IHSS 1964/PHIL 1120- Minds & Machines
Course Overview
This course is an introduction to the philosophy of mind. Students will debate and write papers on the nature of mind, free will, personal identity, consciousness, artificial intelligence, and animal cognition. For their final project, students either participate in a cognitive science experiment, write a philosophical paper, program their own AI (e.g. Connect-4), or build a Lego Robot.
Registering
IHSS-1964 Minds & Machines was created as a First Year Studies (FYS) course, and thus open to freshmen only. However, due to popular demand, we have created a non-freshmen section, which is listed as PHIL-2961 Minds & Machines. So, freshmen should register for IHSS-1964, and non-freshmen for PHIL-2961. The only exception to this is for students who failed IHSS-1964; they may retake the course as a non-freshman, but will have to sign up for IHSS-1964.
Connections to Other Courses
This course is an excellent stepping stone to PHIL/PSYC-2120 Introduction to Cognitive Science. Also, the material on critical thinking, arguments, logic, and fallacies (covered during the first couple of classes in Minds & Machines) will be expanded on and treated in much more detail in PHIL-2140 Introduction to Logic and PHIL/PSYC-2100 Methods of Reasoning.
Links
Philosophy (a quick overview of philosophy and critical thinking)
Arguments (a quick overview of arguments and common fallacies)
PhilosophyPages.com (website on philosophy: philosophy dictionary, history of philosophy, famous philosophers, and more. The logic page discusses arguments, fallacies, and formal logic)