On 27 Aug 2009, at 15:04, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
> 2009/8/27 Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>:
>
>> You are right. A simpler example is a dreamer and a rock, and the
>> whole universe. They have locally the same input and output: none!
>> So
>> they are functionally identical, yet very different from the first
>> person perspective. This is why in comp I make explicit the existence
>> of a level of substitution. It is the only difference with
>> functionalism which is usually vague on that point. It is a key
>> point.
>
> The dreamer is not functionally identical to the rock because he is
> dreaming and the rock isn't (I'll avoid starting up another rocks are
> conscious discussion). If the dreamer could talk, he would tell you
> that something is going on, while the rock would not.
I was assuming a non talking dreamer, of course.
> It isn't really
> fair to say that the outputs are the same simply because the lines of
> communication are down, or because eg. you are deliberately trying to
> fool the external observer into thinking everything is the same.
My point is just that functionalism does not really make sense, unless
a level of substitution is assumed.
- Bruno Marchal
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Received on Fri Aug 28 2009 - 09:46:26 PDT