Q540 Weekly Readings

Weekly Readings

MW= Andy Clark, Mindware: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Cogntive Science. (Oxford Univ Press 2001)

MD II= John Haugeland (Ed) Mind Design II (all selections on electronic reserve)

PM= Robert Cummins and Denise Cummins (eds) Philosophy of Mind (all selections on electronic reserve)

MBC= Dave Chalmers (Ed) Minds, Brains and Computers (all selections on electronic reserve)

August 31 Intro: Why Worry about the Mind?

Tuesday's class will be an organizational meeting. For Thursday's class read: http://www.lucs.lu.se/People/Peter.Gardenfors/Articles/WSSRtext.html It’s a quick history of Cog Sci and also gives a nice overview of a few of the main contemporary issues. Then post some comments or questions on Annotate by 9am on Thursday primarily to become familiar with Annotate, but also to spark discussion for Thursday's class.
Sept 6 Descartes to Turing:
- MW Appendix 1,
- MD II chapter 2 Chapter 2: Computing Machinery and Intelligence – A.M. Turing
- Robert French “Subcognition and the limits of the Turing Test” available at: http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/online2.html#turing
- The Alan Turing Home Page: http://www.turing.org.uk/turing/
Sept 13 Symbol Systems
- MW chapter 1, and MW chapter 2 section 2.1 only
- MD II Chapter 6: From Micro-Worlds to Knowledge Representation: AI at an Impasse – Hubert L. Dreyfus
- Drew McDermott “How Intelligent is Deep Blue?” at: http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/courses/mindsandmachines/Papers/mcdermott.html
- Useful (but optional) links:
  - The Loebner Prize page:
  - http://www.loebner.net/Prizef/loebner-prize.html
  - Archived dialogues with Eliza and Parry at: http://www.stanford.edu/group/SHR/4-2/text/dialogues.html
  - Talk to Eliza: http://www-ai.ijs.si/cgi-bin/eliza/eliza_script
  - Talk to Alice: http://www.alicebot.org/
Sept 20 Searle’s Chinese Room
- MD II Chapter 7: Minds, Brains, and Programs – John R. Searle
- Larry Hauser ‘The Chinese Room Thought Experiment” at: http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/c/chineser.htm
- MW Chapt 2, Section 2.2
Sept 27 Connectionism; General
- MW chapt 4
- MDII Chapter 10: On the Nature of Theories: A Neurocomputational Perspective – Paul Churchland
- A good additional primer is: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/connectionism/
Oct 4 Connectionism: Rules
Oct 11 What Are Beliefs?
- MBC Chapter 51: Propositional Attitudes – Jerry Fodor
- Dan Dennett “Real Patterns” at: http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/realpatt.htm
- MW Chapt 3
- p.s. You can (and should) play the game of life at: http://www.math.com/students/wonders/life/life.html
Oct 18 Eliminativism
- MD II Chapter 13: Connectionism, Eliminativism, and the Future of Folk Psychology – William Ramsey, Steven Stich & Joseph Garon
- MBC Chapter 33: Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes – P.M. Churchland
Oct 25 The Puzzle of Conscious Experience
- PM Chapter 25: What is it Like to be a bat? – Thomas Nagel : also at: http://members.aol.com/NeoNoetics/Nagel_Bat.html
- Frank Jackson “Epiphenomenal Qualia” at http://members.aol.com/NeoNoetics/Nagel_Bat.html
- Dave Chalmers “The Puzzle of Conscious Experience” at http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/papers/puzzle.html
- + optional background material in MW Appendix 11
Nov 1 Consciousness Continued
- Dave Chalmers “Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness” (section 2.1 only) at http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/papers/facing.html
- Dan Dennett “Seeing is Believing” in K. Akins ed., Perception, Vancouver Studies in Cognitive Science, vol. 5: Oxford Univ. Press, 1996 pp. 158-172. Available at: http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/seebelie.htm
- and two VERY SHORT pieces to finish:
  - Dan Dennett “Facing Backwards on the Problem of Consciousness” at http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/chalmers.htm
  - Dave Chalmers “Moving Forward on the Problem of Consciousness” section 2.1 only at http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/papers/moving.html
Nov 8 Change Blindness
- Simons, D. J., & Levin, D. T. (1997). Change Blindness. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 1, 261-267. Pdf available at http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/djs_lab/downloads/
- When Good Observers Go Bad:Change Blindness, Inattentional Blindness, and Visual Experience Ronald A. Rensink at http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v6/psyche-6-09-rensink.html
- Simons, D.J., Chabris, C.F., Schnur, T. T., & Levin, D.T. (2002). Evidence for preserved representations in change blindness. Consciousness and Cognition, 11, 78-97. Pdf available at: http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/djs_lab/downloads/
- + see demos at Visual Cognition Lab Home Page http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/djs_lab/demos.html
Nov 15 Visual Experience and Visuomotor Action
- David Milner and Melvyn Goodale, The visual brain in action (precis) at http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v4/psyche-4-12-milner.html
- Commentaries, at: http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/psyche-index-v5.html#milner
Nov 22 Robotics
- MW Chapt 6
- MD II Chapter 15: Intelligence without Representation – Rodney Brooks
- And just for good measure, check out the Cornell site for Passive Dynamic Walking Robots at: http://tam.cornell.edu/~ruina/hplab/pdw.html
Nov 29 Dynamics and Development
- MW Chapt 7
- MD II Chapter 16: Dynamics and Cognition – Timothy van Gelder
- Thelen, E., Schöner, G., Scheier, C. & Smith, L., B. (2000) The Dynamics of Embodiment: A Field Theory of Infant Perseverative Reaching. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 24 (1) At: http://www.bbsonline.org/documents/a/00/00/04/71/bbs00000471-00/bbs.thelen.html
- Note: It would be good to read the BBS commentaries on the Thelen et al paper too, but so far I can’t find them online. Let me (and the class) know if you can!
Dec 6 Tools and Culture
- MW Chapt 8
- Sterelny, Kim “Externalism, Epistemic Artefacts and The Extended Mind” To appear in: Richard Schantz (ed) The Externalist Challenge. New Studies on Cognition and Intentionality (de Gruyter, Berlin & New York).
- Leda Cosmides & John Tooby “Evolutionary Psychology: A Primer” at http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/primer.html

Updated: August 31, 2004