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Article 4783 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: orourke@unix1.cs.umass.edu (Joseph O'Rourke)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: On functionalism and implementation
Message-ID: <45665@dime.cs.umass.edu>
Date: 28 Mar 92 23:25:32 GMT
Article-I.D.: dime.45665
References: <1992Mar27.184244.7511@u.washington.edu>
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Reply-To: orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke)
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[Pardon the duplication if something like this appears twice.]
In article <1992Mar27.184244.7511@u.washington.edu> 
	forbis@milton.u.washington.edu (Gary Forbis) writes:

 >I'm pretty sure that more than a mapping between inputs and current states to
 >next states is necessary for particular implementations of a FSA to be 
 >functionally equivalent.
 >[tractor example deleted]
 >All the talk in the world won't convince a farmer that a rock and a tractor
 >are functionally equivalent no matter how well one maps factuals and counter-
 >factuals.

	No one could dispute your claim about farmers, but the challenge
is to concoct a definition of "implementation" that is impervious to these
state mapping examples.  Putnam's point is (I take it) that functionalism, 
if sloppily defined, falls into the absurdity of these examples.  And I 
guess he claims in addition that it has ONLY been sloppily defined, and 
cannot be retrieved from fundamental fuzziness.  Which is why he has
abandoned functionalism, he the grand functionalist.


