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Article 2442 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Causes and Reasons
Message-ID: <1991Dec30.183507.22227@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Date: 30 Dec 91 18:35:07 GMT
References: <1991Dec25.015221.6911@husc3.harvard.edu> <1991Dec28.221923.17443@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> <BSIMON.91Dec30071853@elvis.stsci.edu>
Organization: Indiana University
Lines: 21

In article <BSIMON.91Dec30071853@elvis.stsci.edu> bsimon@elvis.stsci.edu (Bernie Simon) writes:

>This premise begs the question of the truth of functionalism. Of
>course, if an (arbitrary) mental state is a realization of a Turing
>machine in state S, then functionalism is true. But this is just
>saying "if functionalism is true, then functionalism is true", an
>entirely tautologous result. Moreover, this premise is not equivalent
>to supervenience, since supervenience merely states that if two
>mental states differ, there is necessarily a difference in the
>associated physical states. It says nothing about these physical
>states being realizations of Turing machines.

You've forgotten the context of the discussion.  The issue at hand
is what follows from the fact that mental states are supervenient
on computational states (NB not physical states).  The antecedent
(more or less conceded by Putnam in his book) is not here an issue.

-- 
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."


