Functionalism: The Computer Metaphor

Functionalism itself is described as the philosophy of the mind which contains different properties of both behaviorism and identity theory. The main idea of functionalism is that the different mental states that we have as humans; emotions, beliefs, successes, are what they are due to what they do in our bodies. An example that is used to mirror functionalism is the computer metaphor. This metaphor is where the mind represents a type of computer software which is located inside of our brain and regulates everything in some way. You can relate the two with a type of computer software like google chrome is to a computer and how your mind is related to your brain. Functionalistic philosophy mainly focuses around language, psychology of our minds, …show more content…
The computer metaphor solidifies functionalism because whatever happens it ends up with an outcome of the physical and mental states interacting together. This in turn allows for Fodor’s idea that the processes of our mind and body are more important for us together rather than how they are made up or what they are made of. Some philosophers in opposition to functionalism think that it is not a concrete way of explaining things because it does not guarantee anything, it simply claims that some type of thing somewhere exists and this “fact” somehow makes it true. Fodor’s take on dualism revolves around it being impossible for different things to work in a world that does not have physical objects, which could be perceived as our consciousness or as a type of limbo where nothing physical exists. He does not believe that dualism has the ability to concretely explain how a consciousness can interact with objects that exists within the physical world. Briefly put dualism does not explain a mental state in terms that are up to par of functionalism, it simply cannot …show more content…
Token identity theory falls under what we feel can be distinguished as something physically happening to our bodies like exhaustion. In essence token identity is understood as when something is actually happening to you and your body and then that is being realized by your mind (iep.utm.edu). Type identity on the other hand expresses its opinion as the mental states and mental experiences that we have are simply put also physical from the very start (iep.utm.edu). Another example that Fodor uses the idea of the Turing machine where a machine is able to have an infinite amount of “mental” states that are capable of computing many different things at any given time. Fodor describes this type of functionalism as, “relational character of mental states and idea of these mental states is independent of the physical properties and physical world that exists.” (plato.stanford.edu) meaning that the machine could represent and consist of anything but it will still be able to exist. Although there are many positive aspects in regards to functionalism there are also several