Philosophy of Mind

Philosophy of the Mind is a Humanities course in the CTY program with no prerequisites. Its course code is MIND.

Course Description

This class functions both titularly and as a basic introduction to general philosophy. It is dominated in equal portions by lecture, debate, and difficult readings during study hall. Though it does not require a foundation in logic, it makes much use of logical concepts. The course progresses by introducing new ideas, which are discussed and generally denied as truth before moving onto the next philosopher and philosophy.

Activities can include a trip to the primate lab, a debate with another Philosophy of the Mind class or the Logic class, a combined lesson/discussion on animal intellegence with the Cognitive Psychology class, as well as demonstrations with robotics to aid the eventual discussion of the mental capability of robots. Discussion regarding artificial intelligence varies by class, but may play a large part in the course.

Class History

Carlisle

MIND.A.CAR.05.2 was inhabited by Alex, George, Daniel/Freak, Eva, Sarah, Caitlin, Erika, and Mel(eroni)/Olivia, in that order of seating.

CAR.06.2, taught by professor Zsolt, remembers:

• abusing Zsolt's cat and little Johnny
• determining that their hypothetical pet rat was killed by professor Zsolt when he hit it one too many times, hypothetically (the poor rat had no chance against skeptical physicalists)
• then agreeing to damn Descartes to a Godless world and see how he survived not knowing what to think
• "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.'"

Lancaster

The LAN.05.1 class members were the originators of Thormanism, a religion that is now quite widespread in Papua New Guinea.

The LAN.05.2 session students determined that pants were indeed chairs, inducing much confusion and many a joke the rest of the session. It was also 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.

John Lawhead TA'd in 07.1 and supposedly converted perfectly weird CTYers into Trekkies.

LAN.07.2 remembers Keepon the dancing robot and Bjork music videos.

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 sleeping spells, including, but not limited to, those occurring during class.

LMU

At LMU, the class is generally taught by Zed Adams, who is known for his picture with a mummy and for telling morbid stories about philosophers. He was also known for showing seemingly arbitrary movies, including The Princess Bride (which supposedly relates to behavioralism), scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, March of the Penguines, and Star Trek. He no longer shows these movies and instead is said to show Koko the Gorilla and Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control.

Loudonville

The Loudonville class in 2005 was taught by Dan Thero.