multiple realizability
In plain wordsThe idea that the same mental state, such as pain, could be produced by very different physical systems — human brains, octopus brains or perhaps computers — just as one program can run on different machines.
The thesis that one type of mental state, such as pain or the belief that it is raining, could occur in systems built in physically very different ways, so that it cannot be equated with any one type of physical state, such as a particular pattern of neural firing. Hilary Putnam used it against the mind–brain identity theory: if pain just is a specific human brain state, then mollusks such as the octopus, with very different nervous systems, could not feel pain, which seems implausible. Multiple realizability is the main argument for functionalismfunctionalism, n.: The view that minds are defined by how they work, not what they are made of: pain, for example, is whatever inner state plays pain's part, linking injury, other thoughts and behavior. and for the autonomy of psychology and other special sciences, and it underlies the assumption that minds could in principle be implemented in silicon. Critics argue that realizations differ more than functionalists admit, or that mental kinds may be tied to fine-grained biological features.
Origin
Hilary Putnam's 'Psychological Predicates' (1967), arguing from the variety of nervous systems across species; Jerry Fodor's 'Special Sciences' (1974) extended the argument to the relation between psychology and physics.
Related
- functionalismfunctionalism, n.: The view that minds are defined by how they work, not what they are made of: pain, for example, is whatever inner state plays pain's part, linking injury, other thoughts and behavior.
- substrate independencesubstrate independence, n.: The idea that a mind depends only on the pattern of information processing, not on the material doing it, so a mind could in principle run on silicon as well as on neurons.
- mind–body problemmind–body problem, n.: The age-old question of how the mind — thoughts, feelings, experiences — relates to the physical body and brain. Is the mind simply what the brain does, or something more?
- computational theory of mindcomputational theory of mind, n.: The idea that thinking is a kind of computation: the mind processes information by following rules, much as a computer runs a program, and the brain is the machine doing it.
- biological naturalismbiological naturalism, n.: John Searle's view that consciousness is a real biological product of brains, as digestion is of stomachs, so running a computer program would not by itself create a mind.
- biological naturalismbiological naturalism, n.: John Searle's view that consciousness is a real biological product of brains, as digestion is of stomachs, so running a computer program would not by itself create a mind.
Sources
- Putnam, H. (1967). Psychological Predicates. In W. H. Capitan & D. D. Merrill (eds.), Art, Mind, and Religion. University of Pittsburgh Press.
- Fodor, J. A. (1974). Special Sciences (or: The Disunity of Science as a Working Hypothesis). Synthese 28(2), 97–115.
Mentioned in
functionalismfunctionalism, n.: The view that minds are defined by how they work, not what they are made of: pain, for example, is whatever inner state plays pain's part, linking injury, other thoughts and behavior., mind–body problemmind–body problem, n.: The age-old question of how the mind — thoughts, feelings, experiences — relates to the physical body and brain. Is the mind simply what the brain does, or something more?, Jerry FodorJerry Fodor, prop. n.: An American philosopher who argued that thinking is computation in an inner 'language of thought', and that neural networks cannot explain the structured nature of thought., Marr's levels of analysisMarr's levels of analysis, n.: A way of explaining any information-processing system on three levels: what problem it solves and why, what step-by-step method it uses, and how that method is physically built., substrate independencesubstrate independence, n.: The idea that a mind depends only on the pattern of information processing, not on the material doing it, so a mind could in principle run on silicon as well as on neurons.