Pii: S1053-8100(02)00023-5

9 The initial argument presented herein is not significantly original—it is a simple 10 reflection upon a notion of computation originally developed by Putnam (Putnam, 11 1988). See also Searle (1990) and criticised by Chalmers et al. (see Chalmers (1994, 12 1996a,b) see also the special issue, What is Computation?, in Minds and machines, 13 4:4, November 1994). In what follows, instead of seeking to justify Putnam’s con14 clusion that every open system implements every Finite State Automaton (FSA) and 15 hence that psychological states of the brain cannot be functional states of a com16 puter, I will establish the weaker result that, over a finite time window every open 17 system implements the trace of FSA Q, as it executes program (P) on input (I). If 18 correct the resulting bold philosophical claim is that phenomenal states—such as 19 feelings and visual experiences—can never be understood or explained functionally. 2