And this, it seems, may be constituted by intrinsic functions of mind, brain, and body rather than one constituted, however indirectly through other psychological states, by environmental connections through perception and action (as on more standard functionalist views) or constitutively embedded in a cognitively complex normative space of skills and reasons (as Moran apparently holds).
In Experiment 2, we further examined SITUTs in order to assess the possible functions of mind-wandering.
Road rage is a function of mind blindness induced by the car's enclosure: when we're locked in our car's little confession box, it's easy to arrive at the illusion that we're the only person out there.
In Guanzi, a philosophical work ascribed to the legalist politician Guan Zhong (7th century BC, although probably dating much later) the leading function of mind does not refer merely to the sense organs, but also to all other major organs as for instance intestines or bladder (Guanzi CTP: Jiu shou, 6).
In like manner, the special difference that the presence of mind makes in observable cases, reflected in its unique functioning, defines the use of "mind"; "In particular, the pursuance of future ends and the choice of means for their attainment are thus the mark and criterion of the presence of mentality".
This influence has resulted in a strong emphasis on the mental and spiritual state of the practitioner, a state in which the rationalizing and calculating functions of the mind are suspended so that the mind and body can react immediately as a unit, reflecting the changing situation around the combatant.
But physicians, observing the effects of strokes and other brain injuries, had long had reason to suspect that the functions of the mind and the brain were linked.
These data support the view that an important function of mind-wandering relates to the anticipation and planning of the future.
Although functionalism has never become a formal, prescriptive school, it has served as a historic link in the philosophical evolution linking the structuralist's concern with the anatomy of the mind to the concentration on the functions of the mind and, later, to the development and growth of behaviourism.
"The development of neural prostheses already demonstrate that running functions of the mind is possible," he says.
Indeed, Hobbes "reduces all the cognitive functions of the mind to variations of its conative functions".
