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Minds and Machines 2009 Silver Center 805 Monday and Wednesday 3:30-4:45 Professor: Ned Block 212-998-8322 (Note: you will have better luck reaching me
by email than by phone) TAs: Knut Skarsaune, knutolav at-sign skarsaune.net Office hours: Wednesday, 10-11 in 5 Washington Place, 515 Rohan Prince, mailto:rcp270
at-sign nyu.edu Office
Hours: Thursday 11:00-12:00, 5 Washington Place, 611 Sections: Tuesday
11:00-11:50, 5 Washington Place, 302 Tuesday
12:30-1:20, Meyer 105 Friday
2:00-2:50, Bobst 737 Friday
3:30-4:20, Bobst 537 |
This
course examines the conflict between computational and biological approaches to
the mind. Topics covered this semester will be: whether a machine could think,
the Turing Test, whether thinking could be symbol crunching, mental imagery,
Searle’s arguments against strong artificial intelligence, volition and the
function of consciousness, the inverted spectrum, the self and the body
ATTENTION: The final
examination will be in class on Monday, May 4th, the last class.
Remember, no late
papers. If you miss the deadline for one assignment, just do another.
Read Jim Pryor’s advice on writing a philosophy paper, Guidelines
on Writing a Philosophy Paper
Assignment
1: The Turing Test (Due Wednesday, January 28th)
Assignment
2: Blockhead (Due Wednesday, February 4th)
Assignment
3: Inverted Spectrum (Due Wednesday, February 18th) Extension to
Friday, February 20th
Assignment
4: Dennett on Quining Qualia (Due Wednesday,
February 25th)
Assignment
5: The Chinese Room 1 (Due Wednesday, March 4th)
Assignment
6: The Chinese Room 2 (Due Wednesday, March 11th)
Assignment 7: Searle’s
and Putnam’s “Wall Argument”
(Due Monday, March 30th)
Assignment 8: Functional
Role Semantics (Due Wednesday
April 8th)
Assignment 9: Self
and Body Due FRIDAY, April 24th
Assignment 10: Mental
Imagery Due Friday, April 24th 
Assignment 11: Volition Due
Wednesday April 29th
Final Exam: May 4th: questions will be based on the assignments
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All readings will be available on the
web. Some will require a
password which will be revealed in class and which is also on Blackboard. The reading for this course is not lengthy
but it is difficult material. You should expect to read almost everything
twice. January 21: Turing January 26: Block 11.1.1 January 28: Braddon-Mitchell &
Jackson, 107-128 February 2: Shieber & Loebner papers February 4: Byrne, “Inverted Qualia” February 9: Wittgenstein
(Guest lecturer: Paul Horwich) February 11: Wittgenstein 2nd
lecture February 16: President’s Day February 18: Block, “Wittgenstein &
Qualia” February 23: Dennett February 25: Searle March 2: Block 11.6, p. 416-421,
Churchland & Churchland March 4: Haugeland March 9: Copeland (Guest lecturer: Geoff Lee) March 11: Searle APA Presidential Address March 16, 18: Spring Vacation March 23: Chalmers, Block 398-400 of “The
Mind as the Software…” March 25: Chalmers March 30: Block, 2 articles from Routledge
Encyclopedia April 1: Fodor Tom Swift (No need to read
Johnson-Laird) April 6: Fodor Brief Refutation April 8: Clark April 13: Makin, Ehrsson, Vignemont April 15:Gallagher & Meltzoff,
Paillard, Sirigu optional April 20: Block” April 22: :Kosslyn vs Pylyshyn in Trends
in Cognitive Sciences April 27 Haggard April 29: Lau May 4: Final Exam |
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The Turing Test
The
Inverted Spectrum ·
Ludwig
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, paragraphs 89-133, 243-315 ·
Alex Byrne, “Inverted
Qualia”,
in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ·
Ned Block, “Wittgenstein and
Qualia”, Philosophical Perspectives (21, 1) edited by John Hawthorne. 2007: 73-115 ·
Daniel
Dennett, "Quining Qualia", in A. Marcel and E. Bisiach, eds, Consciousness in Modern Science, Oxford
University Press 1988 Searle's
Chinese Room Argument
·
Alex Byrne, “Intentionality”, In Philosophy of Science: An Encyclopedia,
ed. J. Pfeifer and S. Sarkar (Routledge, forthcoming)
Searle’s Wall Argument ·
John Searle, "Is the Brain a Digital Computer?"
APA Presidential Address
Functional
Role Semantics ·
Ned Block, "Semantics, Conceptual Role", Routledge
Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The Self And The Body Andy Clark, "Visual
Experience and Motor Action: Are the Bonds Too Tight?" Or here. Philosophical Review
110, 4, Oct 2001. Makin TR, Holmes NP, Ehrsson HH. On the other hand: dummy hands and peripersonal space. Or here Behav Brain Res. 2008 Aug 5;191(1):1-10. Ehrsson HH. 2007 The
experimental induction of out-of-body experiences. Science. 317(5841):1048 Frédérique de Vignemont, Habeas Corpus: The Sense of Ownership of One’s Own Body,
Mind & Language 22, 4, 427-449, September 2007 Gallagher, Sean & Meltzoff, Andrew, “The
Earliest Sense of Self and Others: Merleau-Ponty and Recent Developmental
Studies, Philosophical Psychology 9: 213-236. Paillard, J (1999). Body
schema and body image: a double dissociation in deafferented patients.
In: Motor
control, today and tomorrow, G.N. Gantchev,S. Mori, & J. Massion,
eds., 1999 Sirigu, A., Grafman, J., Bressler, K., and Sunderland, T. (1991). Multiple representations
contribute to body knowledge processing. Evidence from a case of
autotopagnosia. Brain. 114, 629-642. Mental
Imagery ·
Michael Tarr, “Mental
Rotation”, MIT
Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science (or here)
Volition And The Functions Of Consciousness ·
Patrick Haggard, Conscious
intention and motor cognition,” or here
or here,
or on Blackboard. Trends
in Cognitive Sciences 9, 6, 290-295, 2005
Slides will be posted on Blackboard after
each class. MIT Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science
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REQUIREMENTS, GRADING, AND RULES
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. There will be a 3-5
page writing assignment posted each week and due the following week. You must choose three of these
assignments, including one of Assignments 1-3, and one assignment after
Assignment 6. 2. There will be a final
examination, the questions of which will be very similar to questions on the
weekly writing assignments. So you should be satisfied that you understand
the questions even for assignments that you do not do in writing.
3. The writing assignments will normally
require statements of positions taken by one of the authors that you've read.
These statements should be couched in your own words, explaining how you see
what the author has said. No quotations; no
paraphrases. 4. Grading: Each of the three papers
will count for one fifth of the grade, the final will count for one fifth of
the grade and participation in class (including section) will be another one
fifth. 5. Joint work is encouraged. Arguing
about your views with others is the best way to find out where your position
leads. If your paper is a product of joint work, all of the participants
should turn in their own versions, with the communal ideas stated in each
paper in the writer's own words. When you do work together on an assignment,
this must be stated on each paper. All participants in joint work get full
credit.
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