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Human Minds (HM)

This text explores the contrasting viewpoints on the nature of human minds, from the belief in immaterial spirits to the idea of computational mechanisms housed in the brain. It discusses adaptive control systems, complexity, biology, identity, and learning, as well as the neural code and subjective experience. The text also examines the functionalist theory and the diversity of qualitative experience.

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Human Minds (HM)

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  1. Human Minds (HM) • Descartes: HM immaterial spirits acting from the central cavity of the brain • Many Contemporary Philosophers: HM computational mechanisms housed in the “wetware” of the brain

  2. CNS/Thermostat • Control Systems 1. Adaptive 2. Complexity 3. Biology/Identity 4. Learning

  3. (Adaptive) Control System • Nervous system coordinates adaptive responses • Overall function: adaptive interaction with environment • Enables animal to detect relevant events, select responses, and be guided by the effects of the responses (feedback)

  4. Complexity

  5. Identity • Humans seek more than biological survival • Cooney suggests not simply “staying alive” setting but “identity” setting • A conjunction of prescriptions that enables me to continue to be not only the kind of animal I am, but also the kind of individual I am

  6. Learning 1996: Kasparov defeats Deep Blue 1997: Deep Blue defeats Kasparov

  7. Brain Events & Subjective Experience • Neural code: nerves & brain sites --> same sort of content/patterned impulses • Neural code analyzable: spatial relations, energy, duration, frequency, etc. • Subjective “transduction” of code: qualitatively different sensations (not observable or mathematically analyzable)

  8. Functionalist Theory • Most brain events are remarkably similar at the cellular level • How to explain then the diversity of color, sound and other qualitative experience? • Spatiotemporal patterning, resulting input/out relations of neurons with each other and with external environment

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