Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-06T03:42:03.907Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Neural Machinery and Realization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Thomas W. Polger
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The view that the relationship between minds and brains can be thought of on the model of software and hardware is pervasive. The most common versions of the view, known as functionalism in philosophy of mind, hold that minds are realized by brains. The question arises, What is the realization relation? I approach the question of realization through a case study: David Marr's (1982) computational account of early visual processing. Marr's work is instructive because it is the textbook case of the hierarchy of mechanisms that has seemed to bear out the arguments of functionalist philosophers and cognitive scientists. I argue that realization as employed by Marr has some but not all of the characteristics that it is usually taken to have.

Type
Realization and Explanation in Neuroscience
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 71 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 2002 Biennial Meeting of The Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers , December 2004 , pp. 997 - 1006
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

‡

For valuable comments and discussion, I am indebted to the participants and audience of the PSA 2002 symposium “Realization and Explanation in Neuroscience,” especially Carl Craver, Rob Wilson, Barbara Von Eckhardt, Jeffrey Poland, Peter Machamer, and Stuart Glennan. I am also grateful for many conversations about realization with Carl Gillett and Larry Shapiro.

References

Cummins, Robert (1989), Meaning and Mental Representation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Endicott, Ronald (forthcoming), The Book of Realization: Analyzing a Cluster of Concepts for the Philosophy of Mind, Solving a Computational Conundrum for Cognitive Science.Google Scholar
Gillett, Carl (2002), “The Dimensions of Realization: A Critique of the Standard View”, The Dimensions of Realization: A Critique of the Standard View 64(4): 316–323.Google Scholar
Heil, John (1992), The Nature of True Minds. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horgan, Terence, and Tienson, John (1996), Connectionism and the Philosophy of Psychology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hubel, David, and Wiesel, Torsten (1962), “Receptive Fields, Binocular Interaction and Functional Architecture in the Cat’s Visual Cortex”, Receptive Fields, Binocular Interaction and Functional Architecture in the Cat’s Visual Cortex 160:106–154.Google ScholarPubMed
Kim, Jaegwon (1998), Mind in a Physical World: An Essay on the Mind-Body Problem and Mental Causation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lycan, William (1974), “Mental States and Putnam’s Functionalist Hypothesis”, Mental States and Putnam’s Functionalist Hypothesis 52:48–62.Google Scholar
Marr, David (1982), Vision: A Computational Investigation into the Human Representation and Processing of Visual Information. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman.Google Scholar
Marr, David, and Hildreth, Ellen (1980), “Theory of Edge Detection”, Theory of Edge Detection 207:187–217.Google ScholarPubMed
Poland, Jeffrey (1994), Physicalism: The Philosophical Foundations. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Polger, Thomas (2004), Natural Minds. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Purves, Dale, and Lotto, R. Beau (2003), Why We See What We Do: An Empirical Theory of Vision. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Lawrence (2004), The Mind Incarnate. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Shoemaker, Sydney (2001), “Realization and Mental Causation”, in Gillett, Carl and Loewer, Barry (eds.), Physicalism and Its Discontents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Turing, Alan (1950), “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”, Computing Machinery and Intelligence 59(236): 433–460.Google Scholar
Wilson, Robert (2001), “Two Views of Realization”, Two Views of Realization 104:1–30.Google Scholar