2009/8/27 Brent Meeker <meeke...@dslextreme.com>: > Does functionalism mean nothing more than if the same inputs produce > the same outputs then the experience will be the same? I think this > is to simplistic. To reduce it to a really simple example, suppose > your brain functions so that: > > You look at sky. > Blue detectors fire. > You say, "Blue". > > Now the doctor replaces some neurons so that > > You look at sky. > Blue detectors fire. > The blue detectors excite frabjous detectors. > Frabjous detectors fire > You say, "Blue". > > Is your experience the same? Do you experience "frabjous"? If you > put "melody" for "frabjous", you've got synsathesia. I'd say that > functional equivalence is relative to the level. At *some* level > equal-input-output=>equal-experience, but not at higher levels.
If you have a different experience for the same input, then you don't produce the same output. You might on a particular occasion, but you won't under all conditions, because you will be able to say there is something different about the altered experience; namely, the sky now looks frabjous or melodious as well as blue. To have a functionally perfect brain replacement is to be guaranteed that *nothing* will change, so that you will never even be able to say, "this feels a bit weird, but I can't explain exactly how". > What about lower levels? Surely it doesn't matter whether 10,000 K+ > cross the axon membrane or 10,001 cross. So somehow looking at just > the right level matters in the hypothesis of functionalism. Maybe > that level corresponds to the level at which the organism acts; the > functions evolved to support and direct actions. Rocks don't act so > they don't have any functional level. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---