Identity theory as functionalist view
A natural question is how this causal role functionalism can be generalized to other creatures and how can it explained that different brain states in different creatures are able to give rise to mental states: how is this related to their functional roles. Lewis argues that, “[i]f the concept of pain is the concept of a state that occupies a certain causal role, then whatever state does occupy that role is pain” (Lewis, 1980, p. 230). So in normal humans the state of the role of pain may be identified with a given set of neurons firing, let us say C-Fibers firing, but, how about other creatures with different brains? By answer this could be in principle explain what could make identity theory amenable with functionalism, for instance, this is the idea that Brandon-Mitchell suggests:
In addition, the theory
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This last phrase is just more or less what Smart and others intended by ‘topic neurality’. It is not part of the functional theory what kinds of entities play the causal roles specified. This is something that is to be investigated empirically and there is no a priori constraint on what these kinds of entities might be (Brandon-Mitchell, 2014, p. 138).
Smart suggests that ultimately identity theory can be analysed as a functionalist theory (Smart, 2000); so the question of whether identity theory can be reconciled with functionalism and then defined as a physical account of the mental, could be established in terms of what realizes what. According to Putnam it is the psycho-chemical properties of the given brain that realize the functional states. On the other hand: “[f]or Lewis, Armstrong and Smart, the realizer is the mental state. The role just is the thing it does in virtue of