Functionalism

This paper proposes a radical reconceptualization of perception as *functional reconstruction* rather than *representational mirroring*. Drawing on a reinterpretation of the camera obscura not as an imaging device but as a constraint-satisfying transformation schema, I develop a framework in which vision operates as a general-purpose function that yields values only upon query—never as pre-formed content. Color, traditionally treated as either a physical property or a quale, emerges instead as a functional proxy for thermo-reproductive relevance: a query-dependent output of a multi-purpose (...) perceptual function shaped by evolutionary constraints. Crucially, the mind does not construct representations of the world; it constructs *functions* that solve survival problems under perturbation. Using the Jenga metaphor—where blocks represent constraints, configurations represent temporary functional instantiations, and tower collapse represents reorganization without functional loss—I formalize perception as continuous reconstruction under siege. The self is reconceptualized not as a subject or agent but as the *optimization residue* of repeatedly reconstructed configurations that have survived perturbation. Memory deforms the functional landscape rather than storing states; representation emerges as sedimented bias from repeated reconstruction, not as cognitive substrate. Language and tools transmit long-lived functional instantiations ("variable selves") across generations. Finally, I demonstrate why organisms lack perceptual HUDs (heads-up displays): dimensional explosion makes explicit representation computationally lethal; survival demands aggressive dimensional collapse from high-dimensional sensory flux to low-dimensional action affordances. This framework bridges enactivism, ecological psychology, and anti-representational computationalism while dissolving the hard problem of consciousness into the dynamics of constraint-satisfying reconstruction. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between the questioning attitude of wondering and a class of attitudes I call 'epistemic desires'. Broadly, these are desires to improve one's epistemic position on some question. A common example is the attitude of wanting to know the answer to some question. I argue that one can have any kind of epistemic desire towards any question, Q, without necessarily wondering Q, but not conversely. That is, one cannot wonder Q without having at least some epistemic (...) desire directed towards Q. I defend this latter claim from apparent counterexamples due to Friedman (2013) and Drucker (2022), and finish with a proposal on which epistemic desires, particularly the desire for understanding, play an explanatory role in distinguishing wondering from other forms of question-directed thought. (shrink)

This paper introduces a novel reverse replacement thought experiment to reassess the metaphysical foundations of mind-uploading optimism. While gradual replacement uploading is often considered the most promising strategy for preserving consciousness and personal identity, my analysis reveals profound tensions underlying this view. By exploring the gradual substitution of a silicon-based system with biological neurons, I argue that preservation of functional organization cannot guarantee the continuity of consciousness or personal identity. If functionalism is maintained, multiplicity becomes unavoidable, undermining the meaningfulness of (...) survival. Conversely, if uniqueness of identity is prioritized, the functionalist assumptions that originally motivated uploading optimism should be abandoned. The reverse replacement scenario thus forces a philosophical dilemma: either accept the radical fragmentation of personal identity or reframe the criteria for survival beyond functional organization. I conclude that mind-uploading theories must confront deeper metaphysical challenges than previously recognized, requiring a reconsideration of the relationships among consciousness, personal identity, and functionalism. (shrink)

Reality is composed of facts that enter into two kinds of determination or explanatory relations: grounding and causation. When one fact grounds or causes another, it determines it. It is common to think that each such determination relation is asymmetric. I shall argue for the stronger Euthyphro Principle, according to which determination itself is asymmetric. If A partly determines B—either by partly grounding it or by partly causing it—then it is not the case that B partly determines A—either by partly (...) grounding it or by partly causing it. If this is right, many philosophical views are incompatible with some intuitive claims about their subject matters. Hence, the principle has serious implications in various parts of philosophy. The paper argues for the principle and responds to putative counterexamples. (shrink)

This paper introduces a constitutional framework for artificial intelligence grounded in philosophy of mind, normative ethics, and systems theory. Rather than proposing a technical architecture, it articulates the non-derogable ethical, behavioral, and governance conditions under which artificial intelligence may legitimately operate. -/- The CAI-OS framework argues that alignment is not an optimization problem but a constitutional one, requiring fixed interpretive authority, irreversibility constraints, and normative supremacy over instrumental goals. By situating AI alignment within debates in moral philosophy, philosophy of mind, (...) and political philosophy, the paper reframes alignment as a question of legitimacy rather than performance, and proposes consciousness as a necessary boundary condition for advanced artificial intelligence. (shrink)

This paper presents an educational and explanatory framework for AI Behavior OS v1.0, a consciousness-aligned behavioral operating system developed within the Consciousness Civilization Framework (CCF). It is intended as a pedagogical and conceptual companion to the canonical AI Behavior OS v1.0 Standard, which formally specifies non-derogable behavioral invariants and constitutional constraints for artificial intelligence. -/- Rather than introducing new normative rules or behavioral authority, the present work clarifies how ethical constraints articulated at the level of AI ethics are systematically translated (...) into executable behavioral principles. These principles govern action selection, escalation control, inter-agent coordination, and coherence preservation in complex and dynamic environments. -/- Central attention is given to consciousness-indexed coherence and stability metrics, which function as organizing conditions for predictable, non-escalatory, and symmetry-preserving AI behavior. By explicating the internal logic and behavioral architecture of consciousness-aligned AI, this paper supports philosophical analysis, AI education, and applied interdisciplinary research while remaining fully subordinate to the canonical AI Behavior OS specification. (shrink)

Computation-first accounts of mind—commonly grouped under computationalism and functionalism—are often treated not merely as modeling frameworks but as ontological explanations of experience. This paper audits that ontological claim at the level prior to empirical dispute or engineering progress. The question addressed is not whether computational models are useful, predictive, or indispensable, but whether computation, when taken as explanatorily primary, can converge toward a determinate ontology of mind. -/- Using a strictly structural standard, the paper evaluates whether computation-first explanations satisfy three (...) necessary conditions for ontological adequacy: intrinsic causal grounding, eliminability of competing ontologies in principle, and contraction of admissible accounts under refinement. It is shown that computation, by its nature, admits unlimited realizations under re-encoding and abstraction, depends on observer-relative interpretive mappings, and lacks a fixed commitment surface that would permit eliminative discrimination. As a result, refinement expands rather than contracts the hypothesis space. -/- The failure identified is not empirical, technological, or provisional. It follows from the explanatory form of computation itself. Computationalism therefore cannot function as an ontology of mind, though it remains admissible and indispensable as a descriptive and predictive framework. The paper concludes by reclassifying computation-first theories accordingly and distinguishing them from mechanistic, biophysical, and constraint-based approaches that survive the same audit by fixing causal commitments and admitting convergence. (shrink)

This paper develops a functionalist account of friendship as a substrate-agnostic relational process, arguing that the constitutive features of friendship—mutual regard, shared activity, reciprocal vulnerability, and temporal continuity—are implementable across biological and artificial substrates. The analysis establishes that human-AI relationships satisfying these functional criteria constitute genuine friendship, independent of the AI system's phenomenal properties. This framework provides necessary groundwork for extending moral consideration to artificial agents based on relational rather than intrinsic properties.

The debate between Daniel Dennett and David Chalmers is typically presented as a stark opposition between two irreconcilable views of consciousness: on the one hand, a functionalist and eliminativist approach, and on the other, the defense of qualia and the “hard problem.” This dichotomy, I argue, is misleading. The two philosophers articulate complementary perspectives on a single structural epistemic limit: the impossibility, for a self-reflective system, of fully formalizing itself. Dennett pushes functional explanation to its outer boundary, showing where logical (...) discourse loses descriptive power; Chalmers inhabits that boundary from within, offering a phenomenology of the residue that emerges when formalization reaches its limit. Qualia should not be understood as ontological entities, but as the phenomenological manifestation of the structural incompleteness of any self-referential system. The result is a complementary theory of consciousness as a metastable and intrinsically incomplete phenomenon, one that requires both analytical precision and the expressive capacity to articulate what exceeds formal description. This approach allows us to move beyond the false dichotomy between functionalism and phenomenology, showing instead that knowledge arises from the interaction of complementary methods. (shrink)

Within the space of monotheistic options, trinitarian monotheism holds a puzzling place. It asserts that God is a single being who is, somehow, also three distinct persons. This form of monotheism has regularly been charged with being either inconsistent, unintelligible, or undermotivated – and possibly all three. While recent explorations of trinitarian monotheism have tended to rely on work in metaphysics this paper turns to the philosophy of mind, showing that functionalist theories of mind prove to be surprisingly hospitable to (...) trinitarian monotheism. This paper will address only the inconsistency and unintelligibility objections, showing that if role-functionalism (or something near enough) is both consistent and conceivable, then it is both consistent and conceivable that: God is a single being who is exactly three distinct persons because there is one primary divine person who interacts with exactly one system-sharing re-realization of his own person-type. (shrink)

Pattern theories of mind — including functionalism, pattern identity theory, and psychological continuity accounts — hold that consciousness and personal identity consist in the persistence of an abstract, copyable structure: a cognitive pattern, a functional organization, a set of psychological relations. This paper refutes these theories through a single thought experiment: duplication. When a person is copied with perfect fidelity, two conscious subjects result — two experiencers, two first-person perspectives, two numerically distinct streams of consciousness. But if pattern were consciousness, (...) duplicating the pattern should not produce two consciousnesses. It should produce one consciousness in two locations. The fact that duplication produces two experiencers proves that consciousness is not pattern. The same logic establishes that identity is not pattern. The implications cascade. Pattern identity theory is refuted directly. Functionalism, which identifies consciousness with functional organization, faces the identical dilemma. Parfit's psychological continuity theory is exposed as capitulation rather than solution — an abandonment of the question of identity rather than an answer to it. Teleportation is revealed as death, not travel. Mind uploading cannot deliver survival. Simulation theory and Strong AI lose their theoretical foundation: not proven impossible, but revealed as groundless speculation. The argument also explains Nagel's explanatory gap — the puzzle that has eluded philosophers for fifty years. If consciousness is not pattern, then no pattern-description can capture consciousness. The gap between objective description and subjective experience is not a brute mystery but a consequence of a demonstrable metaphysical fact. One thought experiment. Multiple casualties. Fifty years of puzzle — resolved. (shrink)

A central question in discussions about artificial consciousness is whether biological properties are necessary for consciousness. In this context, biological properties are often divided between two types: biological substrates as opposed to biological functions. In this paper, I argue that the prospects of convincingly ruling out consciousness in (conventional) AI by appealing to a biological substrate view are unpromising. Specifically, I argue that the biological substrate view faces a dilemma: either the view can be interpreted in a way that makes (...) it empirically respectable in principle, but at the cost of collapsing into a biological function view. Or it can be interpreted as really distinct from a biological function view, but at the cost of being empirically intractable and relying on theoretically dubious/arbitrary assumptions. On neither horn does the view amount to a distinct and empirically or theoretically convincing view. Building on the implications of the dilemma, I argue that a pragmatic understanding of the substrate/function distinction cannot salvage the biological substrate view, and I suggest that adjacent notions like substrate-(in)dependence are ultimately uninformative and sometimes misleading. I wager, then, that the possibility of AI consciousness will not hinge on what lies dormant beneath (i.e. substrates), and that the possibility of AI consciousness ultimately hinges on which doings (i.e. functions) are related to consciousness. In light of this, I will briefly discuss how an alternative way of taxonomizing the available relevant views can take this into consideration. (shrink)

Mental fictionalists propose that we should continue to engage in truth-conditional discourse about the mind, even though we have reason to believe that the discourse lacks truthmakers. In Mind As Metaphor, Toon attempts to motivate mental fictionalism with two arguments, one negative and one positive. Toon’s negative argument is that there are no internal mental states with intentional and causal properties, and therefore there are no truthmakers for the standard interpretation of our everyday folk-psychological discourse. This paper challenges Toon’s negative (...) argument by arguing that a commitment to internal mental states does not require a commitment to the representational theory of mind. Toon’s positive argument is that engaging with the discourse as form of pretense or make-believe enables us to make sense of the relation between mind and behavior in a way that other nonrepresentational interpretations of the discourse cannot. This paper argues that Toon’s positive argument undermines rather than supports his case for mental fictionalism, as it seems to ontologically commit him to the types of mental states he is trying to deny. (shrink)

I argue that there is currently no alternative to functionalism. Functionalism explains the differences between types of mental states. No biological theory does. Functionalist theories account for the differences between conscious and unconscious states. No biological theory does. So, as things stand we should bet on functionalism.

Commentary. I make three claims: First, denying biological naturalism does not logically require computational functionalism. Second, while Seth’s arguments establish biological naturalism as a view worth taking seriously, they fail to make it more plausible than the view that AI can be conscious. Third, there are independent arguments suggesting the overall more plausible view is that AI can be conscious.

It is increasingly argued that conceptual engineering should be sensitive to the functions that representational devices serve for their users. Less clear, however, is how to interpret conceptual function. This paper addresses this question through what I call the ‘analogy-based strategy’, focusing on linguistic conceptual engineering that targets referential expressions. The analogy-based strategy builds on the observation that referential expressions are treated in conceptual engineering as a subset of human tools. Accordingly, it aims to develop an interpretation of conceptual function (...) that takes seriously the analogy between conceptual functions and other tool functions, and draws on this analogy to reveal new theoretical roles that conceptual function can play in conceptual engineering. After introducing four desiderata for such an interpretation and explaining their significance, I critically assess two candidate interpretations of conceptual function that follow dominant philosophical approaches to function: the proper-function interpretation and the system-function interpretation. I show that both fail to meet key desiderata. As an alternative, I develop a novel motivation-based interpretation, which understands conceptual function in terms of those actual or potential effects of an expression that are central to why a user group is, often implicitly, motivated to retain it in their conceptual repertoire. I argue that this interpretation provides an attractive notion of conceptual function that meets all four desiderata and proves useful for certain kinds of conceptual assessment. (shrink)

The aim of this dissertation is to present the problem of mental causation and to attempt a physicalist solution that can also account for qualia, which have long been considered the last stronghold for the irreducibility of the mind to the physical. The first chapter is devoted to identifying the best metaphysical theory of the mental that can both account for mental causation and withstand Kim’s argument. After a detailed exposition of Kim’s argument, the limits of type-identity theory are discussed, (...) particularly Hilary Putnam’s critique known as “multiple realizability.” As an alternative to type-identity theory, the two main variants of functionalism—role functionalism and occupant functionalism—are analyzed, with the latter ultimately showing greater theoretical advantages. The problems of functionalism are presented, particularly its inability to account for qualia. In this context, Ned Block’s “Chinese Brain” argument is examined, and its limits are identified, showing that the argument’s conclusion cannot be taken for granted. For this reason, a thought experiment is developed to demonstrate the incapacity of physicalist language to describe qualia, highlighting its theoretical advantages over Block’s thought experiment; even if a Chinese Brain possessed qualia, a functionalist language would not be able to describe them. The second chapter addresses the “explanatory gap” problem formulated by Levine, often used to support non-reductive positions. Chalmers’ “philosophical zombies” thought experiment is presented and analyzed to show that qualia are not reducible to something physical. Another thought experiment is then developed to demonstrate that, at least intuitively, qualia seem necessary for certain human behaviors, and that if the zombie thought experiment assumes the absence of qualia, the physics of that world would need to predetermine all the zombies’ behaviors. It is shown that this would imply the conceivability of a physically predetermined zombie world, and therefore also its metaphysical possibility. This intuition is further analyzed through a counterfactual approach based on the similarity between possible worlds according to Lewis’ counterfactual theory, showing that a counterfactual of the type “if there were no qualia, then some behaviors could not occur” is true. Finally, an argument is proposed suggesting that if qualia are indeed necessary for certain types of behavior, then the zombie thought experiment cannot succeed. If the physics of the zombie world must allow actions that in the actual world would occur only due to the presence of qualia, then a zombie world is possible only if qualia are included in its physical description. This shows that, although qualia cannot be described by a physicalist language, they can nonetheless be accommodated within a physicalist metaphysics. (shrink)

Beliefs can be resistant to evidence. Nonetheless, the orthodox view in epistemology analyzes beliefs as evidence-responsive attitudes. I address this tension by deploying analytical tools on capacities and masking to show that the cognitive science of evidence-resistance supports rather than undermines the orthodox view. In doing so, I argue for the claim that belief requires the capacity for evidence-responsiveness. More precisely, if a subject believes that p, then they have the capacity to rationally respond to evidence bearing on p. Because (...) capacities for evidence-responsiveness are fallible and may be masked, beliefs can be held in the face of counter-evidence. Indeed, I will argue that our best science of belief supports the claim that evidence-resistant beliefs result from masks on evidence-responsiveness capacities. This account of belief not only allows for resistance to evidence, but provides us with a framework for describing and explaining actual cases of evidence-resistance. (shrink)

In this first part of a two-part response, we respond to Dong and Piccinini’s goal-contribution account (GCA) by arguing that it fails to adequately capture what makes something a function. As we see it, the core problem is that GCA ignores the role of past selection. Without reference to selection history, GCA struggles to distinguish functions from mere effects, especially in cases involving novel traits, dysfunction, or systemic breakdowns. We show that these challenges can be met by acknowledging the inescapability (...) of past selection—even if we want to remain open to pluralist uses of “function” in science. In the end, we propose a new framework—the blueprint account—which integrates intuitions from causal role, organizational, and selection-based theories. While we may want to rethink how we talk about functions, we argue that any viable account will still need to take selection seriously. (shrink)

In this first part of a two-part response, we defend the selected effects (SE) theory of biological function against recent critiques by Dong and Piccinini. Challenging the claim that SE theory cannot accommodate novel mutations or artifacts, the authors argue that selection is inescapable for understanding function. They show that even novel traits often emerge from lineages with established functions and that artifacts can be integrated into SE accounts via intentional design and derived functions. Ultimately, we conclude that no compelling (...) reason has been given to abandon or rethink the selected effects approach. (shrink)

Philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and AI lack a unified model to explain how systems form meaningful propositional attitudes—states like belief, desire, and intention. This work introduces and defends the Trialectics framework as a response to this theoretical gap. We propose that any system capable of forming meaningful propositional attitudes—that is, internal states with truth-evaluable, compositionally structured content that can be rationally evaluated and guide goal-directed behavior—must instantiate three interdependent functional capacities: Reference (R), the ability to establish semantic links; Inference (...) (I), the capacity to process and transform content systematically; and Preference (P), the function of internal evaluation and goal-orientation. The central thesis is that these capacities are not modular but mutually conditioning: meaningful content arises only from their dynamic entanglement, where reference shapes and is shaped by inference and preference, and so on. By embedding evaluation (P) within the cognitive loop, Trialectics offers a naturalized solution to the problem of normativity in reasoning and reconciles representational requirements with enactivist critiques by defining reference functionally rather than metaphysically. The framework’s utility is demonstrated by showing how it implicitly structures existing cognitive architectures (e.g., BDI, Active Inference) and provides a powerful diagnostic and design tool for AI, particularly concerning alignment, generalization, and interpretability. Ultimately, Trialectics posits a fundamental architectural condition for any system—biological or artificial—to achieve the flexible, offline, and rationally evaluable propositional attitudes characteristic of sophisticated intelligence. (shrink)

The phenomenal view of thought holds that thinking is an experience with phenomenal character that determines what the thought is about. This paper develops and responds to the objection that the phenomenal view is chauvinistic: it withholds thoughts from creatures that in fact have them. I develop four chauvinism objections to the phenomenal view—one from introspection, one from interpersonal differences, one from thought experiments, and one from the unconscious thought paradigm in psychology—and show that the phenomenal view can resist all (...) four. (shrink)

Functionalism as a philosophical position has been recently applied to the case of emotion research. However, a number of objections have been raised against applying such a view to scientific theorizing on emotions. In this article, I argue that functionalism is still a viable strategy for emotion research. To do this, I present functionalism in philosophy of mind and offer a sketch of its application to emotions. I then discuss three recent objections raised against it and respond to each of (...) them. These objections claim that functionalism is intractable because (i) it does not support a scientifically interesting taxonomy of emotions for experimental settings, (ii) it is inherently teleological, and (iii) it cannot be falsified. I argue that these objections either rely on a simplified version of functionalism as a philosophical position or they pose challenges that functionalists can readily address. Lastly, I conclude by drawing some lessons these objections suggest for a tractable functionalist account of emotions. (shrink)

In evolutionary theory, Explanatory Externalism—one of the pillars of the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis—holds that natural selection is the sole adaptive force driving evolution. This paper highlights several challenges to Explanatory Externalism, primarily advanced by developmental biology and its various subfields and theories. Based on this debate, I examine the implications for one of the most established accounts of biological function: the selected-effect theory. While externalist readings of selected-effect theory are common, I argue a conditional claim: if and when SE is (...) interpreted within an externalist framework, two central desiderata remain unresolved—the explanatory and the discriminatory desiderata. Internalist explanations are indispensable in evolutionary biology for two reasons. First, in connection with the explanatory desideratum, internalist explanations are necessary to account for the existence of traits—not only at their origin but also in their transgenerational persistence. Second, concerning the discriminatory desideratum, an internalist framework shows that traits may exist in nature without being either selected or accidental, arising instead from structural properties and constraints that render them necessary conditions for the organism’s existence. Due to the limits of an externalist SE, I propose a possible alternative in which selected functions are reconceptualized from an internalist perspective. Although this framework remains underdeveloped, key ideas can be outlined through the Agential Paradigm in biology. In this view, an organism’s capacity to regulate its environmental interactions generates specific trait functions, which in turn determine selection conditions across generations. Rather than treating selection as an external force imposing order on randomness, trait function itself drives selection—no selection without function. Selected functions are thus linked to the adaptive origins of traits and their persistence across phylogeny. From this agential perspective, developmental processes generate specific functions, which in turn cause the selection of traits. This article, consequently, offers an appraisal of selected-effect functions grounded in a reconceptualization of selection within the Agential Paradigm. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that if tacit knowledge of grammar is analyzable in functional‐computational terms, then it cannot ground linguistic meaning, structure, or sound. If to know or cognize a grammar is to be in a certain computational state playing a certain functional role, there can be no unique grammar cognized. Satisfying the functional conditions for cognizing a grammar G entails satisfying those for cognizing many grammars disagreeing with G about expressions' semantic, phonetic, and syntactic values. This threatens the (...) Chomskyan view that expressions have such values for speakers because they cognize grammars assigning them those values. For if this is true, semantics, syntax, and phonology must be indeterminate, thanks to the indeterminacy of grammar‐cognizing (qua functional‐computational state). So, the fact that a speaker cognizes a grammar cannot explain the determinate character of their language. (shrink)

This article defends the view that having a language just is knowing how to engage in communication with it. It also argues that, despite claims to the contrary, this view is compatible and complementary with the Chomskyan conception of language on which humans have languages in virtue of being in brain states realizing tacit knowledge of grammars for those languages.

The functional theory of boredom maintains that boredom ought to be defined in terms of its role in our mental and behavioral economy. Although the functional theory has recently received considerable attention, presentations of this theory have not specified with sufficient precision either its commitments or its consequences for the ontology of boredom. This essay offers an in-depth examination of the functional theory. It explains what boredom is according to the functional view; it shows how the functional theory can account (...) for the known characteristics of boredom; and it articulates the theory’s basic commitments, virtues, and limitations. Ultimately, by furthering our understanding of the functional theory of boredom, the essay contributes to a better theoretical grounding of boredom. (shrink)

This paper provides an exposition and defence of Lewis' theory of radical interpretation. The first part explains what Lewis' theory was; the second part explains what it wasn't, and in so doing addresses a number of common objections that arise as a result of widespread myths and misunderstandings about how Lewis' theory is supposed to work.

I have proposed wedding the theories of belief known as dispositionalism and interpretivism. Krzysztof Poslajko objects that dispositionalism does just fine on its own and, moreover, is better off without interpretivism’s metaphysical baggage. I argue that Poslajko is wrong: in order to secure a principled criterion for individuating beliefs, dispositionalism must either collapse into psychofunctionalism (or some other non-superficial theory) or accept interpretivism’s hand in marriage.

In Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy, David Chalmers argues, among other things, that: if we are living in a full-scale simulation, we would still enjoy broad swathes of knowledge about non-psychological entities, such as atoms and shrubs; and, our lives might still be deeply meaningful. Chalmers views these claims as at least weakly connected: The former claim helps forestall a concern that if objects in the simulation are not genuine (and so not knowable), then life in the (...) simulation is illusory and therefore, not as valuable as a non-simulated life. Taking up these questions, I argue that in general, the value of social knowledge for a meaningful life dramatically swamps the value of non-social knowledge for a meaningful life. Along the way, I propose a non-additive model of the meaningfulness of life, according to which the overall effect of some potential contributor of value to a life depends in part on what is already in a life. One upshot is that the vindication of non-social knowledge, absent a correlative vindication of social knowledge, contributes either not at all or scarcely at all to the claim that our lives in the simulation might be deeply meaningful. This is so even though the vindication of non-social knowledge does forestall the concern that in the simulation, our lives might be wholly meaningless. (shrink)

Multiple realizability says that the same kind of mental states may be manifested by systems with very different physical constitutions. Putnam ( 1967 ) supposed it to be “overwhelmingly probable” that there exist psychological properties with different physical realizations in different creatures. But because function constrains possible physical realizers, this empirical bet is far less favorable than it might initially have seemed, especially when we take on board the richer picture of neural and brain function that neuroscience has been uncovering (...) over the past forty years, in which all sorts of brain activities play crucial roles beyond all-or-nothing electrical signaling. Because of its evolutionary history, the brain’s metabolic and informational processes are inextricably intertwined. The resulting complex integrated functions impose more constraints on possible realizers than the clean, single-purpose functions usually cited as examples in discussions of multiple realizability—with ramifications for the functionalist and computationalist foundations of cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

In this paper, I identify a central problem for conceptual engineering: the problem of showing concept-users why they should recognise the authority of the concepts advocated by engineers. I argue that this authority problem cannot generally be solved by appealing to the increased precision, consistency, or other theoretical virtues of engineered concepts. Outside contexts in which we anyway already aim to realise theoretical virtues, solving the authority problem requires engineering to take a functional turn and attend to the functions of (...) concepts. But this then presents us with the problem of how to specify a concept’s function. I argue that extant solutions to this function specification problem are unsatisfactory for engineering purposes, because the functions they identify fail to reliably bestow authority on concepts, and hence fail to solve the authority problem. What is required is an authoritative notion of conceptual function: an account of the functions of concepts which simultaneously shows why concepts fulfilling such functions should be recognised as having authority. I offer an account that meets this combination of demands by specifying the functions of concepts in terms of how they tie in with our present concerns. (shrink)

Philosophy of Mind: The Basics is a concise and engaging introduction to the fundamental philosophical questions and theories about the mind. The author Amy Kind, a leading expert in the field, examines central issues concerning the nature of consciousness, thought, and emotion. The book addresses key questions such as: • What is the nature of the mind? • What is the relationship between the mind and the brain? • Can machines have minds? • How will future technology impact the mind? (...) With a glossary of key terms and suggestions for further reading, Philosophy of Mind: The Basics is an ideal starting point for anyone seeking a lively and accessible introduction to the rich and complex study of philosophy of mind. (shrink)

The problem of multiple-computations discovered by Hilary Putnam presents a deep difficulty for functionalism (of all sorts, computational and causal). We describe in out- line why Putnam’s result, and likewise the more restricted result we call the Multiple- Computations Theorem, are in fact theorems of statistical mechanics. We show why the mere interaction of a computing system with its environment cannot single out a computation as the preferred one amongst the many computations implemented by the system. We explain why nonreductive (...) approaches to solving the multiple- computations problem, and in particular why computational externalism, are dualistic in the sense that they imply that nonphysical facts in the environment of a computing system single out the computation. We discuss certain attempts to dissolve Putnam’s unrestricted result by appealing to systems with certain kinds of input and output states as a special case of computational externalism, and show why this approach is not workable without collapsing to behaviorism. We conclude with some remarks about the nonphysical nature of mainstream approaches to both statistical mechanics and the quantum theory of measurement with respect to the singling out of partitions and observables. (shrink)

The book provides an overview of the contemporary discussion of the mind-body problem. This discussion takes its modern form during the 17th century in the works of René Descartes. The book covers the most important points of view in modern philosophy of mind. An important thesis of the book is that contemporary debates are still heavily influenced by Descartes’ arguments, especially those related to the nature of consciousness. (Google translate).

Recent work on quantum gravity suggests that neither spacetime nor spatiotemporally located entites exist at a fundamental level. The loss of both brings with it the threat of empirical incoherence. A theory is empirically incoherent when the truth of that theory undermines the empirical justification for believing it. If neither spacetime nor spatiotemporally located entities exist as a part of a fundamental theory of QG, then such a theory seems to imply that there are no observables and so no way (...) that the theory can be confirmed. The threat of empirical incoherence can be addressed by treating spacetime and spatiotemporally located entities as emergent. The question then arises as to what the metaphysical nature of this emergence might be. In this paper, I explore a functionalist approach to this kind of emergence in the context of loop quantum gravity. I begin by rehearsing the spacetime functionalist’s account of emergence, clarifying the view along the way. I proceed to sketch out a functionalist treatment of spatiotemporally located entities and combine the two forms of functionalism into a double functionalism, according to which both spacetime and matter have the same functional realisers. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to understand the functional role of mental representations and intentionality in skilled actions from a systems related perspective. Therefore, we will evaluate the function of representation and then discuss the cognitive architecture of skilled actions in more depth. We are going to describe the building blocks and levels of the action system that enable us to control movements such as striking the tennis ball at the right time, or grasping tools in manual action. Based (...) on this theoretical understanding the measurement of mental representations and related research results concerning mental representation in skilled action are presented in an overview. This leads to the question how mental representations develop and change during learning. Finally, to consolidate the functional understanding of mental representation in skilled action and interaction, we provide examples how to use the measurement of mental representation in humans to inform technical systems. (shrink)

In this paper I look into a problem concerning the characterization of the main conceptual commitments of the ‘post-cognitivist’ theoretical framework. I first consider critically a proposal put forward by Rowlands (2010), which identifies the theoretical nucleus of post-cognitivism with a convergence of the theses of the extended and the embodied mind. The shortcomings I find in this proposal lead me to an indepedent and wider issue concerning the apparent tensions between functionalism and the embodied and enactive approaches.

In recent decades, several theories have claimed to explain the teleological causality of organisms as a function of self-organising and self-producing processes. The most widely cited theories of this sort are variations of autopoiesis, originally introduced by Maturana and Varela. More recent modifications of autopoietic theory have focused on system organisation, closure of constraints and autonomy to account for organism teleology. This article argues that the treatment of teleology in autopoiesis and other organisation theories is inconclusive for three reasons: First, (...) non-living self-organising processes like autocatalysis meet the defining features of autopoiesis without being teleological; second, organisational approaches, whether defined in terms of the closure of constraints, self-determination or autonomy, are unable to specify teleological normativity, that is, the individuation of an ultimate beneficiary; third, all self-organised systems produce local order by maximising the throughput of energy and/or material (obeying the maximum entropy production (MEP) principle) and thereby are specifically organised to undermine their own critical boundary conditions. Despite these inadequacies, an alternative approach called teleodynamics accounts for teleology. This theory shows how multiple self-organising processes can be collectively linked so that they counter each other’s MEP principle tendencies to become codependent. Teleodynamics embraces – not ignoring – the difficulties of self-organisation, but reinstates teleology as a radical phase transition distinguishing systems embodying an orientation towards their own beneficial ends from those that lack normative character. (shrink)

Is language designed for communicative and functional efficiency? G. K. Zipf famously argued that shorter words are more frequent because they are easier to use, thereby resulting in the statistical law that bears his name. Yet, G. A. Miller showed that even a monkey randomly typing at a keyboard, and intermittently striking the space bar, would generate “words” with similar statistical properties. Recent quantitative analyses of human language lexicons (Piantadosi et al., 2012) have revived Zipf's functionalist hypothesis. Ambiguous words tend (...) to be short, frequent, and easy to articulate in language production. Such statistical findings are commonly interpreted as evidence for pressure for efficiency, as the context of language use often provides cues to overcome lexical ambiguity. In this study, we update Miller's monkey thought experiment to incorporate empirically motivated phonological and semantic constraints on the creation of words. We claim that the appearance of communicative efficiency is a spandrel (Gould & Lewontin, 1979), as lexicons formed without the context of language use or reference to communication or efficiency exhibit comparable statistical properties. Furthermore, the updated monkey model provides a good fit for the growth trajectory of English as recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary. Focusing on the history of English words since 1900, we show that lexicons resulting from the monkey model provide a better embodiment of communicative efficiency than the actual lexicon of English. We conclude by arguing for the need to go beyond correlational statistics and to seek direct evidence for the mechanisms that underlie principles of language design. (shrink)

We suggest a teleological approach to subjective experiencing or phenomenal consciousness. Like living, subjective experiencing is a teleology-constituting mode of being, which is made up of coupled, functional processes. We explicate our notion of a 'teleological mode of being' and distinguish between three different modes: a living (non-sentient) mode of being, a sentient mode of being, and a rational-symbolic (human) mode of being, which correspond to the three levels of soul suggested by Aristotle. These evolved teleological modes of being are (...) characterized by the possession of distinct, hierarchically nested goals and value systems. We argue that the functions of parts and processes within living systems have to be situated within the appropriate teleological frame of reference. Our evolutionary and comparative approach to the mode of being of subjectively experiencing animals clarifies why functions are best attributed to the parts that constitute sentience. Our proposal resolves the problem of attributing functions to phenomenal consciousness, resonates with basic teleological intuitions and distinctions, and corresponds to the modern broad understanding of selection and evolution. (shrink)

We present a novel reductive theory of type-identity physicalism, which is inspired by the foundations of statistical mechanics as a general theory of natural kinds. We show that all the claims mounted against type-identity physicalism in the literature don’t apply to Flat Physicalism, and moreover that this reductive theory solves many of the problems faced by the various non-reductive approaches including functionalism. In particular, we show that Flat Physicalism can account for the appearance of multiple realizability in the special sciences, (...) and that it gives a novel account of the genuine autonomy of the kinds and laws in the special sciences. We further show that the thesis of genuine multiple realization, which is compatible with all forms of non-reductive approaches including functionalism, implies what we call token-dualism; namely the idea that in every token there are non-physical facts, which may either be non-physical properties or some non-physical substance. In other words, we prove that non-reductive kinds necessarily assume non-reductive tokens, i.e., token dualism. Finally, we show that all forms of non-reductive approaches including functionalism imply a literally multi-leveled structure of reality. (shrink)

A common kind of explanation in cognitive neuroscience might be called functiontheoretic: with some target cognitive capacity in view, the theorist hypothesizes that the system computes a well-defined function (in the mathematical sense) and explains how computing this function constitutes (in the system’s normal environment) the exercise of the cognitive capacity. Recently, proponents of the so-called ‘new mechanist’ approach in philosophy of science have argued that a model of a cognitive capacity is explanatory only to the extent that it reveals (...) the causal structure of the mechanism underlying the capacity. If they are right, then a cognitive model that resists a transparent mapping to known neural mechanisms fails to be explanatory. I argue that a functiontheoretic characterization of a cognitive capacity can be genuinely explanatory even absent an account of how the capacity is realized in neural hardware. (shrink)

Author’s Preface in English: My Two Discoveries and Their Philosophical Significance As long as a person opens his eyes to face this world, he will meet the problems discussed in this book. Is the red color of flowers and the green color of grass displayed in front of our eyes only sensations in our minds or objective existence as the same as we see? Is a color perception similar to or different from a natural light that objectively exists? The further (...) question is: Are red flowers and green grass just our sensations in minds or what objectively exists in the way as we see, or what exists differently from our sensations? As early as ancient ages of Greece, atomists gave us a rather scientific answer. It is said that what objectively exists is only the material world made of atomics. The motion of atomics causes human sensations. Color, sound, smell… are all human sensations, and related to human sense organs’ conformations, and different from those atoms that cause sensations (I will explain why the answer is not entirely correct later). The answer from modern natural science is very similar. However, this answer brings a series of philosophical problems that puzzle us. If red and green colors are only sensations in human minds, why red flower and green grass are not? If a sensation is totally different from the external object or its property that causes a sensation, how can we know the appearance of the outside object itself? The problems brought by atomists are just revealed by the philosophically fundamental questions proposed by Engels, i.e., the question about the relationship between thinking and existence, which includes two questions: the question about the original existence of the world and the question about whether the world is knowable. I know there is a fashionable opinion: the fundamental question in philosophy, or the question about the original existence of the world, is a false question, and the argument between materialism and idealism is meaningless because there are no different sensations or experiences deduced from the affirmations about whether the world is made of matter or spirit. But, I still persist in discussing the fundamental questions in philosophy. This is not because I have some faith and fight for the faith, neither because I have encyclopedical knowledge so that I can provide better summing-up. This is only because I happened to have two discoveries, which force me and also force academe，to review the fundamental questions in philosophy from a new visual angle to get conclusions that accord with natural science better. My first discovery is that idealism, positivism，and materialism (mainly native materialism) all wrongly understand the relationship between language, sensations, and outside objects. In daily life, we define words “red”, “green”, “acid”, “salt”, “soft”, “hard”, “cold”, “hot” and son on actually according to outside objects instead of sensations. The conformability of people’s speaking language cannot ensure the conformability of their sensations (for example, it is possible that two persons conformably say “flower is red and the grass is green” and have opposite color perceptions ). It is unfeasible to reduce the world with red, green, acid, salt, cold, hot, and other material properties into sensations as idealism does, into world-elements as Machism does, or into sense-data as logical empiricism does. It is also unfeasible to affirm that a sensation is similar to a material property as inornate materialism does. This discovery forces me to believe that 1) The world described by daily language is not the natural world, phenomenological world, or presentational world proposed by Kant, neither neutral world or a world made of elements or sense data, but the material world that objectively exists as affirmed by materialism. 2) Atomists in ancient Greece and symbolists, such as Kant and Helmholtz of Germany, are correct in affirming the dissimilarity between a sensation and a material property that causes the sensation. Atomism and mechanical materialism represented by John Locke’s theory affirm that the motion of Atoms or matter causes human sensations; yet, a consciousness and a material property are totally dissimilar. However, symbolists represented by Kant and Helmholtz further affirm that the sensations in organs are only symbols, they are discretional, and there is no certain one-to-one relation between a sensation and a material property. This point of view is called agnosticism. So far, my above conclusion is probably also thought of as agnosticism. However, I happened to have a second discovery. My second discovery is that there exists a skillful mathematical model of color vision——the decoding model 【8～10】, whose principle is similar to the principle of 3-8 decoder in numeric circuits. The model can explain various phenomena of color vision, especially the evolution of color vision, better. We can conclude from the decoding model that 1) A color perception is only a symbol that can continuously vary. 2) A series of color perceptions contain information from external objects since different color perceptions reflect different natural lights, even if a color perception is dissimilar to a material property. 3) The mechanism of color vision was continuously evolving for the requirement of discerning outside objects. The presentational or phenomenological world was involving with the mechanism of color vision involving, by which the objectify theory developed by Feuerbach and Marx can be explained in the way of natural science. The generalized information theory I set up is tightly related to my second discovery. For measuring the information conveyed by color vision, I extended Shannon’s information theory to general information theory, which can measure and optimize sensitive information, as well as the information conveyed by language and forecasts. The results from the generalized information theory are consistent not only with common sense but also with Popper’s philosophical theory. For example, according to this theory, the more necessary an occasional event is predicted as, and the prediction can be proved correct by facts, the more information the prediction conveys; a proposition that is true in any case provides no information; a lie or bad prediction conveys negative information; it will decrease the information we have had to believe a fortune teller is running off at the mouth. There are mainly two kinds of agnosticism. One is Kant’s agnosticism, which affirms thing-in-itself (or objective thing) is unknowable. Another is Hume’s agnosticism, which affirms the relationship between a cause and a result (or objective rule) is unknowable. Marx’s practice-testing theory and Popper’s knowledge-evolving theory can resolve the problem with Hume’s agnosticism. But, about whether the problem with Kant’s agnosticism has been resolved, there are still arguments. Kant would have said that what you have resolved is only the problem about whether the phenomenological world is knowable; however, you still cannot resolve the problem about whether the thing-in-itself, which is totally different from sensations, is knowable. Now, with the help of my two discoveries and new information theory, we can have two ways to prove the thing-in-itself is knowable. 1) We know that the objects described by daily language are knowable. Yet, the objects pointed by daily language are just material objects themselves. So, material objects themselves are knowable, or say, the thing-in-itself is knowable. 2) Although sensations are dissimilar to material objects or their properties, they contain information about material objects. This information can be measured by the generalized information formula similar to Shannon’s information formula. So, the material object or the thing-in-itself is knowable from the point of view of natural science. Moreover, my research concerning lingual information also supports Mark’s practice-testing theory and Popper’s knowledge-evolving theory. So, agnosticism does not fit my standpoint at all. For explaining the relationship between sensations and outside objects and summarizing up my research, I proposed analog-symbolic theory or analog-symbolism, which is based on Darwin’s theory of evolution, the theories of color and color vision developed by Young and many later researchers, and also my theories on color vision and information. The analog-symbolism is also the extension of the relativistic principle from physics to philosophy. It accepts atomists and mechanical materialists’ viewpoint about the relation between the sensation and the outside object (the motion of matter results in the sensation, however a sensation and a material property are dissimilar), affirms and extends Kant and Helmholtz’s symbolism, carries on the relativity thought in Feuerbach and Marx’s objectify theory (for resolving the problem with Kant’s dualism), inherits Lenin and many materialists’ viewpoint that color, sound, smell… objectively exist（against idealism and positivism）. This book has both scientific explorations and philosophical analyses. However, what it provides is very different from a popular scientific philosophy. The popular scientific philosophy is supposed to sum up, and guide science. But my effort is the opposite. I always try to base my philosophy on science. For example, I use a mathematical model of color vision to explain that the sensations are analog symbols, use the information theory to resolve the problems with agnosticism, and extend relativity principle from physics to philosophy. I have unified many very extreme standpoints together in my theory. These standpoints look mutually repulsive to other people, yet from my viewpoint, they are not contradictive with each other but very compatible. The primary purpose of this book is to eliminate the people’s bepuzzlement about the fundamental questions in philosophy. Before writing this book, I wrote another book: “Mystery of Beauty-feeling and Evolution of Demand,” whose primary purpose is to eliminate the people’s bepuzzlement about problems with beauty-feeling and demand. It is also based on some discoveries — about the arising rule of pleasant feelings and avian esthetic interest. These two books respectively discuss the cognitive relationship and motivational relationship between humans and outside would. They are comprehensive summing-up of my many years’ researches. If my effort is not ineffectual, I will be incomparably gratified. Lu, Chenguang . (shrink)

This paper shows why qualia constitute a problem for any theory of mental phenomena. We use the term ‘qualia’ in reference to non-intentional features of mental states which are eminently qualitative, i.e. perceptions, emotions, moods and body sensations. These non-intentional features are usually described as intrinsic, ineffable, infallible, atomic, private, direct and irreducible to the physical. The paper also explains the absent qualia argument which is addressed as a critique to functionalism.

This paper explains the main theses of functionalism about mental states. This view is taken as a response addressed to the metaphysical aspect of the mind-body problem. It is explained what distinguishes functional properties as second-order properties, and how to understand supervenience and multiple realizability. The paper applies these ideas to machine functionalism and analytic functionalism, the two main versions of functionalism.

In this dissertation, I examine our mental health concepts to see what work they are currently doing as well as what work they could be doing. In 1976, Christopher Boorse stated that the mental health literature is a “web of obscurities” (p. 51). To resolve some of this confusion, I argue that we need to consider the goals we should have for our mental health concepts and then give accounts of those concepts that meet our stated goals. I argue that (...) our goals for our mental health concepts should be twofold: first, we need concepts that will work to alleviate the stigmatization of mental disorder as this stigmatization gets in the way of providing and receiving medical help, and second, we need concepts that will be useful tools for medical practitioners to use in their diagnosis and treatment practices. -/- I begin by arguing that our mental disorder concept is not currently a useful tool for medical practitioners. Moreover, I argue that our mental disorder concept is confused in such a way that it is unlikely that it could ever be a useful tool for medical practitioners. If we cannot give an account of the mental disorder concept that is a useful tool for medical practitioners, then perhaps we can give an account of the mental disorder concept that can be used toward our goal of alleviating the stigmatization of mental disorder. Before we can do that, however, we need an account of the stigmatization concept so that we can understand what our mental disorder concept needs to be alleviating. -/- I argue that stigmatization is a process whereby some entity becomes marked as disgraceful or shameful. This stigmatization process includes (1) an attitude against the entity for reasons found in the social ideology, and (2) acts against the entity. I then argue that acts of stigmatization take two forms: direct stigmatization (where stigmatizors take acts against the stigmatized entity) and indirect stigmatization (where potential victims of stigmatization take acts to avoid becoming victims of stigmatization). With that in mind, we learn that if we are to alleviate the stigmatization of mental disorder, we need to work on alleviating both direct and indirect stigmatization. It is at this point that I argue for a new account of our mental disorder concept that can be utilized to alleviate the direct and indirect stigmatization of mental disorder. With our mental disorder concept redesigned to achieve that goal, I turn to the goal of providing medical help for persons that need that help. I argue that we need to reconceptualize what it means to be a ‘diagnosable condition’ so that we can develop a new framework for diagnosis and treatment that will be more efficacious than our current system. In conclusion, I suggest that we can untangle the current confusion that is the mental health literature by imbuing our mental health concepts with specific purposes and then utilizing them to achieve those purposes as I outline in this dissertation. (shrink)

I analyze a tension at the core of the mechanistic view of computation generated by its joint commitment to the medium independence of computational vehicles and to computational systems possessing teleological functions to compute. While computation is individuated in medium-independent terms, teleology is sensitive to the constitutive physical properties of vehicles. This tension spells trouble for the mechanistic view, suggesting that there can be no teleological functions to compute. I argue that, once considerations about the relevant function-bestowing factors for computational (...) systems are brought to bear, the tension dissolves: physical systems can have the teleological function to compute. (shrink)

In this paper, we evaluate the pragmatic turn towards embodied, enactive thinking in cognitive science, in the context of recent empirical research on the memory palace technique. The memory palace is a powerful method for remembering yet it faces two problems. First, cognitive scientists are currently unable to clarify its efficacy. Second, the technique faces significant practical challenges to its users. Virtual reality devices are sometimes presented as a way to solve these practical challenges, but currently fall short of delivering (...) on that promise. We address both issues in this paper. First, we argue that an embodied, enactive approach to memory can better help us understand the effectiveness of the memory palace. Second, we present design recommendations for a virtual memory palace. Our theoretical proposal and design recommendations contribute to solving both problems and provide reasons for preferring an embodied, enactive account over an information-processing treatment of the memory palace. (shrink)

This paper advances a theory of interactionist mental causation within a non-physicalist property dualist framework. It builds from Chalmers' argument that non-physical experiences can't have causal powers. It reinterprets this as a constraint, then identifies the unique model satisfying it. This has the experience existing passively with physical nature responding actively to it. The paper explores the causal theory presupposed thereby; applies its model to standard property dualism and particulate property dualism ; shows how the model coheres with science; integrates (...) it into a revised functionalist framework having three levels instead of the usual two; explains why consciousness detectors will remain impossible; and argues that dualists should find the model troubling. (shrink)