artly

constituted by my implicit knowledge o f how the stimulation would change if

I, for e xample, moved my head to the r ight and thus looked at the cup from a

different angle. Along the sam e l ines, my experience al so depends p artially on

my knowledge of how stimuli would change if I were to reach out and grab a

hold of t he cup. What is important in this con text is that the sensorimotor

contingencies would be different for a creature with a different body.

Accordingly, reaching out for the coffee cup would be associated with a

different set of sensorimotor contingencies f or a cr eature w ith wings instead

of hands. Because, according to Noë, sensorimotor contingencies are

constitutive of exp erience, differences in these make differences to what

experience on e h as. Hence N oë’s conclusion: “only a cr eature w ith a b ody like

ours can have exp erience l ike ours” (Shapiro Forthcoming citing Noë p. 19).

To what extent does p erception on this account depend on the d etails of our

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embodiment? Noë and O’Regan (2001) have an example of the kind of

characteristics that can make a d ifference t o experience:

The human eye has a blind spot of 5-7 degrees in its eld of vision. This

corresponds t o the p lace w here t he o ptic n erve goes t hrough the eyeb all and

connects w ith the b rain. The res ult is t hat small objects b ecome i nvisible w hen

in this eld. Usually we d o not notice t he b lind spot and as su ch it is n ot a p art

of our conscious visual experience. However, according to Noë an d O’Regan,

even though we do not experience the blind spot as such, it does make a

difference to the p henomenology of our visual experiences and is part of what

constitutes them. How can this be? According to Noë and O’Regan the

presence o f the b lind spot produces certain sensorimotor contingencies. Take

the ex perience o f watching a bird ying in the d istance. If there w as t o be n o

change in the sen sation when the b ird enters t he b lind eld, “then the b rain

would have to conclude that the object was not being seen, but was being

hallucinated.” (Noë and O’Regan (2001) p . 951) The brain gains i nformation

from the f act that there i s a b lind spot in the f ollowing way:

“Monitoring the way the sensor y stimulation from the retina changes

when the ey e m oves t o displace an object in the v icinity of t he b lind

spot, is, for t he brain, another w ay of g aining information about t he

object.” ( Noë an d O’Regan (2001) p. 951)

Accordingly, experience o f watching the b ird y in the d istance i s, according

to Noë an d O’Regan, partly constituted by my implicit knowledge of how the

ow of stimuli is linked with my bodily actions.Now, if we were to imagine a

creature t hat instead of having one b lind spot on each eye h ad two such blind

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spots, this cr eature w ould associate t he ex perience o f watching a bird in the

distance w ith other sensorimotor contingencies.

This i llustrates t hat, according to the sensorimotor acco unt, even differences i n

smaller details of one’s body and sensory system will make a d ifference t o the

experience – even such details as t he way our retinal image changes w hen

moving our eyes. The differences that a re provided by the differences in

sensorimotor con tingences m ake a difference on a sub-personal level in the

information received an

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