These selections both present examples that their authors regard as problematic for functionalists. Block's is an imaginary case while Nida-Rümelin's is a neurophysiological condition she takes to be comparable to the idea of an "inverted spectrum."

• The selection from Block consists of one section of a fairly long paper with enough material from preceding sections to prepare you to read it. The preparatory material (pp. 94-95), provides first Block's ideas of liberalism and chauvanism and, second, his distinctions among two sorts of functionalism, Functionalism (the capitalization is significant) and Psychofunctionalism.

  His description of both sorts of functionalism uses the idea of a "Ramsey sentence" (named after Frank Ramsey, 1903-1930). A Ramsey sentence is, roughly, the result of replacing a particular theoretical term with the term "something" or an analogous expression. In a passage not included in Chalmers, Block offers the following example. Imagine this simple theory about pain and worry: pain is caused by skin damage and causes both the emission of "Ouch" and worry, and worry causes brow wrinkling. The corresponding Ramsey sentence is this: there are two states, the first of which is caused by skin damage and causes the emission of "Ouch" and the second state, which causes brow wrinkling. That is, instead of naming states and saying they have certain functional properties, the Ramsey sentence says simply that there are states having those properties. The "Ramsey functional correlate" pain would then be the property of being of being in the first state of this sort of system--i.e., of being in a state that is caused by skin damage and causes both the emission of "Ouch" and another state that causes brow wrinkling.

  The key thing to note in following the discussion of the homunculi-headed robots in 1.2 is that the homunculi are specialized in particular way: each handles one square of the machine table (so the coke-machine system would be managed by 4 homunculi--i.e., 4 miniature people). If you find yourself puzzled about the point of the example, look at the last two paragraphs of the section (we will read the Nagel paper he refers to next).

• Nida-Rümelin's paper can be read for the example she describes quite apart from what she says about its philosophical significance. In considering the example, notice not only the way pseudo-normal vision is supposed to work but also the sort of argument that is given for its existence (this is sketched in the second paragraph).

  However difficult it may be to know what to make of the example, you may find her argument for its philosophical significance even harder to evaluate. This argument rests on a principle she puts in italics in the first of column of p. 99. While the principle raises controversial issues about the relation between science and philosophy, its application is likely to be controversial also due to disagreement over what counts as part of what she calls "color vision science."

  Her argument is against functionalists and behaviorists (and you may take the two varieties of functionalism she distinguishes, "conceptual functionalism" and "psychofunctionalism," to be comparable to Block's "Functionalism" and "Psychofunctionalism"), but it would be worth thinking also how dualists or identity theorists might respond to her example. In this regard notice, think about the remark italicized in the second column of p. 100 and Place's "phenomenological fallacy." (In this regard notice the remark italicized in the second column of p. 100.)

  Chalmers comments on this paper only briefly in his introduction, but elsewhere he has argued that, on a sufficient detailed account of function, there is a functional difference between normal and pseudo-normal vision (because there would be a change in functional organization if someone was somehow switched from one to the other). How do you think Nida-Rümelin might respond to such an argument? (Think here of points (a) and (b) in her characterization of conceptual functionalism on p. 101.)