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    Carmelics

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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Minds are more abstract than the physical or computational systems that realize them.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Mental properties are identical to physical properties at the appropriate level of description, as argued by token identity theorists like Davidson.
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    • 2.The multiple realizability argument shows functional equivalence across substrates, not that minds are abstract entities distinct from all physical tokens.
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    • 3.An abstract entity that is causally efficacious in producing behavior requires a causal mechanism, which only concrete physical particulars can supply.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.The supporting argument conflates a system's capacity to run multiple programs sequentially with simultaneously instantiating mutually exclusive mental states.
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    • 2.A single physical computer running one mind at a time faces no contradiction, just as one brain instantiates one mental state-token at each moment.
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    • 3.If no contradiction arises in the physical substrate across time, the argument from mutual exclusivity fails to establish that minds must be abstract.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.A single computational system can realize multiple minds with mutually exclusive cognitive properties.
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    • 2.A mind cannot possess mutually exclusive properties simultaneously.
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    • 3.Therefore, no mind can be identical to the realizing system; minds must be abstract entities distinct from their physical substrates.
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    Strongest counterpoint
    Explore the most compelling reason on the other side.