Artificial Intelligence, Mind & the Future
Multiple Realizability (Substrate Independence)
Holds that the same mental state can be produced by different physical systems — meaning what matters for having a mind is the right functional organization, not the specific biological material it runs on, which in principle extends to silicon.
Proponents
Hilary Putnam, Nick Bostrom, David Chalmers
Evidence For
The same mental state seems realizable in very different physical systems — pain seems to occur in octopi, birds, and mammals despite radically different neural architectures — suggesting what matters is functional role, not specific physical makeup.
Evidence Against
If mental states were truly substrate-independent in the strong sense, it is unclear why damage to specific, particular brain regions reliably produces specific, predictable deficits — a pattern critics argue ties mental states more tightly to biological implementation than the thesis allows.
Real Sources
Transmissions
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