Patrick Grim – Philosophy of Mind
Description Patrick Grim – Philosophy of Mind [DVDrip-25 mkv] Nothing in the universe is more mysterious than the inner workings of the human mind. * Do other people have minds like yours, and if so, how do you know? * Is their mind something other than their body, or the processes Ordinary physiologicals produce minds? * Can a machine have a mind? * What is consciousness? * Do you have free will? * Is everything you are experiencing really happening, or is it an elaborate illusion created by the mind? The mind reels on these questions! But philosophy provides powerful tools for investigating the mysteries of thinking, feeling, and perceiving. What is your mind? The attempt to understand consciousness is the ultimate imperative in philosophical thought and is derived from the ancient Greek aphorism, “Know yourself. A simple statement, however, has vast ramifications for how we understand each other not only ourselves, but also the people around us. The deepest thinkers in history have spent their lives trying to answer the deceptively simple question, “what is mind?” including Aristotle in ancient times, René Descartes in the 17th century, and William James in the 19th century. Questions about the nature of mind are among the most debated in philosophy today. Today, we are beginning to see the true complexity of this quest, as philosophers turn to the latest evidence from neuroscience, psychology, artificial intelligence, linguistics, and other fields to dig even deeper into the inner workings of the mind. One of the most exciting research partnerships in recent decades has been the interdisciplinary study of the mind called cognitive science. It draws on neuroscience to map how neuron bundles create minds, psychology to illuminate how minds work, linguistics to explain how minds generate language, artificial intelligence to try to reproduce the result of our minds, and other fields to cover. the big picture. Try Thought Experiments An incredibly productive technique for studying the mind is the what-if scenario, or thought experiment, which helps us grasp these general questions and show what puzzling phenomenon the mind is. Some of the fascinating thought experiments you find in Philosophy of Mind are: * Brain in a vat: How do you know that you are not a brain in a vat, with a completely simulated life? Although plausible as science fiction, this image assumes that the mind could be disembodied. The neuroscientist Antonio Damasio and others, however, seem to have strong evidence that feedback from the body is essential to forming a mind. * Chinese room: Imagine a room in which a non-Chinese speaker follows the rules for translating Chinese and produces correct answers without understanding the language. In his powerful critique of artificial intelligence, philosopher John Searle makes a comparison to computers and argues that they cannot have understanding simply by virtue of manipulating rules and symbols. * Life as a bat: We all know what it is to be us, but what is being a bat? No matter how much we know about the physiology of the bat, says philosopher Thomas Nagel, it is impossible to know the subjective experience of a bat. Perhaps no subjective state, such as consciousness, can be understood objectively.
* The ever-changing flavor of beer: Qualia are qualitative experiences like tastes and smells, but how real are they? As an example, philosopher Daniel Dennett cites the first typical reaction to the taste of beer: “What horrible things!” But suppose you become a beer lover, has the taste of beer changed? Do you have different qualia, or do you have the same qualia but are simply reacting differently? Explore an Overview of Theories In Philosophy of Mind, you study all the major theories of the mind, including: * Dualism, which holds that the body and mind are separate substances * Behaviorism and Functionalism, which emphasize behavior and interactions with the world as clues to the inner workings of the mind * Idealism, which sees the physical world as an illusion and suggests that, which postulate that subjective mental experiences are fundamentally inexplicable and will always remain a mystery. These and other philosophical positions have something going for them. The compelling arguments of one thinker often diverge radically from the equally compelling argument of another, so that a newcomer to the field cannot help but lose himself among the contending proposals. Philosophy of Mind expertly ranks the various approaches to understanding the mind, giving the pros and cons of each in a gripping survey of complex and often controversial intellectual terrain. The course articulates these intellectual options in the service of capturing the emotion of intellectual discussion, never to establish a single dogmatic position. What You Learn The philosophy of mind begins with three iconic case histories of themes that emerge throughout the course: * Descartes’ Dream: In 1619, the young René Descartes envisioned a new science in a series of dreams. The core of the science was a radical distinction between minds and bodies, and it formed the framework for the mind-body problem that stimulates philosophical debate to this day. * Einstein’s Brain: A Strange Saga began after the death of the great scientist when his brain was removed without official permission. Their eventual analysis showed that an area associated with mathematical thinking had taken over an area associated with language, hinting at the extreme plasticity of brains and minds. * Babbage’s Difference Engine: Designed in the 1800s, this device steam-powered steel and brass was markedly different from modern computer hardware. It was capable, however, of the same functions as a general-purpose computer, raising the question of whether there is something about a machine that could possibly make it intelligent or even conscious. It then proceeds through a sequence of lectures covering basic concepts, classical theories, and the latest hypotheses in the philosophy of mind, ending with a discussion of functionalism, the dominant trend in current research. The next six lectures pursue the theme of functionalism, concentrating on perception, our conceptions of ourselves, and minds as they function in the world (real robots play an interesting role in this research). The next six lectures address questions of human versus artificial intelligence: how alike and how different are brains and computers? The Philosophy of Mind concludes with a focus on subjective experience and the continuing mystery of consciousness, with a final lecture that returns to the three emblematic examples from Lecture 1.
Probe Your Own Mind One of the most enjoyable features of Philosophy of Mind is the experiments you can do to illuminate surprising aspects of your own mind. Some mental probes you learn throughout the course include: * An inner theater: Imagine a pirate. Now describe it down to the number of buttons on your coat without checking your mental image. If you had an “inner theater”, a place for fully formed thoughts and perceptions, you should be able to look at your mental image and report everything about it. However, you will likely make it up as you go. * Filler: By looking at a simple diagram in the Course Guide that accompanies this course, you can find your blind spot: the region of your eye that lacks photoreceptors, where the nerve optic joins the retina. Normally, we are not aware of this “hole” in our vision, as the brain fills an appropriate background. Professor Grim also plays a recording of an intriguing auditory version of this phenomenon. * Phantom limb: Professor Grim describes an experiment he can perform to trick his mind into thinking that a rubber hand or even a cup of coffee is part of his own body. This phenomenon may be related to the similar “body image” confusions that cause some amputees to feel sensations in their missing limbs. * Belief and Perception: Does belief drive perception? Apparently not. To test this, draw a two-inch horizontal line, mark the midpoint, and then draw a two-inch vertical line from that point. You will see that the vertical line looks longer than the horizontal, even though you measured them as identical. Your justified belief that they are the same length cannot override your mind’s misperception. Struggling with PhenomenaU without end interesting exhaustive exploration of what we know and do not know butt our mental functioning, Philosophy of Mind is an incomparable introduction to the various topics that revolve around the question of what, exactly, the mind is. It makes you think, evaluate your own opinions, and change your mind not infrequently while dealing with the infinitely interesting phenomena of the mind.Full Title: Philosophy of Mind: Brains, Consciousness, and Thinking Machines. Lectures are 30 minutes each Course lecture titles: 01. The dream, the brain and the machine 02. The mind-body problem 03. Brains and Minds, Parts and Wholesale 04. The inner theater 05. Living in the material world 06. A functional approach to the mind 07. What about the robots? 08. Body image 09. Own identity and other minds 10. Perception: What do you really see? 11. Perception: Intent and Evolution 12. One mind in the world13. A history of intelligent machines 14. Intelligence and IQ 15. Artificial Intelligence 16. Brains and Computers 17. Attacks on Artificial Intelligence 18. Do we have free will? 19. See and believe 20. Color Mysteries 21. The hard problem of conscience 22. The conscious brain — 2½ physical theories 23. The Hot Theory and Antitheories 24. What we know and what we don’t know there is an mp3 version in
tristian –
This is Digital Download service, the course is available at Coursecui.com and Email download delivery.