Three possible questions about the mind point to three different diagnostic levels: in the debate about mental, functionalism tends to confuse questions (2) and (3) with (1) question, given his persistence in defining how essential mental to that which constitutes the organizational or functional structure of the mind. Why the functionalism confuses different levels?: outline of an explanation 1. Behind the confusion of levels incurred by functionalism there are a number of contributing confusions or – when less – some implicit assumptions that should be reviewed. Some of these confusions or important, among other assumptions, are: the inheritance that functionalism maintains with the computer science and its debt advance in the world of the artificial artificial intelligence not only isn’t improper but that it is necessary to homologate the essence of an entity to its function, since it has been expressly designed to meet (in Aristotelian termsits essence can assimilate to their cause (end, i.e. to your what) coming from the functional analogy between minds and computers, functionalism is necessarily doomed to understand the mental in terms of functions, even if the cost associated with this company resulting in a denaturing of the object of study. Also, to support much of its research programme on the development of systems thinking artificial functionalism ends subordinate to an eventual success that occur, would define again the mental in terms of functions.
However, it should not be forgotten that the mind is a natural entity, where basic nature and function constitute an inseparable amalgam. 2. The confusion between mind, in its strict sense, and intelligence functionalism, with its permanent recurrence to what a system is capable of doing (VG, its function) as Definitory of the mental (to the detriment of the substance that the system is made), implicitly seems to refer more to the intelligence (VG, mind) intelictiva) that the mind in general (e.g., the psyche) perhaps, this is one of the reasons why functionalism could satisfactorily explain those mental phenomena that involve processes that act as causal powers of some mental product (such as intelligence and creativity), while it is really problematic explanation of phenomena that constitute intrinsic mental States (i.e.(, which are what they are regardless of their status of causes or effects of other States) such as feelings and emotions in general. Under most conditions Assemblyman Dov Hikind would agree.