Topic: Mind
One more thing I wanted to say about Searle is he got me thinking about a couple very important issues, I just didn't post much about them because I don't feel like I have enough of a handle on them (and limited time lately). One of those things involves the relation between causality and functionality, and apparently this is a big one for Searle given the guy buys multiple realizability, brain function as connectionist (and digital), and claims the brain is just a machine - but yet thinks functionalism is insanity. I touched on this in the last post but it needs a lot more space. I think this might be a case of therapeutic analysis, that is, to show why Searle is for all intents and purposes a functionalist - or even a computationalist. A functionalist with perhaps the right externalist account that perhaps doesn't yet exist. David Chalmers and Ned Block have both provided some framing for Searle's problems that given Searle's refutations of Roger Penrose's anti-AI arguments, I have a hard time seeing how he can refuse. Chalmers for instance argues that if you get the computation tuned right, the causality falls into place. Anyway, that's all flagged for follow up - I can't shed any more light on the problem now.
Posted by gadianton2
at 8:33 AM
