From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!mips!spool.mu.edu!umn.edu!news.cs.indiana.edu!bronze!chalmers Tue Mar 24 09:57:52 EST 1992
Article 4647 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!mips!spool.mu.edu!umn.edu!news.cs.indiana.edu!bronze!chalmers
>From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: A rock implements every FSA
Message-ID: <1992Mar21.214741.7850@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Date: 21 Mar 92 21:47:41 GMT
Article-I.D.: bronze.1992Mar21.214741.7850
References: <1992Mar19.011133.10015@husc3.harvard.edu> <1992Mar20.142954.19624@cs.ucf.edu> <45216@dime.cs.umass.edu>
Organization: Indiana University
Lines: 37

In article <45216@dime.cs.umass.edu> orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:
>	clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke) writes:

>>Putnam then goes on to talk about "an object S which ...behaves... exactly 
>>as if it had a certain description D."  The same mathematical identification>>technique can be applied to S to establish that it realizes input/output  
>>automaton D.   
>
>This is a restatement of what Putnam says, yes.  But I'm still not sure
>I understand it.  If you do, I would appreciate a rephrasing that makes 
>it clearer.  If it says something definite, then there should be many
>ways to make the same point; and the description could be fleshed out
>with detail.

I think what he's saying is very straightforward: by "behaves as if it
and description D", he means it has exactly the same input/output
behaviour as the automaton D.  (Though of course he only considers
the inputs and outputs in a single actual sequence, not all possible
sequences.)  He then claims that his argument shows that anything
that satisfies this condition will actually be a realization
of the automaton D.  Of course that argument is flawed, for the
same reason as before.

(If we wanted to play semantic games, we might equivalently say that
the argument succeeds, but only by using a notion of "realization"
so weak that the result has no bite at all against functionalism.
Certainly the notion of realization that a functionalist should
appeal to is the stronger, counterfactual-supporting version.  I
note that even Putnam in his earlier paper "The Nature of Mental
States" (one of the founding tracts of functionalism, written
before he changed his mind), invokes the need to support conditionals
in his characterization of the notion of description of a system by
an FSA.)

-- 
Dave Chalmers                            (dave@cogsci.indiana.edu)      
Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University.
"It is not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable."


