Philosophy 374: Minds and Brains 2006

(& Philosophy 371:  Minds and Brains Lab)

W 1:15-3:55  Clement 210

Th 1:15-3:55  Lab  LIB 03 (Library basement)

Dan Lloyd and Kara Carvalho (TA)

WELCOME

...when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, ... the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting and hoping for their moment, amid the ruins of all the rest;  and bear unfaltering, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.   --Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past

Of what are minds made?  The contemporary answer is brains.  But how do brains compose minds?  As the 21^st Century progresses, most scientists and philosophers agree that many, if not all, aspects of mind can be understood as manifestations of brain function.  Cognition, perception, emotion, and “mental” representation are now targets for scientists to explain, and few doubt that they will ultimately succeed.  One core aspect of mind, however, has not been so easy to handle, and that is the topic of our course. We will consider one of the most challenging questions of neuroscience, cognitive science, and philosophy.  Indeed, our topic is one of a handful of ultimate issues faced by the human intellect.  It is the question of...

CONSCIOUSNESS

Philosophers have studied consciousness for thousands of years, and for most of that time consciousness and the mind have been virtually synonymous.  In the last century, the explicit study of conscious experience has been called phenomenology.  Meanwhile, neuroscience has made stunning progress in understanding the brain as a biological organism.  Most cognitive scientists presume that consciousness is an aspect of brain function, but how does conscious experience arise in the biological brain?  This is the main question of the course.  We will move freely between discussions of consciousness and discussions of the brain, taking slow steps deeper into both, always looking for links between them.  The course is probably unique in its combination of careful phenomenology with thorough neuroscience.  You might think of yourself and fellow travelers in the course as pioneers in a new discipline, which we might call...

NEUROPHENOMENOLOGY

The central goal of the course is to learn to think like a neurophenomenologist, that is, like a good cognitive neuroscientist and a good philosopher.  That includes being able to coordinate primary source material in neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy.  Relevant skills to be developed include extracting evidence, weighing its import, developing hypotheses, developing new experiments, developing explanatory models, constructing arguments, hanging out with classmates, and having enormous intellectual fun. 

THIS IS YOUR BRAIN.  ANY QUESTIONS?

The course will be unique in another way as well.  In Minds&Brains you’ll have an unprecedented opportunity to know yourself in a totally new way:  the brain you study could be your own.  Through a collaborative relationship with the Olin Neuropsychiatric Research Center, you can become a volunteer subject in a brain scanning experiment.  In addition to paying you $20/hour, following your session you’ll have access to your own brain scan data.  In class and lab we’ll learn how to interpret it.  You’ll be looking into your own conscious brain.

Having your brain scanned is not a course requirement, but it is easy to do.  The Olin Center is at the Institute of Living, just two blocks from Trinity.  They are often looking for volunteers for a variety of experiments.  If you’d like to seize this opportunity, you should begin to arrange for your scan now, as it will take some time to schedule and process.

2500 years ago the Dephic oracle issued a command that has been one of the core maxims of philosophy ever since, and will perhaps find new depth in this course:

KNOW THYSELF!

Minds&Brains is Philosophy 374. It’s accompanied by Phil. 371, a .25 credit lab.  THE LAB IS REQUIRED, so you should enroll in both 374 and 371, for a total of 1.25 credits.

WHAT THIS CLASS WILL BE LIKE

Fusion.  Think tank.  Group mind.  Through discussion, we will work together toward a communal understanding of mind and brain.  These are issues at the frontier of knowledge.  There are no right answers, no final authorities.  But there are data of many kinds.  These data are complex:  Everyone in the class will be responsible for understanding them, and should be prepared to explain the readings at all times.  We will explore the conclusions that follow from the data:  here you should be prepared to explain your reasoning, and understand that of others. 

YOUR CONTRIBUTION TO THE COURSE

Class attendance and thoughtful participation are essential to keep the course coherent and to fulfill your role as teacher and colleague.  A necessary condition for full participation is a thorough engagement with the reading. 

·         Our readings feature technical terms from many disciplines.  It will be your job to find and define one term or concept each week that is new to you, and post your definition in the Minds & Brains Wiki Dictionary, located at

http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/neurophenomenology_words_of_the_week/

.  Here are the ground rules:

With each term, include the definition (of course), a prominent example of the word in its course context, the definition (of course!), the full bibliography citation of any sources outside of the course readings, your name, and the date of your entry.  For example:

Wiki – (noun): an online resource or set of linked resources, which can be added to or edited by any user.  “Wiki wiki” means “rapidly” in Hawaiian.  (Found on the Course Syllabus, p. 2.)  (Posted by Dan Lloyd, 1/20/06. from www.parliament.vic.gov.au/sarc/E-Democracy/Final_Report/Glossary.htm ;

www.cpsr-peru.org/english_version/privacy_ngo/part4; mobileman.projects.supsi.ch/glossary.html ; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIKI  .)

The course readings introduce terms that may be obscure or specialized, but are nonetheless essential to your understanding.  Your mission is to add one word each week to the glossary.  Your entry should indicate where in the readings the word arose.  Some terms may have special meanings to the authors who use them.  If so, you’ll need to base your definitions on the explicit meanings signaled in the reading.  Other terms may not have special meanings, but are nonetheless new to you.   For these, you’ll refer to standard reference works.  (As a third option, you can edit definitions already in the glossary.) In any case, you should cite your sources fully and correctly, and sign your entry or edit.  (These will be graded for accuracy and clarity, and penalized if late.  Your contributions will comprise 10% of your course grade.)

As the glossary evolves, you should assure yourself that you understand the terms it includes.  This basic conceptual vocabulary will form the foundation for the course.  Should it turn out that the glossary exercise is insufficient for learning these basics, there may need to be a weekly quiz.  If so, quiz questions will generally be circulated in advance, so that you can thoroughly prepare. As we progress, the weekly quiz will evolve into more creative variants.

·         Once a week you’ll develop a “phenomenological experiment,” a short paper which will help you and the rest of the class explore the many flavors of consciousness.  (A handout on these is attached to this syllabus.)  (These will comprise 30% of your course grade.)  For now, these will be handed in using the digital drop box at the course Blackboard site.

About half way through the term, you'll begin work on a two course projects:

·         One is a poster, to be presented at the annual science symposium at the end of classes.  Your poster will be viewed by fellow students in all courses, by science faculty, and by anyone else who happens to come by.  In the poster, you’ll develop and defend original research on the links between consciousness, psychology, and the brain.  The labs for the course will equip you with useful methods and data for these. 

·         The second term project is an experimental proposal in functional neuroimaging.  The “brains” aspect of the course will mainly concern functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).  This paper will propose an experiment that could illuminate some aspect of consciousness, and include a thorough background research review and motivated hypotheses and their interpretation.  Each course project will comprise 30% of the final grade.

·         Last but not least, this course includes a laboratory, which is completely integrated into the course.  In this lab, you will explore the foundations of cognitive neuroscience through a variety of thought-provoking workshops, computer simulations, and work with brain imaging data, including, perhaps, your own brain.  The lab section is mandatory for this course, but receives a separate grade. 

Absences will hurt your grade.   The laboratory grade is separate, and will be based on short lab reports written during lab sessions.

READINGS

For the best overview of the course, flip through the course texts, available in the bookstore:

Nicholson Baker, The Mezzanine (Vintage, 1986)

Don Ihde, Experimental Phenomenology (SUNY Press, 1986)

Dan Lloyd, Radiant Cool (MIT Press, 2003)

Michael Posner and Marcus Raichle, Images of Mind (Freeman, 1994)

… and many photocopied handouts.

Teaching staff:

Dan Lloyd

Email:  dan.lloyd@trincoll.edu

Office:  325 McCook

Phone:  2528

Kara Carvalho

kara.carvalho@trincoll.edu

High Rise 104

X 2871
Tentative reading schedule:

[Readings in brackets are supplemental, but recommended]