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Full Idea
In the simplest Turing-machine version of functionalism (Putnam 1967), mental states are identified with the total Turing-machine state, involving a machine table and its inputs and outputs.
Gist of Idea
Simple machine-functionalism says mind just is a Turing machine
Source
Ned Block (Troubles with Functionalism [1978], p. 70)
Book Ref
'The Philosophy of Mind', ed/tr. Beakley,B /Ludlow P [MIT 1992], p.70
A Reaction
This obviously invites the question of why mental states would be conscious and phenomenal, given that modern computers are devoid of same, despite being classy Turing machines.
| 2574 | Behaviour requires knowledge as well as dispositions [Block] |
| 2576 | In functionalism, desires are internal states with causal relations [Block] |
| 2575 | Functionalism is behaviourism, but with mental states as intermediaries [Block] |
| 2578 | Could a creature without a brain be in the right functional state for pain? [Block] |
| 2577 | Simple machine-functionalism says mind just is a Turing machine [Block] |
| 2580 | A Turing machine, given a state and input, specifies an output and the next state [Block] |
| 2579 | Physicalism is prejudiced in favour of our neurology, when other systems might have minds [Block] |
| 2581 | Intuition may say that a complex sentence is ungrammatical, but linguistics can show that it is not [Block] |
| 2582 | A brain looks no more likely than anything else to cause qualia [Block] |
| 2583 | You might invert colours, but you can't invert beliefs [Block] |
| 2584 | Lobotomised patients can cease to care about a pain [Block] |
| 2585 | Not just any old functional network will have mental states [Block] |
| 2586 | In functionalism, what are the special inputs and outputs of conscious creatures? [Block] |