<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>On Dec 12, 2009, Gordon Swobe wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: Verdana; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; ">So goes the functionalist theory, just one of many in the philosophy of mind, but one which you seem here to take for granted.<br></span></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I take it for granted that science works better than mystical crap.</div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: Verdana; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; ">But you'll notice first that functionalism amounts to behaviorism at the level of the neuron </span></blockquote><div><br></div>So what?<br><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: Verdana; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; ">it ignores the subjective first person ontology of mental states</span></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I see no evidence that a neuron has a mental state. Do you?</div><br><blockquote type="cite">it relies on the shaky assumption that substance does not matter -- only function matters.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>What the hell is shaky about that? If substance has no function then it doesn't matter. Evolution is blind to substance, it only sees function, and yet I am conscious and you are too probably. Can't you see that fact is telling you something?</div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: Verdana; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; ">If only function matters then we could, as others have pointed out, construct a giant artificial brain out of beer cans and toilet paper.</span></blockquote><div><br></div>True.<br><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: Verdana; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; ">Do you think such a monstrosity would have semantics?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br></span></blockquote><br></div><div>Certainly!</div><div><br></div><div> John K Clark</div><br></body></html>