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Single Idea 3512

[filed under theme 17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / b. Multiple realisability ]

Full Idea

If functionalism implies that there is nothing physically in common among the realisations of a given mental state, then there is no possibility of any uniform explanation of why they all give rise to a common physical result.

Gist of Idea

If a mental state is multiply realisable, why does it lead to similar behaviour?

Source

David Papineau (Philosophical Naturalism [1993], 2.2)

Book Ref

Papineau,David: 'Philosophical Naturalism' [Blackwell 1993], p.35

A Reaction

This is the well known interaction problem for dualism. The standard reply is to accept interaction as a given (with no apparent explanation). A miracle, if you like.

The 54 ideas from David Papineau

3509 Externalism may be the key idea in philosophical naturalism [Papineau]
3510 Epiphenomenalism is supervenience without physicalism [Papineau]
3511 Supervenience requires all mental events to have physical effects [Papineau]
3512 If a mental state is multiply realisable, why does it lead to similar behaviour? [Papineau]
3513 How does a dualist mind represent, exist outside space, and be transparent to itself? [Papineau]
3514 Functionalism needs causation and intentionality to explain actions [Papineau]
3515 Knowing what it is like to be something only involves being (physically) that thing [Papineau]
3516 The Private Language argument only means people may misjudge their experiences [Papineau]
16369 There is a single file per object, memorised, reactivated, consolidated and expanded [Papineau, by Recanati]
13407 All worthwhile philosophy is synthetic theorizing, evaluated by experience [Papineau]
13406 A priori knowledge is analytic - the structure of our concepts - and hence unimportant [Papineau]
13408 Intuition and thought-experiments embody substantial information about the world [Papineau]
13409 Our best theories may commit us to mathematical abstracta, but that doesn't justify the commitment [Papineau]
13410 Verificationism about concepts means you can't deny a theory, because you can't have the concept [Papineau]
12583 Belief truth-conditions are normal circumstances where the belief is supposed to occur [Papineau]
7890 Maybe a creature is conscious if its mental states represent things in a distinct way [Papineau]
7884 Most reductive accounts of representation imply broad content [Papineau]
7850 Thinking about a thing doesn't require activating it [Papineau]
7853 Causation is based on either events, or facts, or states of affairs [Papineau]
7851 Consciousness affects bodily movement, so thoughts must be material states [Papineau]
7852 The only serious mind-brain theories now are identity, token identity, realization and supervenience [Papineau]
7854 Whether octopuses feel pain is unclear, because our phenomenal concepts are too vague [Papineau]
7856 It is absurd to think that physical effects are caused twice, so conscious causes must be physical [Papineau]
7857 Causes are instantiations of properties by particulars, or they are themselves basic particulars [Papineau]
7858 If causes are basic particulars, this doesn't make conscious and physical properties identical [Papineau]
7863 If content hinges on matters outside of you, how can it causally influence your actions? [Papineau]
7860 The epiphenomenal relation of mind and brain is a 'causal dangler', unlike anything else [Papineau]
7862 Maybe minds do not cause actions, but do cause us to report our decisions [Papineau]
7864 Maybe mind and body do overdetermine acts, but are linked (for some reason) [Papineau]
7865 Supervenience can be replaced by identifying mind with higher-order or disjunctional properties [Papineau]
7866 Mary acquires new concepts; she previously thought about the same property using material concepts [Papineau]
7869 Truth conditions in possible worlds can't handle statements about impossibilities [Papineau]
7868 Thought content is possible worlds that make the thought true; if that includes the actual world, it's true [Papineau]
7870 Role concepts either name the realising property, or the higher property constituting the role [Papineau]
7871 Perceptual concepts can't just refer to what causes classification [Papineau]
7872 Teleosemantics equates meaning with the item the concept is intended to track [Papineau]
7873 Young children can see that other individuals sometimes have false beliefs [Papineau]
7874 Do we understand other minds by simulation-theory, or by theory-theory? [Papineau]
7879 Mind-brain reduction is less explanatory, because phenomenal concepts lack causal roles [Papineau]
7881 Accept ontological monism, but conceptual dualism; we think in a different way about phenomenal thought [Papineau]
7882 Researching phenomenal consciousness is peculiar, because the concepts involved are peculiar [Papineau]
7883 Verificationists tend to infer indefinite answers from undecidable questions [Papineau]
7885 The 'actualist' HOT theory says consciousness comes from actual higher judgements of mental states [Papineau]
7886 Actualist HOT theories imply that a non-conscious mental event could become conscious when remembered [Papineau]
7887 States are conscious if they could be the subject of higher-order mental judgements [Papineau]
7888 Higher-order judgements may be possible where the subject denies having been conscious [Papineau]
7889 Our concept of consciousness is crude, and lacks theoretical articulation [Papineau]
7891 We can’t decide what 'conscious' means, so it is undecidable whether cats are conscious [Papineau]
20974 Modern biological research, especially into the cell, has revealed no special new natural forces [Papineau]
20975 Quantum 'wave collapses' seem to violate conservation of energy [Papineau]
20970 Determinism is possible without a complete physics, if mental forces play a role [Papineau]
20971 Weak reduction of mind is to physical causes; strong reduction is also to physical laws [Papineau]
7892 The completeness of physics is needed for mind-brain identity [Papineau]
20976 The completeness of physics cannot be proved [Papineau]