Dear Robin,I agree that functionalists may see no conflict where there is one - I guess that was the point of the thread.

I have not even started my MSc course (even if I do contribute reasonably regularly to a journal that, although not giving me 'pro' status, is well thought of by some) but I found Andy Clark very approachable and good to talk to. Maybe he is a functionalist! Maybe he has changed his mind! And I am not sure you have to be a functionalist to endorse the view that a brain is a meat machine. I have no problem with that view myself.

My other point was that if functionalism were all there is then philosophy would be unbearably dull. Fortunately philosophy seems to be about eminent interesting people holding such diametrically opposed views that they have to admit in private that they think the others are barking mad. That in itself seems to tell us something very important about the way our minds work, so I tend to think that philosophy is as exciting as you want to make it. The arguments around functionalism are indeed fascinating. How is it possible for so many nice intelligent people to believe in what others see as a transparent logical contradiction? And, as at the Piraeus, there is the added frisson that there are no right answers at the back of the book.

Best 

Jo

PS for Graeme: I cannot see that a 'loop' in the sense of a sequence of events involving the same material domain repeatedly alters the argument. A causal loop of the sort Penrose proposed with light cones bent back on themselves by gravity might, but I doubt we want to get into that territory.