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>From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Subject: Re: A rock implements every FSA
Message-ID: <1992Mar26.225952.7195@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Organization: Indiana University
References: <1992Mar24.112548.10215@husc3.harvard.edu> <45390@dime.cs.umass.edu> <1992Mar25.005231.20281@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu>
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 92 22:59:52 GMT

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In article <1992Mar25.005231.20281@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs) writes:

>  Let us define "counterfactual functionalism" as the view that:

Just "functionalism" will do, or "FSA-based functionalism", or
something like that.  There isn't a tenable version of
functionalism that doesn't invoke counterfactuals (or strong
conditionals).

>1) Intelligence consists in implementing an appropriate FSA.

Let's not say "consists in", as we don't want to rule out
non-FSA-based intelligence.  Let's just say that there exists
a class of FSAs such that any implementation of those FSAs
is intelligent.  (And similarly for more specific mental
properties.)

>2) A physical object implements a given FSA if there is a
>mapping from each possible state of the object to a state
>of the FSA, and from some set of physical operations upon
>the object to the set of inputs of the FSA, such that the
>dynamics of the object, as determined by the laws of physics,
>correspond (under the mapping) to the state transition table
>of the FSA.

Something like this is right, except that (1) one needn't map
every possible state of the object, as long as no unmapped state
is reachable from a mapped state; (2) there may be restrictions
on just what counts as an input, as in the Putnam quote I posted
earlier; (3) your statements about "the dynamics correspond" is
fairly vague.  More precisely, for every state S and input I,
then if the object is in a physical state corresponding to S,
and receives an input corresponding to I, then then it must
transit into a physical state corresponding to NextState(S,I)
(the state specified by the transition table).

>Is this a fair statement of the position that the "counterfactualist"
>party has been defending?  I'd like to get it clear.

As modified, yes (modulo lots of nitpicky details, no doubt).
Note that the conditional at the end ("if the object...then 
it must transit") is a strong conditional (i.e. carrying
modal force), not just a weak material conditional.

-- 
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."


