Professor Grim previews the range of ideas in the course with three examples: a dream of the philosopher René Descartes in 1619, the saga of Einstein's brain after his death, and a steam-driven computer designed in the mid-1800s.
How does the mental relate to the physical? One response is Dualism, developed by Descartes, which sees the two as radically distinct.
The strange case of Phineas Gage, who suffered a horrible brain injury in 1848, sheds light on the brain-mind connection.
Do we have an inner realm where representations of the world are displayed completely? A range of experiments seem to show that something much more complicated is going on.
You examine alternatives to Dualism—from the idea that the universe is purely mental (idealism) to the view that it is purely physical (materialism).
Behaviorism and Functionalism take a radically different approach to the body and mind approach.
If Functionalism is right, a machine could have real perception, emotion, pleasure, and pain. Wouldn't it then also have ethical rights?
Having conjectured how a body produces a mind, we approach the problem from the other side: how a mind produces a body.
This lecture explores our concept of ourselves and other minds—not just human but animal—together with puzzling questions about self posed by "teletransporter" thought experiments and split-brain cases.
What do we really see? What do we really hear? Empiricism argues that what we perceive are not things in the world but rather subjective sense data.
The intentionalist view holds that perception is always "about" something. The evolutionary view sees perception as an evolved grab bag of tricks.
In order to understand the mind, we have to understand the environment in which it functions—the mind in the world.
You trace the fascinating stories of computing machines—from the Antikythera device of 100 B.C., to legends of mechanical calculating heads in the Middle Ages, to Charles Babbage's designs for steam-driven computers in the 1840s.
This lecture looks at attempts to measure intelligence.
In 1950, Alan Turing proposed a test for determining whether a machine displays human intelligence, predicting that such a thinking machine would exist by 2000.
Computers use binary digits and logic gates. By contrast, brains are built of neurons, which are far more complex. While we know how computers work, we are ignorant of brain function on many levels.
The very concept of artificial intelligence has serious critics, including Hubert Dreyfus and John Searle. The latter has a powerful argument called the "Chinese room," which this lecture considers from both sides of the debate.
Can our actions be free? The compatibilist view holds that free will, when properly understood, is a natural part of a causal universe.
This lecture explores how our conscious experience is shaped by background beliefs and expectations. This issue raises an important question for our justice system: Is eyewitness testimony reliable?
Is color real or is it something that exists only in the mind? You explore this question with thought experiments and insights.
If there is a defining problem in philosophy of mind today, it is the problem of accounting for our subjective experience. David Chalmers calls this the "hard problem of consciousness."
How are we to understand conscious experience? This lecture considers two attempts to explain consciousness in terms of physical processes in the brain.
The philosopher David Rosenthal identifies consciousness with "higher-order thoughts"—HOT. You also survey antitheories.
Professor Grim reviews the high points of the course, focusing on questions raised by Lecture 1.
