There was mention of functionalism in another thread. I figure it could use it's own. I don't know the name of the alternative theory. Whoever does, say so.

I think the main reason I support functionalism is that, if there was a China brain, it would be just as sure that it has qualia as I am that I do. There would be no more reason to say that I have qualia and it doesn't than there is to say it has qualia and I don't.

There are many alternatives to functionalism about qualia and there are also many different versions of functionalism. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a good article on it: Functionalism.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/functionalism/

Perhaps the two main rivals are dualism and identity theory (which also have many versions, versions of the latter can also be considered a certain sort of functionalism.)

The nation of china would only have qualia on certain versions of functionalism.

Regarding your argument, what do you mean by "it would be just as sure"? This seems to assume that it has a mind, which in at least one sense of mind is question-begging. Do you mean that everyone would agree that it would have the same psychological states (which are assumed to be functional) as you and that these are the only form of evidence one can have?

Or do you rather mean that a third person would have the same evidence for ascribing consciousness to you and the china brain?

I think John Searle and Dan Dennett have explained adequately that dualism is silly. Also, I think Dan Dennett has succesfully refuted Searle's use of the Chinese Room Thought Experiment:

The Chinese Room argument, devised by John Searle, is an argument against the possibility of true artificial intelligence. The argument centers on a thought experiment in which someone who knows only English sits alone in a room following English instructions for manipulating strings of Chinese characters, such that to those outside the room it appears as if someone in the room understands Chinese. The argument is intended to show that while suitably programmed computers may appear to converse in natural language, they are not capable of understanding language, even in principle.

Stanford Encyclopaedia: Chinese Room

Churchland's luminous room: Suppose a philosopher finds it inconceivable that light is caused by waves of electromagnetism. He could go into a dark room and wave a magnet up and down. He would see no light, of course, and he could claim that he had proved light is not a magnetic wave and that he has refuted Maxwell's equations. The problem is that he would have to wave the magnet up and down something like 450,000,000,000,000 times a second in order to see anything.

wikipedia: Chinese Room

To me, Searle's suggestion that we could intuitively ascertain whether a sophisticated and rapid information-processor would become conscious is wrong. Consciousness seems to correlate better with our function than any of our physical features. So I suppose I am committed to functionalism or something like it.

note: bear in mind that the Chinese Room is different but related to the Chinese Brain.

I agree that the Chinese Room argument is no good. As can be seen in the article you link, for instance, it has many holes in it. That has been pointed out by several philosophers and scientists.

Regarding dualism, it was seen as silly not long ago. But since Chalmers The Conscious Mind (1996) there has been a surge of interest. Today at least a substantial minority of philosophers of consciousness are dualists of some variety.
(see for instance http://fragments.consc.net/djc/2005/09/ ... m_com.html regarding this sociological claim)

Few versions of dualism that contemporary philosophers of consciousness discuss, unlike folk-dualism, have anything to do "ghosts", "souls" or being against science. The main distinction that is drawn is between substance dualism and property dualism. The former claims that there are non-physical substances, the latter that our brains have some properties which aren't identical with physical properties.

Which versions do believe are silly, and in which ways have Searle and/or Dennett shown this?

It all comes down to the definition, but actually many would count Searle himself as a sort of dualist.

Of course, I confess that I myself used to see dualism as "silly", before I spent a lot of time looking at the current debate. I still think many motivations for it, such as Searle's chinese room are a bit silly.

What can the judgment "Consciousness seems to correlate better with our function" be based on, but intuition?

Jesper Östman wrote:Of course, I confess that I myself used to see dualism as "silly", before I spent a lot of time looking at the current debate. I still think many motivations for it, such as Searle's chinese room are a bit silly.

It seems like substance dualism is the silly one.

Property Dualism regards there to be two different properties of things. I suppose this means that materials can have conscious or intention and that this is separate from their causation. I'm not sure exactly how these events are supposed to be separate. However, it seems to be linked to the notion of "emergence" which I find very difficult to swallow.

What can the judgment "Consciousness seems to correlate better with our function" be based on, but intuition?

The point I am making is that humans display signs of consciousness to a large extent. Animals display tehm to a small extent. Fungus does not at all. All of us are made of the same atoms. So the display of consciousness is correlated with the structure and function and complexity of our brains. It is not, on the other hand, with the ratios of elements and molecules in our tissues.