PHIL 2621

Last Updated

  • Schedule of Classes - March 16, 2025 7:23PM EDT
  • Course Catalog - March 16, 2025 7:07PM EDT

PHIL 2621
Minds and Machines

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2024-2025.

Throughout history, metaphors drawn from technology of the time have been proposed to understand how the mind works. While Locke likened the newborn's mind to a blank slate, Freud compared the mind to hydraulic and electro-magnetic systems. More recently, many have endorsed Turing's proposal that the mind is a computer. Why is this idea attractive and what exactly is a computer? Is it at all plausible that the cells of your brain are computing? Could a computer ever really have a mind, beliefs, emotions and conscious experiences? What are these mysterious things anyway? Could a machine ever count as a person and make choices based on its own free will? Is it really so clear that we have this kind of free will?

When Offered Fall.

Distribution Category (ETM-AS) (KCM-AG)

View Enrollment Information

Syllabi: none

  •   Six Week Summer.  Combined with: COGST 2621

  • 3 Credits Stdnt Opt

  •  1422 PHIL 2621   LEC 001

  •  
    • MTWRF
    • Jun 23 - Aug 1, 2025

    • Dietl, E

  • Instruction Mode: Distance Learning-Synchronous
    This Summer Session class is offered by the School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions. For details visit: https://sce.cornell.edu/courses/roster.