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Full Idea
My "functionalism" insisted that a robot, a human being, a silicon creature and a disembodied spirit could all work much the same way when described at the relevant level of abstraction, and it is wrong to think the essence of mind is hardware.
Gist of Idea
Functionalism says robots and people are the same at one level of abstraction
Source
Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], Int p.xii)
Book Ref
Putnam,Hilary: 'Representation and Reality' [MIT 1992], p.-7
A Reaction
This is the key point about the theory - that it is an abstract theory of mind, saying nothing about substances. It drew, however, some misguided criticisms suggesting silly implementations.
| 23225 | The soul's faculties depend on the brain, and are simply the brain's organisation [La Mettrie] |
| 3192 | Basic logic can be done by syntax, with no semantics [Gödel, by Rey] |
| 5495 | Instances of pain are physical tokens, but the nature of pain is more abstract [Putnam, by Lycan] |
| 2331 | Functionalism says robots and people are the same at one level of abstraction [Putnam] |
| 5804 | A representational theory of the mind is an externalist theory of the mind [Dretske] |
| 12632 | In the Representational view, concepts play the key linking role [Fodor] |
| 2993 | Any piece of software can always be hard-wired [Fodor] |
| 6539 | The distinction between software and hardware is not clear in computing [Lycan] |
| 5496 | Functionalism has three linked levels: physical, functional, and mental [Lycan] |