Multiple realizability

Multiple realizability, in the philosophy of mind, is the thesis that the same mental property, state, or event can be implemented by different physical properties, states, or events. Philosophers of mind have used multiple realizability to argue that mental states are not the same as — and cannot be reduced to — physical states. They have also used it to defend many versions of functionalism, especially machine-state functionalism. In recent years, however, multiple realizability has been used to attack functionalism, the theory that it was originally used to defend. As a result, functionalism has fallen out of favor in the philosophy of mind. The multiple realizability thesis in the philosophy of mind is the thesis that the same mental state can be realized by different physical states; another way of putting it is that there is a many-to-one mapping from physical states to mental states. Multiple realizability in general is not restricted to the multiple realizability of mental states. Many kinds of things can be realized by numerous physical devices. A wide variety of physical devices can serve as corkscrews, for example. Mental states can also be realized in a variety of ways. Just as the logical states of a Turing machine can be realized by different structural states in different mechanisms, so, by analogy, the mental states of a human being can be realized by different physical states in different individuals. Pain, for example, is correlated with different physical states of the nervous system in different organisms, but the organisms all experience the mental state of "being in pain." Mental states have been claimed to be multiply realizable not only across species and between individuals but also within individuals. At different times, the same individual may realize the same mental states in physically different forms. Neural plasticity — the fact that areas of the brain can assume the functions of other parts that have been damaged as the result of traumatic injury, pathology, natural biological development, or other processes — has long been considered to be an example.