Week One and two: Introduction to Course Themes

Humans and machines, who (what?) are we really?

Read: ch 1

Turing machine due on monday of week 2.

Info on Turing:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=g7_WzNzHwJY

http://www.turing.org.uk/

More detail on Turing machines

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-machine/

SYNTAX vs SEMANTICS

Week Three: Symbol systems

Read: ch 2

ON SOAR: http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/soar/sitemaker/docs/misc/GentleIntroduction-2006.pdf

Week Four: Patterns, contents, and causes

Read: ch 3

Reflection 1 due

Week Five and Six: Dennet's visit

Extra reading to conclude Chapter 4:

http://southerncrossreview.org/9/kleist.htm

Extra reading in prep for D. Dennett's arrival:

For Friday, September 21:

http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/freewillforBaerfinal.pdf

For Monday, September 24:

http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/atheism.pdf

A crit of Dennett's view on religion:

http://phil415.pbwiki.com/f/WIESELTIER%20ON%20DENNETT.pdf

Week Seven: Connectionism (now for real)

Read: ch 4

Extra reading:

Philosophical issues:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/connectionism/

More technical issues (for CS/math lovers):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_neural_network

A longer intro:

http://page.mi.fu-berlin.de/rojas/neural/index.html

Week Eight: Perception, action, brain

Read: ch 5

Week Nine: Robots and AI

Read: Read 6

Week Ten: Dynamics

Read: ch 7

Reflection 3 due

Week Eleven: More dynamics

Read Chapters 6, and 7.

Extra materials (light read for a grey afternoon):

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy_pr.html

Visit CS 640 class on wednesday.

Wednesday, October 31, Room 310, South wing,

University Services Building.

read John Koza's tuorial on Genetic Prgramming:

http://phil415.pbwiki.com/f/JKTutorial.pdf

Week 12: Cog Tech: beyond brain

Read: ch 8

Reflection 4 due

Extra reading, human cyborgs: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/clark/clark_index.html

A very accessible introduction to dynamical systems: http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~mspieg/Complexity/Problems.pdf

Week 13: Consciousness

Read Chalmers: http://consc.net/papers/puzzle.pdf

Read: Appendix II

Week 14: More consciousness

Read: TBD

Reflection 5 due

Week 15: Ethics

Peter Singer Heavy Petting. Nerve, 2001: http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/2001----.htm

Read: TBD

Week 16: TBD

Week 17: Final paper due on Monday, December 10