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 Reference
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.