Mind & Computers - Hilary Putnam on Functionalism (1977)

A short clip of Hilary Putnam giving an introductory explanation of the functionalist conception of the mind in a 1977 interview with Bryan Magee. As one of the early computer scientists, professor Putnam developed one of the first functionalist views of the mind. On this view, the mind cannot be identified with any kind of thing, whether it be physical or non-physical. The mind is instead defined in terms of functional roles, which allows for the mind and mental states to be realized in many different kinds of things and not just in biological or neurophysical terms. In this way, one of the great advantages of the view is that it allows for the possibility that there can be creatures that are made up of completely different stuff than us that can still have minds and mental states. Putnam later abandoned the original version of his view however because it turned out to be in deep conflict with the externalist view of mind and language which he had also been developing at that time.

#Philosophy #Mind #BryanMagee

[soysauceboy]

Very forward-thinking for a Founding Father.

[Frip]

This is exactly what the father's of the American constitution looked like.

[MV-vvsg]

Find it funny that we will likely do a full circle:

**Human minds created computers (Alan Turing et Al) then we use their operation - which is based of our own mind - to describe the functions of our mind (20th century psychology models based on computers) And now we are now in the midsts of creating an Artificial Intelligence which (if successfully) will most likely produce the best description / model of how human minds work. Then it may even evolve that this AI singularity, which knows how a mind works might create human mind.**

Then are we just merely the sex organs of Ai?

(Just as humans learnt chemistry from nature and have synthesise life from chemistry - so too I won’t be surprised if AI ends up trying to synthesise humans)

[gmtree]

Mmm admin is thinking about GPT-4 these days haha

[stephaniepridgen]

Ehh. This was filmed in 1977? Oh good grief

[akelofgren]

They talk of psychmind with computers, but absolutely not with their children

[stant]

If he’s drawing a similarity between humans to computers, then he is suggesting vulgar materialism