A short clip of Hilary Putnam giving an introductory explanation of the functionalist conception of the mind in a 1977 interview with Bryan Magee. As one of the early computer scientists, professor Putnam developed one of the first functionalist views of the mind. On this view, the mind cannot be identified with any kind of thing, whether it be physical or non-physical. The mind is instead defined in terms of functional roles, which allows for the mind and mental states to be realized in many different kinds of things and not just in biological or neurophysical terms. In this way, one of the great advantages of the view is that it allows for the possibility that there can be creatures that are made up of completely different stuff than us that can still have minds and mental states. Putnam later abandoned the original version of his view however because it turned out to be in deep conflict with the externalist view of mind and language which he had also been developing at that time. Note, this is a re-upload. In any case, the full interview can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJB2q8ufAgk #Philosophy #Mind #BryanMagee