Beyond Zero and One (Andrew Smart) / quote 88 of 171
Searle against functionalism
John Searle’s examination of social ontology. A professor of philosophy at University of California, Berkeley, Searle specializes in consciousness, philosophy of language, and what he calls “social facts.” For example, what kinds of things are corporations and money? They exist independently of any particular human, yet depend on human society for their existence. He is an outspoken critic of the functionalist view of consciousness, which says that nonbiological things can be conscious because what matters to consciousness is causal structure and causal role, not the physical substrate. In other words, consciousness is essentially an algorithm that is being run by the brain. All we have to do is determine what that algorithm is; then we can program a computer to be conscious.…