Counterexamples to Functionalism - Essay Example

Psychology: Name: Institution: Date: Introduction Functionalism can be described as a doctrine that tends to make something a thought, desire or a type of mental state which depends not on its internal constitution but on its function or the role it plays in the cognitive system with which it is part of (Levin, 2004). There are various functionalist theories which take the mental state identity that is determined casual relations to sensory simulations including other mental states and behaviour. While there are different forms of functionalism, an individual’s psychological makeup is greatly determined by their particular functional construction. Functionalism still holds that if something is a functional duplicate of someone, it should therefore contain a mental identical state of the person. There however has been efforts to expose the weakness of functionalism, one of these attempts include the Ned Blok’s China Brain, John Searle’s Chinese Room and the Spectrum inversion thought experiment. All these attempts try to theoretically create something that has a functional similarity to human beings but stretches individual’s intuitions, such things according to functionalism will have mental states but human intuition will disagree leading to denial of functionalism. This essay aims at examining these three counterexamples by outlining the structure of their arguments and examining of they truly merit to demonstrate what they intend to prove which is basically falsifying functionalism. Searle’s Chinese room thought experiment Searle’s theory is based on the argument of whether it is possible for a machine to be intelligent by understanding a given language. According to Searle, if the machine can understand a given language, then it has to be intelligent enough to grasp the meaning of the words and the sentences in that language. Searle argues that by being able to do that, the machine must have beliefs and if it has beliefs then there is a possibility of it having mental states such as hope and fears. It is from the functionalism theory that people tend to believe that the machine is capable of having a mind (Cole, 2004). The Chinese room experiment creates a scenario in a room containing people who are native Chinese speakers. They write details on a piece of paper and slip it to another room considered to be a machine, the paper is then slotted back into the room containing answers written below it. The answers are well written in Chinese and so the Chinese speakers conclude that the person giving the answers must be an intelligent person who understands Chinese. It is also thought in the experiment that perhaps the person in the room only understood English, and the room is full of books, when symbol messages are passed to the room, the job of the person or computer is merely to loot through the program or books and find the string of symbols and find the symbols that look exactly as those written in the paper. According to Searle, the Chinese room experiment demonstrates that a computer program that manipulates symbols by just using its formal syntactic properties cannot be said to understand a given language. Searle believes that human beings are biological machines who understand a given language and are computers since their brain operation can be described to be computing or implementing functions. He believes that humans do not only manipulate symbols based on their formal properties but actually understand the meaning of the symbols something which the Chinese Room does not. There have been several support and criticism towards the Chinese Room experiment, while some concede that the person in the room may not be able to understand Chinese, running a program can help to create something that understands Chinese. Other critics agree with Searle’s claim that just running a natural language processing program does not create any understanding be it by human or a computer program, the same critics however believe that the variations in the computer system could be able to understand. Other arguments state that if understanding cannot be attributed on the basis of the behaviour exhibited by the Chinese room, then it would also be unreasonable to attribute the art of understanding to humans on the basis of similar behavioral evidence. Ned block china nation thought experiment The China nation thought experiment was originally developed and expressed by Neb Block concerning troubles with functionalism as a counterexample to functionalism. In the China nation thought experiment, Block chooses to convert the Chinese government to a form of functionalism, the citizens of china are then given a two-way radio including instructions on who to contact based on who called him or her (Sayan, 1987). The experiment was in a manner that Citizen X can contact Citizen Y only if Citizens A,B and C contact Citizen X within a duration of one minute from each other. Citizen X is however restricted to contact Citizen D or E during that time period. Block tries to emulate neutral communications within the brain system, an individual’s neutral is thought as an input and output device and every Chinese citizen play the role of a neuron. Neurons function in a way that the inputs take place at the dendrites and the cell body while the outputs take place at the end of the axons. Whether to contact the next cell is determined by if the inputs are excitatory or inhibitory hence the procedure is merely mechanical and does not require a complex thought. Block tries to prove a point that although the practical aspect of the system is unrealistic, the individual’s interconnected system is analogous to that of the human brain. Functionalists tend to think that the human brain is asset up of functional ways which enable humans to have psychological states. The china thought experiment however challenges this notion by creating a functional duplicate. Block argues that the common sense functionalist is committed to saying that the system has got mental states as that of the human being because it has got similar functional organizations. The objection of common sense functionalism is based on the fact that common sense functionalism attempts to define all mental states. He argues that a brain would continue to enjoy all the full mental life, it may continue to exhibit the same causal connections between the neural inputs and neural outputs as it did before being removed from the body. Block thinks that these systems do not seem to have any mental states, even if the China-brain had proportional attributes, it is still doubtful whether they would have qualitative mental states such as pain or perceptions. The spectrum inversion thought experiment The spectrum inversion thought experiment is always considered as an argument for the existence of qualia. The inverted spectrum deals with the possibility of two people sharing a color vocabulary and discriminations, these colors are seen differently by different people. One tends to see their qualia and is systematically different from what other people see (Byrne, 2004). The inverted spectrum thought experiment aims at proving two aspects which are: the fact that two subjects have qualitatively different experiences when confronted by the same stimuli, but despite the fact, subjects may be functionally equivalent in that their qualitatively different experiences stand in the same casual relations to different mental states including input and output. This experiment tries to prove that there can be a mental difference between two subjects without the existence of any functional difference. According to the experiment, if a normal person is confronted with a red colored object, he or she will have distinctive qualitative features that will cause them to belief that something is actually red. Such an experience will affect someone’s behaviour in that he will call other similar objects as red. If a normal individual undergoes an operation on his or her optic nerve which causes green things to look as how red things used to appear to them and red things appear as green, he or she may be made to believe that those objects are really red hence subjecting the individual to systematic perceptual illusion. When the person eventually discovers his mistakes, he will doubt his ability to perceive colors hence behaving differently in the response to the same stimuli. At this point, the greenish experiences of the individual being to take on the functional role that was formerly occupied by the reddish experiences while the reddish experiences take the place of the greenish experiences. In the end, the individual will behaviorally and functionally form a normal perception in that when he or she sees red objects he develops greenish experiences instead of red. The difference in experience however is not manifested in their behaviour nor in the choice of words for the color. The idea of the inverted spectrums raises questions in that if they are really possible, then it is hard to know the experiences each other has and who has the right experience of the colors. Others believe that the idea of inversion could be possible hence the qualitative features of various experiences should not be given functional definitions. Conclusion Functionalism therefore, as a theory of the mind, tends to describe the fundamental nature of an individual’s state of mind. This state of mind ranges from fears, desires to beliefs. Mental states comprise of the cognitive processing that one is aware of since they are accompanied by subjective experiences. Functionalists tend to believe that all that is in existence is built out of physical things such as molecules. The above theories which are counterexamples to functionalism have served to prove that functionalist may be wrong to conclude that all that is in existence is built out of physical things such as molecules and hence should not be given functional definitions. References Byrne, A. (2004). Inverted Qualia. [online] Plato.stanford.edu. Available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia-inverted/ [Accessed 26 Apr. 2016]. Cole, D. (2004). The Chinese Room Argument. [online] Plato.stanford.edu. Available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/ [Accessed 26 Apr. 2016]. Geocities.ws. (2016). Responses to Functionalism �The China Brain and The Chinese Room. [online] Available at: http://www.geocities.ws/griseborough/27.htm [Accessed 26 Apr. 2016]. Levin, J. (2004). Functionalism. [online] Plato.stanford.edu. Available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/functionalism/ [Accessed 26 Apr. 2016]. Mind.ilstu.edu. (2016). Searle and the Chinese Room Argument - The Mind Project. [online] Available at: http://www.mind.ilstu.edu/curriculum/searle_chinese_room/searle_chinese_room.php [Accessed 26 Apr. 2016]. Sayan, E. (1987). A Closer Look at the Chinese Nation Argument. Philosophy Research Archives, 13, pp.129-136. Read More

There have been several support and criticism towards the Chinese Room experiment, while some concede that the person in the room may not be able to understand Chinese, running a program can help to create something that understands Chinese. Other critics agree with Searle’s claim that just running a natural language processing program does not create any understanding be it by human or a computer program, the same critics however believe that the variations in the computer system could be able to understand.

Other arguments state that if understanding cannot be attributed on the basis of the behaviour exhibited by the Chinese room, then it would also be unreasonable to attribute the art of understanding to humans on the basis of similar behavioral evidence. Ned block china nation thought experiment The China nation thought experiment was originally developed and expressed by Neb Block concerning troubles with functionalism as a counterexample to functionalism. In the China nation thought experiment, Block chooses to convert the Chinese government to a form of functionalism, the citizens of china are then given a two-way radio including instructions on who to contact based on who called him or her (Sayan, 1987).

The experiment was in a manner that Citizen X can contact Citizen Y only if Citizens A,B and C contact Citizen X within a duration of one minute from each other. Citizen X is however restricted to contact Citizen D or E during that time period. Block tries to emulate neutral communications within the brain system, an individual’s neutral is thought as an input and output device and every Chinese citizen play the role of a neuron. Neurons function in a way that the inputs take place at the dendrites and the cell body while the outputs take place at the end of the axons.

Whether to contact the next cell is determined by if the inputs are excitatory or inhibitory hence the procedure is merely mechanical and does not require a complex thought. Block tries to prove a point that although the practical aspect of the system is unrealistic, the individual’s interconnected system is analogous to that of the human brain. Functionalists tend to think that the human brain is asset up of functional ways which enable humans to have psychological states. The china thought experiment however challenges this notion by creating a functional duplicate.

Block argues that the common sense functionalist is committed to saying that the system has got mental states as that of the human being because it has got similar functional organizations. The objection of common sense functionalism is based on the fact that common sense functionalism attempts to define all mental states. He argues that a brain would continue to enjoy all the full mental life, it may continue to exhibit the same causal connections between the neural inputs and neural outputs as it did before being removed from the body.

Block thinks that these systems do not seem to have any mental states, even if the China-brain had proportional attributes, it is still doubtful whether they would have qualitative mental states such as pain or perceptions. The spectrum inversion thought experiment The spectrum inversion thought experiment is always considered as an argument for the existence of qualia. The inverted spectrum deals with the possibility of two people sharing a color vocabulary and discriminations, these colors are seen differently by different people.

One tends to see their qualia and is systematically different from what other people see (Byrne, 2004). The inverted spectrum thought experiment aims at proving two aspects which are: the fact that two subjects have qualitatively different experiences when confronted by the same stimuli, but despite the fact, subjects may be functionally equivalent in that their qualitatively different experiences stand in the same casual relations to different mental states including input and output. This experiment tries to prove that there can be a mental difference between two subjects without the existence of any functional difference.

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