From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!gatech!mcnc!aurs01!throop Tue Apr  7 23:24:19 EDT 1992
Article 4937 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!gatech!mcnc!aurs01!throop
>From: throop@aurs01.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: sensory-deprived rocks
Message-ID: <60526@aurs01.UUCP>
Date: 6 Apr 92 12:02:23 GMT
References: <1992Apr1.142901.18077@oracorp.com>
Sender: news@aurs01.UUCP
Lines: 23

> daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough)
> Date: 1 Apr 92 14:29:01 GMT
> [...] the technical
> point is that a rock is functionally equivalent to a human being with
> nonfunctional sense organs and muscles.

I see this was posted on April 1 (GMT), but nevertheless...

I don't see that a rock is functionally equivalent to a human with
nonfunctional sense organs and muscles.  It is only behaviorally
equivalent.  The dissection of the rock (into internal states) would
yield different results from the dissection of the human (into internal
states).

Of course, this begs the question of whether functionalism is distinct
in principle from behaviorism at all; that's another story.

But look at it this way.  Isn't functionalism just behaviorism with a
different choice of interface/boundary?  If so, it would seem on the
surface (ha!) that the two *ought* to be distinct, in so far as the
interface across the chosen boundary is distinct.

Wayne Throop       ...!mcnc!aurgate!throop


