Hilary Putnam

Notes

Hilary Putnam (1926–2016), American philosopher of mind, language and mathematics. In the 1960s he introduced machine-state functionalism, the view that a mental state is defined by its role in the system rather than by what the system is made of, and the argument from multiple realisability that goes with it. He later turned against his own position, which is to his credit as a philosopher and no reason to think the first version was wrong. Also the author of the brain-in-a-vat thought experiment.

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilary_Putnam

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Substrate Independence

Nature has already changed the substrate. Hilary Putnam's point about multiple realisability is not a thought experiment; it is zoology. The octopus parted from our lineage over five hundred million years ago, builds its nervous system fro…

Functionalism

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Multiple realisability

Multiple realisability is the thesis, introduced by Hilary Putnam in 1967, that the same mental state can be realised by different physical states. Pain in a human, an octopus and a (hypothetical) Martian need not share any physical proper…