345001051 Androids, Zombies & Brains

Here are some links to material relevant to the Knowledge Argument:

Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Torin Alter's Discussion

You can also look at the Robert van Gulick article I've recommended and the original Jackson article about Mary, the colorblind neuroscientist.

Tuesday we are going to discuss some of the students' essays and begin talking about qualia in a little more depth. You can read Michael Tye's entry on qualia at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Or go to the Wikipedia entry. One of Dennett's most famous articles on qualia is called "Quining Qualia"--you can find it here

Dennett discusses the phenomenon of change-blindness. You can watch some video of change-blindness experiments at the Visual Cognition Lab.

You can learn more about prosopagnosia (face-blindness) here. You can imagine how difficult it is to recognize the same rock again; that's roughly what it's like for the prosopagnosia patient who has difficulty recognizing faces. And more on the Capgras syndrome can be found here.

William Calvin mentioned mirror neurons as a part of the explanation for why primates (especially humans) might empathize with each other, form stronger social bonds, and possibly lead to imitative kinds of learning. PBS has a vdeo online that disucsses mirror neurons at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/video/nsn-wrap-new.mov

Here ae some illusions from Scientific American.com Recreations. You can find more visual illusions at Michael Bach's site. And here is another Lisa Leviant picture. Check ou the Hermann Grid. The Tritone auditory illusion can be heard here.

Watch a film clip from the Manchurean Candidate that plays on the idea of brainwashing.

To understand the idea behind philosphical zombies, you might watch this video clip about a man with blindsight.

You can view Robert Wright's interview with Daniel Dennett on Consciousness at http://meaningoflife.tv/video.php?speaker=dennett&topic=conscious.

Wright is an important thinker and writer, but not necessarily a very good interviewer. Still, interesting topics do arise: the Cartesian Theater, the analogy with fame, epiphenomonalism, conscious computers, privileged, first-person knowledge of the mind, and mysterions.

Here are some topics you might consider for your essay this week, or for blog entries. Essays this week (Tuesday) are due from Mary, Chevelle, Benjamin, Stephen, and Cheryl. Everyone should be writing in the class blog.

Some topic from the Dennett chapters
Some topic from the Crick-Koch article
Some topic from Chalmer's article on the hard problem

Deja vu
Masked priming
Perceptual and cognitive illusions
Mental imagery

As we discussed in class today, I've modified the syllabus. You are still required to turn in at least three short essays, but I have now assigned the dates for each essay. Check the class schedule to see when you are scheduled to turn in your paper. Each person should have three due dates and no two dues dates should be on weeks back-to-back. Your paper is due no later that 5:00 pm the Monday before it is due and should be uploaded to the class essay page.

As before, you should write on something relevant to the class discussion. You might summarize something from the reading assignment (perhaps from the recommended readings) and discuss it, or explore a related topic, presenting some background knowledge you found through your own research. I still intend to spend Tuesday talking about some or all of the essays turned in that week.

You may turn in more than three essays; I will place emphasis on the best three for the final grade.

Please consider joining the NKU Cognitive Neuroscience Discussion Group. Members of the group include faculty and students interested in addressing a broad range of topics on the Mind-Brain from a variety of disciplinary perspectives (including Philosophy, Psychology, Biology, Anthropology, Social Science, and Literature). This fall we will discuss Michael Tomasello's book The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition [Amazon $20.95]. Looking at developmental psychology, primate studies, and studies of autistic children, Tomasello addresses questions about how human language abilities might have evolved. The group meets every other Wednesday, beginning September 14, in SC 200 from 12:00 to 1:30. This is an informal group; bring your lunch and discuss the evolution of language with us.

I think I have fixed the annoying problems with the blog. You should have to log in only once. Also, when entering a comment before you were immediately directed to an error page (even though the comment was entered). Now you should be directed back to the original page. Let me know if you still experience these, or other, problems.

Rudy

Check out this site on human evolution from the Institute of Human Origins. A very nice "interactive documentary experience that tells the sotry of our origins."

Becoming Human: Paleoanthropology, Evolution and Human Origins