Philosophy of Mind

Course Description

The Philosophy of Mind course does not require previous experience with logic, but it probably should. A new idea is revered as philosophical gold each morning, holding strong under the weak arguments of the dazed class... only to be challenged by a foe of equal textual length and dryness during study hall, and dashed to pieces by the next morn. But never fear! A new theory shall rise from the ashes of its predecessor like a phoenix of mental overstimulation! Repeat ad infinitum.

Take the class anyway, though. Making fun of each successive philosopher will be worth it.

Also, be wary of Evil Genius. He sneaks up on you and BAM! forces you to change your debate strategy 3 minutes and 21 seconds before the actual debate.

Activities can include a trip to the primate lab (completely humane, and lots of fun), a debate with another logic/mind class, a combined lesson/discussion on animal intellegence with the cog psych class, and/or a demo/discussion of the artifical intellegence of Aibo, the cute robot dog. At LMU in 2006, session 1, the Teacher Zed let us watch The Princess Bride, sceenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, March of the Penguines, and Star Trek. (It has since come to my attention that he no longer does this.) :( I'm not to sure how The movie The Princess Bride fit into the class, I think it was the logic of the scene with the poison. No, now Zed lets you watch Koko the Gorilla and Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control. The first is boring and the latter makes about no sense. And apparently the Princess Bride has to do with Behaviorism (for all you people out there taking the course, beware of behaviorism)

Also, prepare to talk a lot about robots/artificial intelligence. Not all instructors will teach the class this way, but when I took the course in LAN 7.2 we spent almost half the class discussing it. Which is not all bad, because it led to many extermely heated debates and amusing video clips like Keepon the dancing robot and Bjork music videos. You will find that such material actually does relate to philosophy.

Fun Facts

Philosophy of Mind A at Carlisle, Session 2, 2005 consisted of wonderfully spiffy people. They were Alex, George, Freak -I mean Daniel, Eva, Sarah, Caitlin, Erika, and Mel(eroni)/Olivia. In that order of seating. If you don't believe me, you can look at the picture in the memory book.

Alas, their hypothetical pet rat was killed by professor Zsolt when he hit it one too many times, hypothetically. The students of Zsolt all agreed to damn Descartes to a Godless world (hahahaha) and see how he survived not knowing what to think. The poor rat had no chance against skeptical physicalists. At Carlisle '06 session 2 was also amazing. Zsolt is a hilarious teacher (hungarian accent) and there was much abuse of Zsolts cat, the hypothetical rat and little Johnny. i would also like to include a quote from our textbook. "You are told 'not to worry' because, while your physical brain and body will be squashed to strawberry jam, your structure will be 'celebrated' by millions of dancing Indians (with '1' and '0' T-shirts) who will 'do your thing.'"

At Lancaster, MIND is known for having really excellent people every year. With the recent change in instructors, however, 04.1 and 05.1 were unfortunately boring classes, despite the inclusion of other wonderfully spiffy people. The 05.1 class were the originators of Thormanism, a religion that is now quite widespread in Papua New Guinea. The 05.2 session students (also known for being excellent as well as traditonalists--but i repeat myself--every year) determined that pants were indeed chairs, inducing much confusion and many a joke the rest of the session. In 05.2 it was discovered that there were little Chinese men in our brains and that the hallway outside the room was actually France. (This session was also marked by the recurrence of the exceedingly well-drawn chalkboard man who was depicted perpetually in the action of sticking his hand in a fire, and demonstrating by the tenets of behaviorism that he has a mind--though that now is doubtful). If John Lawhead is your TA (07.1), you will be turned into a Trekkie by the end of the session.

At LMU the class is generally taught by Zed Adams. Who is really cool, but insanely enthusiastic. Therefore, if you wish to sleep feel free. Chances are he'll never notice. Make sure you ask to see his picture with that mummy. And don't be depressed by his stories of philosophers, not all of them die horrible deaths.

There are usually 2 sections (A for the younger students, B for the older), and the teachers change rather often.

Side effects of MIND may include mistaking one's lanyard for a shoe; determining that one does not, in fact, exist; hatching a plan to bioengineer a unicorn(horse+narwal!), and general spells of sleeping including, but not limited to, those occurring during class.

I would not recommend taking philosophy of mind unless you can take it session one at Loudonville in 2005 and have Dan Thero as a teacher and the most amazing class possible.