Bookstore link to books and clickerPhilosophy of Mind
Dr. Matt McCormick
Phil. 153, sect.
MW, 1:30-2:45, DH 208
Spring 2009
Office: Mendocino 3020 Office Hours Office phone: 278-7372 email: mccormick@csus.edu
Webpage: www.csus.edu/indiv/m/mccormickm
Philosophy Department Office: Mendocino 3032, 278-6424
Required Texts: Brain-Wise: Studies in Neurophilosophy. by Patricia Smith Churchland. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2002. ISBN: 0-262-03301-1
Blindsight by Peter Watts, Tor books, 2008. ISBN-10: 076531960
CPS Gen 2 RF HE
Response Pad, from Einstruction.
Bookstore link to books and clicker
CPS Course Code: M49271I921 (the seventh letter is a capital "i")
The Course: Traditionally, philosophy of mind has concerned itself with questions like, what is a mind? how are they constructed, what are they made of? What sorts of things can have minds? Can computers or machines think? Are there even such things as minds? Since minds are produced by the functioning of brains, work in this field of philosophy on these questions has been massively and irreversibly affected by the rapid expansion of modern neuroscience. This course is about philosophical attempts to understand the mind as it has been informed by relevant developments in neuroscience.
Grades:
| Grading Structure |
Number |
Value |
| Papers | 2 | 10% |
| Clicker Quizzes | 12 | 3% |
| Midterm | 1 | 12% |
| Final Exam | 1 | 12% |
| Attendance and Participation |
10% |
|
| Google Groups discussion board |
10% |
|
| Total |
100% |
Course schedule: Here is an outline of the authors and topics that we will be discussing, and the page numbers of the readings. The schedule is subject to change to fit class lectures.
SacCT: lecture notes and some readings will be posted on SacCT: https://online.csus.edu/webct/entryPageIns.dowebct
Week 1: Course Introduction and Philosophy of Mind Overview
Readings: Thinking Meat? Terry Bisson
Week 2: Philosophy of Mind Overview continued.
Readings: Descartes, Meditations 2 and 6
Week 3: Connectionism
Readings: "Connectionism, Eliminativism and The Future of Folk Psychology," Ramsey, Stich, Garon. In SacCT Readings folder.
Introduction to Connectionism:
Anatomy of a Connectionist Model
Unit Behavior, Activations, Weights, and Outputs
Network Behavior, Emergence, and Learning
Week 4: Mind and Neuroscience
Readings:
Neurons, Synapses, Action Potentials, and Neurotransmission
Brainwise: Introduction, 1-34
Blindsight, Prologue, 1-18.
Week 5: Neuroscience and the Metaphysics of Mind
Readings:
Brainwise: An Introduction to Metaphysics, 37-58.
Week 6 and 7: Self and Knowing One's Own Mind
Readings:
Brainwise: Self and Self-Knowledge, 59-126.
Blindsight, Theseus, 19-138.
Week 8: Consciousness
Readings:
Brainwise, Consciousness, 127-200.
Brainwise, Free Will, 201-238.
How Unconscious Mechanisms Affect Thought: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=how-unconscious-mechanisms
Week 9: Spring Break
Week 10: Consciousness continued.
Readings:
Brainwise, Consciousness, 127-200.
Brainwise, Free Will, 201-238.
Midterm
Week 11: Epistemology of Mind: How do brains know?
Readings:
Brainwise, Epistemology Introduction, 241-272.
Blindsight, Rorschach, 139-354.
Week 12: Epistemology of Mind continued.
Readings:
Brainwise, Epistemology Introduction, 241-272.
Blindsight, Rorschach, 139-354
Week 13: Representation
Readings:
Brainwise, How Do Brains Represent? 273-320.
Week 14: Representation, contined.
Readings:
Brainwise, How Do Brains Represent? 273-320.
Week 15: Learning
Readings:
Brainwise, How Do Brains Learn? 321-370.
Blindsight, Charybdis, 355-362.
Week 16: Course Summary and Review
Final Exam: Monday, May 18, 12:45-2:45
________________________________
Google Groups Discussions:
All students are required to make regular, constructive, and considered contributions to our discussion board on Google Groups. The address is: http://groups.google.com/group/csus-mind
Getting started:
Create a Google Account:
1. Go to: https://www.google.com/accounts/ManageAccount If you don't already have an account, create one with the link on the lower right.
2. Once you have an account and you are logged in you can join the group at this address: http://groups.google.com/group/csus-mind
3. Posting questions, comments, and ideas: Under "Discussions," there will be different threads of conversation with questions and comments from Prof. McCormick and other students. Choose topics and questions that you find interesting and make a post, or ask new questions and start a thread of your own.
Grading: Students who make frequent, reflective, and helpful posts (at least 10 for the semester) will receive a full 10% for this portion of the grade. Lesser contributions will be graded proportionally lower. Contributions will be evaluated on the basis of these criteria:
Links and Notes:
http://www.human-nature.com/nibbs/03/landreth.html
Patricia Churchland's links for the book:
http://philosophy.ucsd.edu/courses
Neuroanatomy http://thalamus.wustl.edu/course http://www.vh.org/adult/provider/anatomy/BrainAnatomy/BrainAnatomy.html
Neuroscience vocabulary http:// www.neurosim.wisc.edu
Comp. Neuro http://www.cnl.salk.edu/CNL/
CogSci Encyclopedia http://mitpress.mit.edu/MITECS
Consciousness http://psych.pomona.edu/scr and http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/
Daniel Dennett, Quining Qualia, pages 226-246.
http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/quinqual.htm
David Chalmers, Consciousness and Its Place in Nature, pages 247-272.
http://consc.net/papers/nature.html
Koch and Crick, On the Zombie Within: http://www.klab.caltech.edu/refweb/paper/397.pdf
H.G. Wells, The Country of the Blind, http://www.online-literature.com/wellshg/3/
Paul Churchland, The Rediscovery of Light, pages 362-370 http://www.jstor.org/pss/2940998
David Chalmers, What is a Neural Correlate of Consciousness? http://consc.net/papers/ncc2.html
Koch and Crick, A framework for consciousness. Nature Neuroscience (2003) 6, 119-126 http://www.klab.caltech.edu/refweb/paper/438.pdf
Daniel Dennett, The Global Workspace Model, http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/cognition.fin.htm
Churchland, Patricia "Consciousness: The Transmutation of a Concept," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, (1983) pp. 80-95.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/belief/
http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/djs_lab/demos.html
http://www.overcomingbias.com/welcome.html
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3658963188758918426
http://pantheon.yale.edu/~jab257/bargh_chartrand_1999.pdf
http://pantheon.yale.edu/%7Ejab257/publications.html
http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nn.2112.html
http://www.rifters.com/real/articles/Neuropsychologia_Rosenthal_2008.pdf
http://www.rifters.com/real/articles/Science_The_Right_Choice.pdf