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So the first two arguments I want to give are against any theory on which the mind is just something physical.

And then I'll move to something specific to biologism and a bunch of things specific to functionalism.

I kind of like this argument.

So some physical things have meaning.

For example, the vibrations of the air that come from my mouth and into your ears are a physical thing that has a meaning.

Those things have meaning because something

gave it meaning. Those vibrations of the air have meaning because we human beings have given

those vibrations the particular meanings they do. There's nothing special about these vibrations

that makes them mean the thing they mean, right? The words could mean something completely

different if we, as a society, chose to make them mean something different. And I think this

is generally true. Physical things only have meaning if that meaning was assigned to them by something

else. But to assign a meaning, you have to have meaning within yourself. You have to have

some kind of something. However you assign meaning, there's got to be meaning already there

in you. I mean, you think, I make up a word. I have to explain that word in some way by gestures or by other words.

Whatever I do, those gestures or other words are going to be things that themselves have meaning

or else I can't use them to assign a meaning to something.

So if all things with meaning are physical and physical things only have meaning if they're assigned,

get the meaning assigned by

...