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Article 4894 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: A rock implements every FSA
Message-ID: <1992Apr2.164457.24191@oracorp.com>
Date: 2 Apr 92 16:44:57 GMT
Organization: ORA Corporation
Lines: 77

forbis@milton.u.washington.edu (Gary Forbis) writes:

>When I first started considering the HLT some months ago I was willing to
>bite the bullet and say it had qualia.  I have changed my mind.  I think
>functionalism requires the behavior to be right as does behaviorism but
>functionalism also requires something more.  It has been unclear to me
>what that requirement was.  I think I have some insight into what *I* mean
>by functionalism and what *I* think that requirement is.

>When I use the term "functionally equivalent" I mean that all of the functions
>I consider important are equivalent.  Behavior is a function.  Qualia is a
>function.  If some system is to be functionally equivalent to the mind it must
>have qualia.  If a physical device is to be functionally eqivalent to the
>brain it must support a mind.

Okay, the way that you define it, functionalism is true by definition.
I think that when people argue about functionalism, they are talking
about whether two systems being equivalent in certain well-defined
structural ways implies that they are also equivalent in mental properties
such as qualia, understanding, etc. That is, the question is whether being
equivalent as state machines implies being functionally equivalent, in
your sense.

We haven't come to a consensus about what it means for two state
machines to be equivalent, except that I have proposed that they are
equivalent if there is a mapping between corresponding states that
preserves the transition relation. The questions are: is such an equivalence
sufficient to imply equivalence of mental properties, and is such an
equivalence necessary to imply equivalence of mental properties.

>As I understand behaviorism only the outside behavior is considered and not
>the behavior of supervenient systems.  The HLT is behaviorally equivalent
>to a human doing human things but the HLT is hollow.  It has no underlying
>subsystems on which mind can supervene.  It is as if the brain did not
>exist as a separate entity from the ear and the mouth.

I think that is right. The question is whether it is permissable to
treat brain, ear, eyes, and mouth as one big system, or is it necessary
to consider the pieces as separate systems. My inclination is to think
that boundaries are arbitrary; there is no natural dividing line inside
the brain where you can say: "On this side of the line is merely input
devices and output devices. On that side of the line is the real person,
the seat of consciousness."

>Now if the HLT were broken down to interacting parts, I might begin to 
>question its ability to enable the underlying hardware to support a mind. I
>feel the mind exists because several physical devices are interrelated in the
>right way.

That's possible, but as I said, it seems to me that the breakdown of the
brain into communicating pieces is arbitrary. It may be useful in describing
how the brain works, but I don't think that the breakdown is objectively
there.

>If someone could tell me why my experience of qualia ends at my body's surface
>I would be grateful.  I'm not sure why I experience a desk's surface 
>differently when I touch it with my finger and when I touch it with 
>an imagined extention of my finger.

Dennett, in _Consciousness Explained_, says a lot about this. He
claims that if you use a pencil to feel with that eventually you come
to think of your experience of the qualia of touch as occurring at the
tip of the *pencil*.  If you tap or rub with a pencil, you will find
(contrary to what you might think) that you can "feel" the textures
and shapes of things through the pencil. He would say that you
actually feel everything inside your head, but that the illusion of
feeling with the tips of your fingers is, in a sense, a logical
reconstruction. The feeling *must* have originated at the tip of the
finger to account for the particular pattern of sensations. Of course,
this reconstruction doesn't take place consciously; we are only aware
of the results, and not the process.

(I hope I got that approximately right.)

Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY


