Philosophy 132

Perhaps the most astonishing thing about the universe is that it contains 3-pound packets of material–human brains–that can think, feel, choose to act, and consciously experience the world. What explains this? What are minds, thoughts, and perceptions, and what must the world be like for them to exist? Do mental phenomena reduce to physical phenomena or must there be something else? In this course we will begin with the mind-body problem and the various theories that address it. We will then cover topics such as artificial consciousness, personal identity, the mental states of animals, qualia, free will, and whether and to what extent we can have a science of the conscious mind.