Abstract

In this dissertation I seek to overthrow the most sacred dogma in the philosophy of mind: the doctrine that the mind is multiply realizable. Ever since Hilary Putnam introduced Turing machine functionalism, the idea that the mind is multiply realizable has gone unquestioned, and a form of the multiple realizability thesis now permeates the thinking of most functionalists. Nevertheless, I argue, this thesis is mistaken. And precisely because multiple realizability is the main obstacle of a psychophysical reduction of the mind, by undermining the multiple realizability thesis I open the way for such a reduction to take place. I argue further, however, that analog computationalism is the only form of computationalism that is compatible with psychoneural reduction. I then describe the salient properties of analog computers and explore the implications of these properties for psychoneural reduction.