Dualism, Materialism And Brain Identity Theory

To answer this question I will fist give an explanation of what functionalism is and its relation to dualism, materialism and mind-brain identity theory. From here I will outline the two key objections it faces namely the extra-cranial objection or china brain thought experiment and the qualia objection. I will state and explain why the qualia objection is the most serious of the two and why functionalism at present can not fully overcome it but in doing so I will address the replies functionalism gives as defence against this.

Functionalism

Functionalism is a form materialism, which in turn is the interpretation of processes of the mind as both mental states and brain states depending on how they present themselves, however there is only …show more content…
It defines the object, process or thing by what it does so the mental state is the same as the function being performed, like the sound the guitar produces this would be classed as the type. The guitar itself would be the token or the physical/mental state. In essence functionalism embraces multiple realisation as there are multiple guitars or tokens that produce the same type of sounds. Again using pain as a type of mental state the same logic applies as there are multiple token brain states that produce pain as a mental …show more content…
Firstly there is the question of if we truly could imagine such a thing as a clone and understand there complete inner workings. Descartes argued that we can imagine or clearly and distinctly understand the idea of there being two separate substances, the body and the mind and therefore if we can imagine it then it is possible. This is the same argument used against functionalism, if we can imagine a person with mental and brain states but no conscious thought, then it is