Core physical realizer

Also as concerns a mental event token and its narrow realizer (what we earlier called its core physical realizer ), he says If an Mi token is realized by a Pj-token, then the Pj-token just is part of the Mi-token (Melnyk, 2003, p. 137). He says nothing in defense of these claims. In fact, it is not the case that if an Mj token is realized by a Pj-token, then the Pj-token just is part of the Mj-token (p. 137). And it is not the case that the narrow realizer of a C-type event is surely a part or constituent of that C-type event (p. 160). The relation that the narrower physical realizer bears to the functional event — namely, the realization relation — is not a part-whole relation. It is, rather, the relation of role-occupancy. Narrow or core realizers are not parts or constituents of functional events. 

Of course, if the core physical realizer has the causal role essentially (an idea Lewis would reject), then the core realizer will imply the functional event. Shoemaker (2001) holds that the way to go in responding to Kims exclusion problem is to embrace essential causal powers. But that invokes causal oomph, and we are now focused on the Humean conception of causation. As 1 mentioned earlier, I discuss Shoemaker s view in McLaughlin (2006b) it faces problems different from those of the view under discussion here. 

A view that has been gaining popularity is that we can appeal to the idea of realization to explain how mental events (exemplifications of mental properties) can be causes without being physical events (exemplifications of physical properties). The idea that mental properties are realized by physical properties is not new. ° But Kim s work on the problem of mental causation seems to have played a major role in inspiring the recent spate of attempts to appeal to physical realization to explain how mental causation is possible. Kim (1998b) labels this viewpoint realization physicalism, but it is also sometimes called nonreductive physicalism. For reasons that should be clear in due course, I will call it nonreductive realization physicalism. The core of the view is this ... 

There is no consensus among NRP theorists as to what it takes for one event to realize another event. There is, however, a common core idea that underlies the leading views. It is the functionalist idea of role-playing or role-occupancy a realizer is a role-occupier. Thus, the basic idea is that a physical event can realize a mental event in virtue of occupying an appropriate role. The role is taken to be predominately a causal role, although it may include as well the participation of the realizing event in certain relations that are noncausal. This functionalist idea has been implemented in diflFerent ways. The issue that will concern us is whether any of the ways in which it has been implemented will serve the NRP theorist s purpose, that is to say, whether any of the ways yields a notion of physical realization that meets conditions (i) and (2). 

An advantage of this account is that it holds instances of mental properties to be physically realized in a way that allows them to be causally efficacious, and it removes the threat that their causal efficacy is preempted by the instantiation of their physical property realizers. In the case where pain is property-realized by C-fiber stimulation, it is not true to say that the causal work we would like to ascribe to the pain instance is really done insteadhy the C-fiber-stimulation instance. Nor is it true, as it is on Kim s instance-identity thesis, that, although this work is done by the pain instance, this is only because it is identical with the C-fiber-stimulation instance. The work is indeed done by the C-fiber-stimulation instance, but this is because the core of the C-fiber-stimulation instance realizer has the core of the pain instance realizer as a part. It is only because the C-fiber-stimulation instance realizer contains the pain instance realizer that it has the relevant effects. Recall that the core of a property instance realizer consists of the states of affairs that contribute directly to the implementation of the causal profile of the property. The core of the C-fiber-stimulation instance realizer contains states of affairs that contribute to the implementation of the causal profile of pain, but these make this contribution only because they realize states of affairs contained in the state of affairs that is the core of the pain instance realizer. 

This concern is raised by appeal to the physical bases for the dispositions, but all that matters is that the dispositions have bases, not specifically what their bases are or whether they are physical. The point about fragility would arise even in a world in which its bases all involved spook-glue. As concerns functional states and events, the concern is that for any manifestation, it is invariably the case that the core realizer (on the occasion in question) brings it about, and so there is no work for the functional state or event to do in bringing it about. The concern arises for any effects of the core realizers or bases (physical or not), even ones that are not neither manifestations of the functional events nor caused by means of the causation of their manifestations. 

I think that the subset version of the causal inheritance principle is clearly preferable to the version that says that the causal powers of the realized property instance are identical with the causal powers of the realizer instance, so I think that the instance-identity thesis is false. We can make sense of the idea of an instance of a higher-order property having a realizer different from the realizer of the instance of its determinate or property realizer if we can make sense of the idea of the higher-order property instances having cores that are distinct from the cores of the realizers of the instances of their determinates or physical property realizers. And 1 think we can do this. 

Suppose there could be prosthetic C-fibers, perhaps made of silicon, and that the stimulation of these can realize pain in essentially the same way, whatever that is, that the stimulation of C-fibers can. Stimulation of these would not activate an accurate natural C-fiber-stimulation detector, though it would activate some other sort of device. We can suppose that in a case where pain is realized in natural C-fiber stimulation and in a case where pain is realized in prosthetic C-fiber stimulation, the cores of the pain instance realizers are states of affairs of the same sort. The properties involved in these states of affairs are functional ones shared by natural C fibers and prosthetic ones. This is not, of course, to say that the cores of all pain instance realizers are states of affairs of the same sort. If, as David Lewis imagined, Martian pain is realized in the inflation of tiny cavities in the feet, the cores of Martian pain instance realizers will be very different from the cores of human pain instance realizers. But it is compatible with this that in any particular case of pain instantiation, the instance of pain has a realizer whose core is different from, though part of, the core of the realizer of the instance of the physical property that is the property realizer of the pain. In our case, the core of the realizer of the pain instance is different from, though part of, the core of the realizer of the C-fiber-stimulation instance. 

CEM-1 uses a paper-based core with woven glass cloth on the surfaces, both impregnated with an epoxy resin. This enables the material to be punched while realizing improved electrical and physical properties. CEM-1 has been used in both consumer and industrial electronics. 

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