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The Mind-Body Problem, Part 2:

Identity Theory and Functionalism

HY3011: Minds and Machines


23 January, 2017
Outline
1. Introducing Identity Theory

2. Arguments for Identity Theory

3. Arguments against Identity Theory

4. Functionalism (and the Arguments for It)

5. Arguments against Functionalism


Part 1: Introducing
Identity Theory
Background
Substance dualism and behaviorism have
been rejected by most contemporary
philosophers and cognitive scientists

But the next three views well be looking at


mind-brain identity theory, functionalism,
and eliminative materialism are alive and
well in contemporary philosophy of mind
All of these are variants of materialism
Identity Theory
The central idea of the Identity Theory,
also known as the mind-brain identity
theory or reductive materialism, is that
mental states can be identified with brain
states
A particular mental state is identical to the firing
of particular neurons in the brain
Striking examples of this in clinical patients during
brain surgery
Reduction
The term reductive materialism reflects
the idea that mental states can be reduced
to brain states

Intertheoretic reduction is an important


concept from philosophy of science
It means, roughly, to show that higher-level
entities/phenomena are in fact instances of lower-
level entities/phenomena
Reduction (cont.)
Reduction often takes the form of the lower-
level theory being posited for independent
reasons
And then it being discovered that the theory in
fact maps almost perfectly onto and explains
higher-level phenomena that were once thought
to demand their own theories/explanations

Famous instances of reduction in the history


of science include sound, heat, and color
The meaning of identity
Another key notion is that of identity
Without a precise definition of identity, the MBIT
risks being vacuous
It is not enough simply to say that there is some
mapping between mental states and brain states
We need to specify the nature of that mapping

There are different types of identity


Specifically, the type-token distinction is
important to understanding the different ways
that the MBIT can be developed
Type-Type and Token-Token
Identity
Type-Type Identity holds that a particular type of
mental state is identical to a particular type of
brain state
Concerns that this is overly restrictive: entails that only
organisms with brains like our own can have mental states

Token-Token Identity holds that for any given


mental state there is some physical state to which
it is identical
Avoids the problem of excessive restrictiveness, but also
gives up much of the (supposed) explanatory power of the
MBIT
Part 2: Arguments for
Identity Theory
Support for Identity
Theory
There are a variety of arguments in support
for identity theory
And it is, indeed, in many ways the new default
view from a secular/scientific perspective
With other views in contemporary philosophy of
mind being variants of, or reactions to, the
materialistic commitments at the heart of identity
theory

Churchland gives four main arguments in


support of identity theory
Arguments 1 & 2: Humans as
Physical Systems
The first two arguments appeal to the idea that
humans are purely physical in origin
Science has a compelling account of the origins of
human biology both developmentally (Argument 1) and
evolutionarily (Argument 2)
Identity theory is in line with this, for it says that
the mental can be reduced to the physical:
ontological parsimony
This avoids the problem that we saw last week

with forms of dualism: the mysterious


existence/emergence of mental substances or
properties
Argument 3: Neural
Dependence
The third argument is that all mental
phenomena we know of are systematically
dependent on brain phenomena
Some we understand better than others, of
course, but theres (arguably) no mental activity
that happens without corresponding brain activity
Property dualism acknowledges this as well,
but again identity theory can appeal to
considerations of parsimony
Argument 4: Neuroscientific
Progress
A final argument is that the neurosciences
are making impressive progress in
explaining the nature of the relationship
between mind and brain
And the history of science provides strong

reason to think that phenomena once


thought inexplicable by science will
eventually yield to scientific explanation
Part 3: Arguments against
Identity Theory
Arguments against Identity
Theory
Nonetheless, the identity theory is in many
ways a promissory note
Particularly Arguments 3 and 4

Systematic neuroscientific explanations of


many phenomena are a long way off
And, as well see momentarily, there are some
phenomena that philosophers think may never be
amenable to reductionist explanation
Counterargument 1:
Introspection
One argument against identity theory is
that introspection doesnt support the idea
of mental states as (just) brain states
We discussed this last week as a potential
argument for dualism, but it also works as an
argument against identity theory

Possible identity theorist response: our


senses dont necessarily reveal the
fundamental physical character of things
Examples of light, sound, and heat
Counterargument 2: Meaning
and Identity
Another counterargument puts a semantic and logical
spin on the first: there seem to be statements, and
properties, that are true (or at least believed to be true)
of mental states but not brain states, and vice versa
Thus, the argument concludes, mental states cannot be
identical to brain states

The identity theorists response here is similar to the


response to the first argument
Our commonsense meanings and attributions of properties are
beholden to our own (incomplete) commonsense knowledge
Again can construct a reductio ad absurdum using examples like
temperature, light, and sound
Counterargument 3: Subjective
Experience (Qualia)
The third argument against identity theory is the
big one, so well spend quite a bit more time on it

This argument takes various forms and appeals


to various famous examples but at root is pretty
simple:
Purely physical explanations cannot account for the
subjective character of experience
Complete reduction is not possible since some aspects
of mental experience are not reducible to the physical
Therefore identity theory is false (or at least incomplete)
Nagels Bat
One famous argument of this form is found
in Thomas Nagels article What is it like to
be a bat? (1974)
The article spends a great deal of time

describing how bats use echolocation as a


highly sophisticated way of perceiving and
navigating their environment
This is, of course, quite different from our own
experience, which (cases such as blindness aside)
relies heavily on sight
Nagel (cont.)
Nagel argues that even if science tells us
exactly how bats echolocation works, down
to the tiniest neural detail, we still will not
understand what the experience of being a
bat is like
That is, reductive explanation is not a complete
explanation of the mind
Qualia, according to Nagel, are not explicable
through reduction
Jacksons Mary
Another argument along similar lines comes
from Frank Jackson

In Jacksons case, Mary is a neuroscientist


who has been raised in an entirely black
and white room
She knows everything there is to know about how
color vision works, the reflectance profiles that
define each color, and so forth
That is, she knows everything there is to know
about the mind according to identity theory
Jackson (cont.)
Yet Jackson argues that Mary would
nonetheless learn something new the first
time she stepped outside of her room and
actually saw the color red for the first time

Thus, physical facts alone do not exhaust


what can be known about the mind
For this reason, Jacksons argument is sometimes
referred to as the knowledge argument
Chalmerss Zombies
A final example is David Chalmerss
philosophical zombies

Chalmers says that we can imagine a world


that is physically identical to our own but in
which the people (who are, by stipulation,
physically identical to us) do not have any
subjective experience
These are zombies in the sense that they have
no inner life
Chalmers (cont.)
The conceivability of such zombies,
Chalmers argues, shows that the
intrinsic/essential features of our conscious
experience are distinct from physical
features of the sort appealed to by various
forms of materialism

The argument applies not just to identity


theory but also to views such as
functionalism
Possible Materialist Responses
There are various lines of response available to
materialists in response to these qualia-based
arguments:

1. Deny the intuitions or the coherence of the


cases
2. Deny intuitions validity as reflections of the
fundamental nature of the world
Again the history of science is instructive
3. Appeal to different types of knowledge
(especially relevant to Jackson/Nagel)
Part 4: Functionalism (and
the Arguments for It)
Background: concerns about
identity theory
The view we discussed last week, identity
theory, holds that mental states simply are
brain states

One set of challenges to identity theory (and


physicalism more generally) come from
property dualists who believe that
physicalism cannot account for all mental
phenomena
Qualia have received particular attention here:
Nagel, Jackson, Chalmers
Physicalist concerns about
identity theory
However, identity theory also faces a
significant challenge from within the
physicalist camp
Whether it is possible to specify identities
between types of mental and physical states

Without such type identities, all we have is


the much weaker thesis of token identity
And identity theory loses much of its explanatory
punch
Physicalist concerns (cont.)
More specific threats to type identity are:
Multiple realizability: there may be indefinitely
many types of brain states that physically realize
a particular type of mental state (e.g., belief)
Ruling out mentality for other types of physical
systems (e.g., aliens, computers, maybe even
other animals)
If mental states are identified with the types of
physical states found in human brains, this suggests
that intelligent entities that are very physically
different from us dont actually have mental states
But this seems wrong
Defining functionalism
Functionalism is an attempt to address
these perceived shortcomings of identity
theory
Rather than defining mental states in terms of
their physical form (viz., particular brain states),
functionalists define mental states in terms of the
functional role that these states play

The functional role of a state is generally


defined in terms of the causal relations that
it bears to the environment, body, and other
mental states
Functionalism as a solution to
problems with identity theory
This gets around the problems of multiple
realizability and alternative physical
systems
As long as the causal relations/functional role that
define a given type of mental state are present, it
doesnt matter what the physical system
instantiating those relations/roles is
Human biology, alien biology, silicon chips, etc.

To use a computer metaphor: what matters


for functionalism is the software, not the
hardware
Functionalisms popularity
Functionalism is especially popular among
researchers in cognitive psychology and
artificial intelligence
For it suggests that we can study the mind as a
computational system abstracted away from
messy details about the brain
Autonomy of psychology arguments

Also popular among philosophers of mind


for similar reasons: we can study the mind
without bothering with neuroscience!
Avoiding misconceptions
Functionalism vs. behaviorism:
Functionalism is similar to behaviorism in its focus on
causal relations, but with the key difference that its
functional definitions involve ineliminable reference to
other mental states
In contrast to behaviorisms requirement that mental states
be defined solely in terms of outwardly observable behavior

Functionalism is not a form of dualism


Nearly all functionalists subscribe to physicalism:
theyre just token physicalists rather than type
physicalists
Part 5: Arguments against
Functionalism
Qualitative character and
functional indistinguishability
One objection functionalism faces will be quite
familiar by now, both as an objection to behaviorism
and to (type) physicalism:
The objection is that functionalism cant account for the
inner or qualitative dimensions of our mental states
Since according to functionalism, these states are purely
causally defined

Inverted spectrum thought experiment: functional


roles are identical but phenomenal character is very
different
Reluctant to say that these are the same mental state even
though they are functionally identical
Blocks China brain
objection
A very influential objection to functionalism
comes in the form of Ned Blocks China brain
thought experiment
Imagine that all the citizens of a very populous
country arrange themselves in such a way as to
mimic the functional organization of the human brain

According to functionalism, such a system


should be a mind, since it (by hypothesis)
instantiates all of the functional roles of the
human brain
Blocks objection (cont.)
Yet most people are reluctant to say that such a
system would be a mind just like any other
A couple ways of cashing this out:
The absent qualia problem: such a system, even if it
could perform computations and the like, would not
have qualitative experience
Thus, there is something more to mentality than functional
roles
Can also see the China brain as a reductio ad
absurdum of functionalisms openness about the
physical basis of the mind
Opposite problem from type identity: too open about
physical basis rather than too restrictive
Functionalism and the
autonomy of psychology
Another line of objection takes aim at the idea
that functional definition implies
disciplinary/methodological autonomy
Churchlands temperature example:
Strictly speaking, the temperature is mean molecular
kinetic energy identity only holds for the temperature of a
gas
Slightly different definitions for other states of matter
Yet it would be absurd to conclude from this that
thermodynamics is an autonomous science that can be
abstracted away from particular physical realizers
Rather, reductions are domain-specific
Provides the identity theorist with a response to concerns about
alternative realizations

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