Minds and Machines

Minds and Machines

Minds and Machines

You don't understand it if you don't know how to build it.

PHIL 4303.001 & PSYC 4390.003: Minds and Machines

Spring 2025
Don Berkich
TR 9:30 - 10:45, CI-102

Schedule

Please note that this schedule is tentative and authoritative: Changes may be made, but they would be made here. Thus this page supersedes any page with which it conflicts..

Tuesday, 1/21 Class Cancelled due to Weather Anomaly  
Thursday, 1/23 Introduction and the History of Cognition I: Ancient Philosophy  
Tuesday, 1/28 The History of Cognition II: Modern Philosophy  
Thursday, 1/30 The History of Cognition III: Contemporary Philosophy Problem Set 01 Assigned
Tuesday, 2/4 The History of Artificial Intelligence  
Thursday, 2/6 The Turing Test Problem Set 01 Due
Tuesday, 2/11 Computability  
Thursday, 2/13 Computability, Complexity, and the Church-Turing Thesis Problem Set 02 Assigned
Tuesday, 2/18 Robot Intentionality I: The Chinese Room  
Thursday, 2/20 Robot Intentionality II: The Chinese Room Replies, Boden's Response, and Searle's Argument Problem Set 02 Due; Problem Set 03 Assigned; Term Paper Prospectus Assigned
Tuesday, 2/25 Robot Intentionality III: Dretske's Response  
Thursday, 2/27 Robot Intentionality IV: Dennett's Response and the Frame Problem Problem Set 03 Due; Term Paper Prospectus Due; Problem Set 04 Assigned
Tuesday, 3/4 Robot Intentionality V: Theories of Meaning  
Thursday, 3/6 Robot Intentionality VI: Externalism and Distributed Cognition Annotated Bibliography Assigned
Tuesday, 3/11 Spring Break  
Thursday, 3/13/td> Spring Break  
Tuesday, 3/18 Consciousness I: The (Hard) Problem Problem Set 04 Due; Problem Set 05 Assigned
Thursday, 3/20 Consciousness II: The Knowledge Argument  
Tuesday, 3/25 Consciousness III: The Modal Gap Problem Set 05 Due; Problem Set 06 Assigned
Thursday, 3/27 Consciousness IV: The Explanatory Gap Annotated Bibliography Due; Term Paper Rough Draft Assigned
Tuesday, 4/1 Consciousness V: Responses  
Thursday, 4/3 Machine Autonomy I: The Traditional Problem of Freedom of Will Problem Set 06 Due; Problem Set 07 Assigned
Tuesday, 4/8 Machine Autonomy II: Against Machine Agency  
Thursday, 4/10 Machine Autonomy III: Against Machine Autonomy Problem Set 07 Due; Problem Set 08 Assigned
Tuesday, 4/15 Robot Persons  
Thursday, 4/17 GOFAI: Where We've Been Problem Set 08 Due; Problem Set 09 Assigned
Tuesday, 4/22 NFAI I: The Biomimetic Revolution Begins Term Paper Rough Draft Due; Term Paper Final Draft Assigned
Thursday, 4/24 NFAI II: The Rise of the Neural Nets Term Paper Final Draft Assigned
Tuesday, 4/28 Large Neural Nets Problem Set 09 Due; Problem Set 10 Assigned
Thursday, 4/30 Closing Remarks  
Tuesday, 5/6 Reading Day  
Tuesday, 5/13 Term Paper Presentations: 8:00-10:30 Problem Set 10 Due; Term Paper Final Draft Due