PMS 010 - Gualtiero Piccinini - The Mind as Neural Software? Revisiting Functionalism, Computationalism, and Computational Functionalism
Thursday, February 1st, 2007“The Mind as Neural Software? Revisiting Functionalism, Computationalism, and Computational Functionalism” by Gualtiero Piccinini, University of Missouri – St. Louis.
ABSTRACT: Defending or attacking either functionalism or computationalism requires clarity on what they amount to and what evidence counts for or against them. My goal here is not to evaluate their plausibility. My goal is to formulate them and their relationship clearly enough that we can determine which type of evidence is relevant to them. I aim to dispel some sources of confusion that surround functionalism and computationalism, recruit recent philosophical work on mechanisms and computation to shed light on them, and clarify how functionalism and computationalism may or may not legitimately come together.
I am Associate Professor and Chair of Philosophy and Coordinator of the Cognitive Science Laboratory at William Paterson University in New Jersey. This blog largely concerns my interests in the Philosophy of Mind and Philosophy of Neuroscience, but also contains evidence of my messing around with art, photography, fiction, and robotics. Find out way more about me and my work