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    Narrow functional role alone cannot distinguish Twin Eart... — Carmelics
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    Supports→Standard functionalist accounts cannot fully capture the representational content of mental states.

    Narrow functional role alone cannot distinguish Twin Earth water-thoughts from Earth water-thoughts, as Putnam's 1975 argument demonstrates.

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    Reasons For

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    • 1.Narrow functional roles are defined by internal computational relations alone, independent of external environment or causal history.
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    • 2.Twin Earth and Earth are molecularly identical internally, so their residents have identical narrow functional roles for any mental state.
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    • 3.If thoughts differed despite identical narrow roles, content would depend on external factors beyond functional organization itself.
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    Reasons Against

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    • 1.Narrow functional roles may incorporate historical-counterfactual dispositions about how systems would respond to varied external inputs.
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    • 2.Even internally identical agents can instantiate different functional roles if roles are defined relationally to actual vs. counterfactual environments.
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    • 3.Putnam's argument shows content externalism is true, but doesn't prove narrow functionalism is false—only that narrow properties don't exhaust thought individuation.
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    Consciousness & Mind1 linkedPhilosophy of Language1 linked

    Related

    Even internally identical agents can instantiate different functional roles if r...If thoughts differed despite identical narrow roles, content would depend on ext...Narrow functional roles are defined by internal computational relations alone, i...Narrow functional roles may incorporate historical-counterfactual dispositions a...
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    Putnam's argument shows content externalism is true, but doesn't prove narrow fu...Standard functionalist accounts cannot fully capture the representational conten...Twin Earth and Earth are molecularly identical internally, so their residents ha...

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