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Why do token materialists challenge type materialism?

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Bronze bust of Epicurus with a full beard and draped clothing, displayed on a round inscribed base at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples. — Materialism Epicurus, bronze bust from a Greek original, c. 280–270 bce; in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples.

Token materialists challenge type materialism primarily because of the potential for physiological diversity among beings that experience the same mental states.12

Type materialism posits that a general mental phenomenon, such as pain, is identical to a specific type of physical phenomenon, such as the firing of C-fibers in a human brain. Token materialists argue that this is overly restrictive because it seems possible for two different organisms—or even extraterrestrials with entirely different biological structures—to experience the same mental state (like pain) despite having different underlying physical processes.12

By rejecting the requirement that every instance of a mental state must map to the exact same type of physical state, token materialists allow for a more flexible "token-identity" theory. This view holds that while every individual mental event is identical to some physical event, those physical events do not need to belong to the same universal category across all possible beings.12