Naturalizing the mind in terms of teleological functionalism

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The purpose of this project is to naturalize our minds in terms of telelogical functionalism, which views a mind as a device of enabling us to adapt to the environment. In particular, I tried to solve the problems which occurs from naturalizing intentionality and consciousness. The results are the follwing.1. Proposituinal attitudes such as beliefs and desires have syntactical structure and are governed by logical inference while brain states lack syntactical structure and are governed by dynamical pattern transformation as connectionists suggest. So it follows that propositional attitudes are not realized individually by some brain state, at most being realized wholly by the total of brain states. But conscious propositional attitudes are realized individually by some utterance or neural activation pattern in motor cortex.2. Ratinality is constitutive of propositional attitudes. It is not nomological since it is not condifiable as a set of principles. So it follows that the telelogical functions of propositional attitudes are not nomological. This shows that the primary reason of an action is not its cause. It leads to the refutation of the causal theory of action. Nonetheless the telelogical functions are realisable by some mechnisms of connections type so that they are not unnaturalizable functions.3. Sensory qualities or so-called qualia of conscious mental states are arguable not their intrinsic properties but comprise their intentional contents. So it is necessary to reinterprete an experience of pain, for example, as intentional and the property of having a pain as objective. This reintepretation is not impossible.