PHLB81H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Turing Machine, Mental Property, Causal Structure
Document Summary
Multiple realizability and the functional conception of mind. It says that anything that exhibits mentality must be a physical system for example, a biological organism. The principle requires that every mental property be physically based; each occurrence of a mental property is due to the occurrence of a physical realizer of the mental property. Minds, if they exist, must be embodied. The concept of an engine is defined by a job description, or causal role, not a description of mechanisms that execute the job. The job description of a tissue-damage detector a mechanism that is activated by tissue damage and whose activation in turn causes behavioral responses such as withdrawal, avoidance, and escape. Principle of individuation: criterion which distinguishes the members of the kind for which it is given and we can determine, regarding any kind of thing, when we have more than one of them or not. For the physicalist, a mental kind is a physical kind.
