HNR 203-7—The Scientist Seminar: Minds, Brains, and Machines
2-3:15 TR—Livestreamed via Zoom
Fall 2020
Dr. Close
GENERAL COURSE INFORMATION
Rev. 21-Aug-2020
HOW TO USE THE COURSE
SYLLABUS: The syllabus consists of two
separate documents: “General Course
Information” and “Assignments.” The
syllabus is distributed on paper on the first day of class. It is published on my Web site and on the
course Canvas. While relatively stable,
the syllabus is subject to change during the semester. All changes are announced and discussed in
lecture.
You
are responsible for carefully reading the most current version of the
syllabus. You are responsible for
obtaining all hand-outs, assignments, and class announcements. Regarding texts for this course, “Required”
means exactly that. If you don’t plan to
buy the required books for this course, please drop the course and take
something else—you’re wasting your money.
E-texts: because of the
inefficiency and clumsiness of rapidly moving about in an e-text during
lecture, paper should be preferred wherever possible.
REQUIRED TEXTS:
Cooney, Brian. 2000. The Place of Mind.
Dennett, Daniel C. 1996. Kinds of Minds: Toward an Understanding of Consciousness.
Descartes, René. [1993], 1641.
Meditations On First Philosophy. 3d. ed.
Edited and translated by Donald A. Cress.
Frazer, James.
[2003] 1922. The Golden Bough: A Study of
Magic and Religion. Abridged
ed. Project Gutenberg EBook available at
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3623. Free.
Leavitt, David. 2006. The Man Who Knew Too Much. New York:
W. W. Norton. ISBN
0-393-32909-7. $14.95.
Ramachandran, V. S. and
Sandra Blakeslee. 1998. Phantoms
in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of
the Human Mind.
Searle, John. 2004. Mind: A Brief Introduction.
Note: Additional readings will be distributed in
class, on the course Canvas, or via my Web page. It is the responsibility of the student to
obtain these hand-outs.
COURSE CANVAS: Announcements and course materials are available on
the course Canvas at https://heidelberg.instructure.com/courses/6068. Many, but not all, of these materials are
also available on my Web site. You may
view some of the Canvas Web site for this course as a guest.
COURSE CONTENT:
Course Description:
Explores
key questions in the philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, and
cognitive science. Do human beings have
minds (or souls)? Can we learn anything
about our minds by studying our brains?
Can we learn anything about our brains by studying computers? Do suitably complex computer networks have
beliefs? Do walleye have beliefs? Do thermostats have beliefs? What is consciousness? Can we explain consciousness scientifically? Cases examined will include the Turing test,
zombies, Twin Earth, the Chinese Room, and the color scientist. A major goal of the course is to expose the
deep interdisciplinary connections among psychology, computer science, and
philosophy regarding the above issues.
Comments: It has been said that the
two most fundamental mysteries of human life are the enormity of the universe
and the perplexity of human consciousness.
This course will pay particular attention to the second of these
mysteries. What is consciousness? Does it even exist? If so, can it be explained in a scientific
manner? Are other creatures
conscious? How could we tell? Could “inanimate” objects be conscious? The course covers various topics in the
philosophy of mind such as the mind-body problem, reductionism, behaviorism,
functionalism, and cognitivism, and selected topics in the philosophy of
psychology such as the unconscious, reason and the emotions, disembodied
existence, and the question of mental states in the human neonate, animals, and
machines.
COURSE MECHANICS:
Overview: A seminar is a writing and discussion-based
course. By that, I mean that more than
50% of your course grade will be determined by what you write and by your
participation in seminar discussion.
This seminar is also Web-supported.
This means that some course resources will be accessible on the
Internet. Some seminar discussion and
writing exercises may be conducted on Canvas forums.
Discussion: Our meetings will be
discussion-oriented. I will evaluate the
quality of your preparation of the readings for that meeting and of your
analysis of the concepts under discussion.
This will have a collective value of 25% of the final grade. Components of this grade may include film
screenings and Web forum participation.
Critical Papers: There will be critical papers on assigned
topics. These will typically be between
two and four pages, typewritten, double-spaced, and spell-checked with a word
processor (papers with spelling errors will marked “Unsatisfactory” and
returned). The papers will be graded S/U
and are worth a total of 45% of the final grade. Unsatisfactory papers may be resubmitted
without penalty and late papers may be submitted for a partial grade. Details will be announced in class.
Seminar Presentations: Students will make oral/written seminar presentations
with a total value of 15% of the final grade.
Final Examination: A final exam worth 15% of the final grade
will be given on the date announced by the Registrar. Details will be provided in class.
Dead Week: I practice “dead week” during the last week of
classes. This means that no quizzes,
exams, presentations, debates, etc. are scheduled for the final week of
lecture. I observe Dead Week in all of
my undergraduate courses. This allows
students to devote their energies to preparing for the last week’s lectures and
studying for the final examinations.
HONORS PROGRAM ASSESSMENT:
Minds, Brains, and Machines participates in the ongoing
Honors Program Assessment process. That
process requires the syllabus to state the following goals from the Honors
Program Mission Statement:
[1] the development of intellect and character
[2] integration of learning and life experiences
[3] extensive contact with the fundamental values that
underpin self-worth and integrity
[4] extensive contact with the fundamental values that
underpin free inquiry
[5] extensive contact with the fundamental values that
underpin intellectual rigor
[6] an understanding of other cultures and traditions
[7] a lifelong habit of commitment to the community
[8] a lifelong habit of concern for social
responsibility
This course is designed to
address goals 1-5, in particular.
ACADEMIC HONESTY POLICY:
Intellectual honesty is critical to the very life of the
scholarly community. “Academic
dishonesty” means cheating of any kind associated with scholarship and
study. It includes, but is not limited
to, plagiarism and theft of intellectual property, falsification or distortion
of data, submitting another person’s work or work product as your own, and
copying on tests.
Penalties: Evidence of academic dishonesty
results in an automatic F for that grade component, and may result in an
automatic F for the course or expulsion from
Cheating in college can
easily bar you from computer work in intelligence, healthcare, finance, and
other areas where ethical character is essential to the job. (And yes, they will find out.) Any form of academic dishonesty is bad for
the soul and has destroyed many careers.
Remember Bertrand Russell’s ninth commandment for beginning
philosophers: be scrupulously truthful,
even when truth is inconvenient.
The Heidelberg University
Academic Honesty Policy was revised by the General Faculty in May 2018 and is
substantially different from the former policy.
Read it carefully! Failure to
have read either the University policy or my policy above does not excuse or
forgive any violations of those policies.
This means in part that “I didn’t know that that was wrong” is not a justification for cheating.
Examples of cheating:
1. submitting another person’s
work or work product as your own, including direct copying or paraphrasing of
someone else’s work (plagiarism);
2. “working together” on
individual graded assignments;
3. accessing another student’s
Google Drive without proper University authorization (a Federal crime);
4. using the collaboration
“sharing” feature on data storage services such as Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive,
or Google Drive to share information with another student on an individual
graded assignment;
5. using e-mail, SMS, or
photo-sharing apps on a mobile telephone to share information with another
student on an individual graded assignment;
6. copying on tests or other
graded assignments;
7. theft of intellectual
property;
8. falsification or distortion
of data;
9. copying or mimicking the computer
work, or program code, or program design of another student;
10. working with another person
in any of the above actions.
To the Person Who Is Tempted
to Cheat: If a student is tempted to
cheat, it almost invariably means that he or she is having trouble with the
material and mistakenly believes that there is no other choice. The correct response is to ask me for help
with the material. My goal is to help
you learn. Write me, come see me, or
call me at home.
To the Person Who Is Asked
to Participate in Cheating: If you are approached by
another student seeking to copy your work or “work together” on an individual
graded assignment, you must refuse, just as you would refuse to participate in
any other unethical activity. Since such
a person is often a friend or close acquaintance, the situation can be very
difficult for you. In such situations,
you will have to be blunt. For example,
you can say to the person, “This is dangerous for both of us. I really don’t want to get involved in it.”
All graded assignments in
this course are individual unless I specifically identify an assignment as a
group project.
Nota bene: The philosopher Bertrand Russell’s ninth
commandment for beginning philosophers is useful: be
scrupulously truthful, even when truth is inconvenient. Dishonesty is bad for the soul and has
destroyed many careers.
CLASS PREPARATION:
The standard rule-of-thumb for undergraduate preparation is
three hours outside of class for each hour of lecture. (This yields a figure of forty-five hours per
week for undergraduate preparation, based on five courses.)
Reading philosophic argumentation can be somewhat of a
shock. It is not like reading a history
text or a piece of fiction (excluding James Joyce, perhaps) since you may have
to spend several minutes on one paragraph.
I will give instructions in lecture regarding preparing the readings as
well as analytical writing and general class preparation.
ELECTRONIC DEVICES IN CLASS:
Short version:
none! Focus on your studies! Mobile telephones must be set to vibrate only and
put away out of sight. MP3 players and
headphones must be turned off, removed from your person, and put away out of sight. PDAs, pagers, radios, and similar devices must be turned off and put away out of
sight. Calculators, computers, and voice
recorders are prohibited without my permission.
If you are an emergency first-responder or medical professional on call,
see me regardings exceptions to this policy
ATTENDANCE:
I assign grades strictly on your scholarship (excepting the
partially punitive course grade of F for academic dishonesty). Like most things in life, attendance is your
decision. Please attend. I like you to attend class! Note that since many classes will have some
graded activity occurring, attendance will be very important. No absences are excused other than those due to
illness, family emergency, or those excused by University policy. I expect all students to take quizzes and
exams at the scheduled times unless there is an emergency.
N.B. University sports events are not emergencies,
nor is there any University policy that excuses athletes from completing course
requirements because of their choice to participate in intercollegiate
athletics. Family vacation plans,
imprudently purchased airplane tickets, social events, early rides home for the
holidays, etc., are not emergencies. If
you are scheduling vacation travel now, do not plan a flight/ride prior to your
last scheduled final examination. If you
are unsure, please see me.
GRADING SCALE:
I grade on a 50-pass scale:
50, 62.5, 75, 87.5 are the lower-limit cut-offs for D, C, B, and A,
respectively. Do not mistakenly conclude that my courses are therefore “easier” than
those of a professor who uses a 60-pass or 70-pass scale. Grading scales are all equivalent and are
purely a matter of personal taste. One
scale can be easily converted to another with a pencil and a calculator. What makes a course relatively easy or
difficult is determined by the actual distribution of grades by a specific
instructor. A rough, but reliable
indicator of grade achievement difficulty is the location of the class mean for
a given grade component. For a normal
distribution, we should expect the class mean to fall in the very middle of the
C-range of that instructor’s grading
scale.
ACCESS VIA
OFFICE HOURS:
Office:
Bareis 335
M 12:50-2, 2:50-4
T by appointment only, noon-12:30
W 12:50-2, 2:50 – 4
Th by appointment only, noon-12:30
F 12:50-2, 2:50 – 4
Office visits by appointment
are also available. This schedule is
subject to change. Check my Web site for
the most current version at http://bright.net/~dclose.
ACCESS VIA
E-MAIL: dclose@heidelberg.edu
WEB PAGE:
I
maintain a home page on the World Wide Web.
This page contains links to the courses that I am currently teaching in
a given semester, a link to the Heidelberg College Home Page, and other useful
links.
ACCESS VIA
PHONE:
Office phone:
419-448-2281, or 1-800-925-9250 ext. 2281
Home phone:
419-927-2514 (please call before 10 PM)
SELECTED REFERENCES
Aristotle. De Anima.
Beakley, Brian and Peter
Ludlow, eds. 1992. The Philosophy
of Mind: Classical Problems, Contemporary
Issues.
Bechtel, William. 1988. Philosophy of Mind: An Overview for Cognitive Science.
Block, Ned. 1996. “What is functionalism?” a revised
version of the entry on functionalism in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Supplement, Macmillan. Available at http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/faculty/block/papers/functionalism.pdf.
Block, Ned. 1995. “The
Mind as the Software of the Brain” in An
Invitation to Cognitive Science, ed. D. Osherson, L. Gleitman, S. Kosslyn,
E. Smith and S. Sternberg (Cambridge, Mass.:
MIT Press). Available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2928775_The_Mind_as_the_Software_of_the_Brain
Boden, Margaret A., ed. 1990. The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence.
Chalmers, David J. 1996. The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory.
Chalmers, David J. 2002. The Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary
Chorost, Michael. 2011. World Wide Mind: The Coming Integration of
Humanity, Machines, and the Internet.
New York: Free Press. ISBN 1-439-11914-7.
Churchland, Patricia Smith. 1990. NeuroPhilosophy:
Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain.
Churchland, Paul M. 1995. The Engine of Reason, the Seat of the Soul:
A Philosophical Journey into the Brain.
Churchland, Paul M. [1988], 1984.
Matter and Consciousness. Rev. ed.
Cooney, Brian. 2000. The Place of Mind.
Crane, Tim. [2003], 1995.
The Mechanical Mind: A Philosophical Introduction to Minds, Machines
and Mental Representation. 2d
ed.
Damasio, Antonio R. 1994. Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain.
Davis, Martin. 2000. The Universal Computer: The Road from Leibniz to Turing.
Dennett, Daniel C. 1987. The Intentional Stance.
Dennett, Daniel C. 1991. Consciousness Explained.
Dennett, Daniel C. 1996. Kinds of Minds: Toward an Understanding of Consciousness.
Dennett, Daniel C. 2003. Freedom Evolves.
Descartes, René.
[1993], 1641. Meditations on First Philosophy. 3d ed.
Edited and translated by Donald A. Cress.
Eden, Amnon. 2011.
“Some Philosophical Issues in Computer Science.” Minds
and Machines 21:2 (May):
123-133,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11023-011-9248-9.
Fodor, Jerry A. 1990. A Theory of Content and Other Essays.
Goldberg, Sanford and Andrew
Pessin. 1997. Gray Matters:
An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind.
M. E. Sharpe. ISBN 1-563-24884-0.
$23.95.
Graham, George. 1993. Philosophy of Mind.
Haugeland, John, ed. 1981. Mind Design:
Philosophy, Psychology, Artificial Intelligence.
Haugeland, John. 1985. Artificial Intelligence: The Very Idea.
Heil, John. 1983. Perception and Cognition.
Heil, John. [2004], 1998.
Philosophy of Mind: A Contemporary Introduction. 2d ed.
Heil, John. 2004. Philosophy of Mind: A Guide and Anthology.
Hofstadter, Douglas R. and
Daniel C. Dennett. 1981. The Mind’s
I.
Hume, David. [1955], 1748.
An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Edited, with an Introduction, by Charles W.
Hendel.
Jacquette, Dale. 1994. Philosophy of Mind.
Kenny, Anthony. 1989. The Metaphysics of Mind.
Kim, Jaegwon. 2005. Philosophy of Mind. 2d ed.
Kirk, Robert and Roger
Squires. 1974. “Zombies vs. Materialists,” Proceedings of
the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary
Volumes 48: 135–163. Zombies were
introduced to the philosophical world by Kirk and Squires.
Leavitt, David. 2006. The Man Who Knew Too Much. New York:
W. W. Norton. ISBN
0-393-32909-7. $14.95.
McLaughlin, Brian and J. Cohen,
eds. 2007. Contemporary Debates in the Philosophy of
Mind. Oxford: Blackwell.
Margolis, Joseph. 1978. Persons and Minds: The Prospects of Nonreductive Materialism.
Nicolelis, Miguel. 2012. Beyond Boundaries: The New Neuroscience of Connecting Brains with
Machines---and How It Will Change Our Lives. New York:
St. Martin’s Press. ISBN 1-250-00261-3.
Preston, John. 2002. “Introduction,” in Preston, John and Mark Bishop, eds., Views into the Chinese Room: New Essays on Searle and Artificial
Intelligence. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1-50.
Putnam, Hilary. 1982. “Brains
in a Vat,” Reason, Truth, and History,
Ch. 1, 1-21. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Putnam, Hilary. 1987. The Many Faces of Realism.
Ramachandran, V. S. and
Sandra Blakeslee. 1998. Phantoms
in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of
the Human Mind.
Rosenthal, David. 1991. The Nature of Mind.
Ryle, Gilbert. 1949. The Concept of Mind.
Searle, John. 1983. Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind.
Searle, John. 1984. Minds, Brains and Science.
Searle, John. 1992. The Rediscovery of the Mind.
Searle, John. 1997. The Mystery of Consciousness.
Searle, John. 2002. Consciousness and Language.
Searle, John. 2002. “Twenty-One
Years in the Chinese Room,” in Preston, John and Mark Bishop, eds., Views into the Chinese Room: New Essays on Searle and Artificial
Intelligence. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 51-69.
Searle, John. 2005. Mind: A Brief Introduction.
Smith, Peter and O. R. Jones. 1987. The Philosophy of Mind: An Introduction. $17.95.
Stich, Stephen. 1983. From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science: The Case Against Belief.
Stich, Stephen. 1996. Deconstructing the Mind.
Strawson, Galen. 1994. Mental Reality.
Swedin, Eric G. and David L.
Ferro. 2005. Computers:
The Life Story of a Technology.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. [1998], 1953.
Philosophical Investigations. 3d ed.
Mind on the Web
Contemporary Philosophy of Mind: An Annotated Bibliography
http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/biblio.html
With 5196 entries, this bibliography compiled by David Chalmers is probably the
most complete bibliography of philosophy of mind on the web.
A Field Guide to the Philosophy of Mind
http://www.uniroma3.it/kant/field/
This interesting site provides visitors with "Guided Tours" of many
issues in and around the philosophy of mind. Each guided tour consists in an a
detailed outline and an annotated bibliography of a topic. Contributors include
Ted Honderich and Jaegwon Kim.
The MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences
http://cognet.mit.edu/MITECS/
Modern philosophy of mind is closely linked to and shaped by cognitive science.
This abbreviated online edition of the authoritative book of the same name is a
great resource.
Copyright © 2020 Daryl Close This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.