The inevitability of reductionism in the mind-Body problem : Finding convergence between functionalism and Type-Identity Physicalism

Sammanfattning: Type identity theory is a theory within physicalism that maintains that types of mental states or processes are identical to types of states or processes in the brain. This would imply mental types can’t be encountered in physical structures other than the brain. But it seems to be the case that other biological creatures with different physical processes going on in their brain are able to experience a mental state such as pain. Even our brain, with its ability to undergo modification, functionally and structurally, in response to experience or injury, an ability called neuroplasticity, seems to have the ability to instantiate or realize the same mental state by two different neural events. This is the multiple realizability nature of the mental, that challenge type identity theory, but that functionalism seems to account for. Multiple realizability seems to provide a plausible basis for the irreducibility of mind to brain, and thus a good argument for why they should not be considered identical. I argue that when type identity theory claims that types of mental states or processes are identical to types of states or processes in the brain, this should be understood as claiming that types of mental states are identical to types of mechanisms in the brain, by which I mean types of interaction between fundamental particles that comprises the brain. I argue that two physical structures realizing the same mental state must be relevantly similar in the way their respective fundamental particles are interacting with one another. In other words, that similarity in function implies similarity in the way the physical realizers are organized. Therefore, the multiple realizability nature of mental states shouldn’t render them irreducible or non-identical to specific types of interactions fundamental particles.