 Philosophical indifference to neuroscientific detail became “principled” with the rise and prominence of functionalism in the 1970s. The functionalists’ favorite argument was based on multiple realizability: a given mental state or event can be realized in a wide variety of physical types (Putnam 1967; Fodor 1974). Consequently, a detailed understanding of one type of realizing physical system (e.g., brains) will not shed light on the fundamental nature of mind. Psychology is thus autonomous from any science of one of its possible physical realizers (see the  entry on multiple realizability  in this Encyclopedia). Instead of neuroscience, scientifically-minded philosophers influenced by functionalism sought evidence and inspiration from cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence. These disciplines abstract away from underlying physical mechanisms and emphasize the “information-bearing” properties and capacities of representations (Haugeland 1985). At this same time, however, neuroscience was delving directly into cognition, especially learning and memory. For example, Eric Kandel (1976) proposed presynaptic mechanisms governing transmitter release rate as a cell-biological explanation of simple forms of associative learning. With Robert Hawkins (Hawkins and Kandel 1984) he demonstrated how cognitivist aspects of associative learning (e.g., blocking, second-order conditioning, overshadowing) could be explained cell-biologically by sequences and combinations of these basic forms implemented in higher neural anatomies. Working on the post-synaptic side, neuroscientists began unraveling the cellular mechanisms of long term potentiation (LTP; Bliss and Lomo 1973). Physiological psychologists quickly noted its explanatory potential for various forms of learning and  memory.[1]  Yet few “materialist” philosophers paid any attention. Why should they? Most were convinced functionalists. They believed that the “implementation level” details might be important to the clinician, but were irrelevant to the theorist of mind.