Functionalism and Sensations

Abstract

Turing Machine Functionalism possesses the rare distinction among philosophical theories of having been definitely refuted. The decisive moment in its history came with the publication of What Psychological States Are Not 1 in which Med Block and Jerry Fodor pressed a number of technical objections against the theory. The Turing machine model of the mind had no place for dispositional predicates such as belief, it was incapable of distinguishing distinct simultaneous mental states and the type identity conditions it placed on mental states were both too fine-grained and too coarse-grained. Functionalism as a general approach to the philosophy of mind survived the demise of Turing Machine Functionalism, but one of the objections urged against the original theory still haunts its descendants. Some mental states, most notably sensations, seem to untutored intuition to have a qualitative character which resists functional explanation. This is not a failure to be taken lightly. The qualitative character of mentality is a pervasive aspect of experience infusing our lives with depth, color and significance. A creature without a qualitative dimension to its existence might be able to behave as we do, but it is hard to see how it could care what happens to it. A philosophy which cannot capture the subjective, phenomenal side of mentality should point beyond itself to a more adequate theory. I will argue that current versions of functionalism fail to do justice to the quality of experience and that they do point beyond themselves to an account which stands a better chance of accommodating both the objective and subjective data.