It's All in Your Head
Meeting 3
Today we will investigate the distinguishing human phenomenon of consciousness, whose nature has been studied and debated for millennia (“I think, therefore I am”). Advances in neuroimaging have opened up new windows to the functioning of the brain and mind. We will look at philosophical, evolutionary, physiological and psychological approaches to understanding the state of self-reflective consciousness in human beings. Some topics we will examine are the Mind-Body Problem, how memories form, the Global Workspace model of consciousness, tools for probing mental processes and the development of a Theory of Mind by children as a signature of consciousness.
We will approach consciousness from the functionalist perspective –how does the brain actually work and what might that tell us about the nature of consciousness? We will begin this class with a survey of brain anatomy, highlighting key functional areas and how neurons operate individually and collectively. This video provides a nice top-level view of brain functions.
We will then dig into a subject all of us can relate to: making and recalling memories. This video describes the types of memory (there are several) and how we acquire them. In class we will connect memory formation and retrieval to parts of the brain and the consequences of damage to such regions. Some of these cases can shed light on the nature of consciousness.
To wrap up prep for this class you may enjoy watching this 15-minute debate/discussion among four distinguished professionals (physicist, philosopher, biochemist and computer scientist) regarding the nature of consciousness and whether AI can ever become conscious. Note this is only a teaser for a more thorugh discussion you could sign up for if you want, though not really necessary. You will get the main points of such analyses from the intro video.
UPDATE:
A TED talk by Anil Seth (who we will meet in class today) has just been posted in which he makes a case that AI is not (and cannot) become conscious. If you are interested in this topic (which I will surface at the end of this class) you may want to visit it here.
A recently posted TED talk, citing recent experiments, explains the neuroscience behind our sense of direction and find out why some people are better at navigating than others. It cites London cab drivers, which we will mention in class today. There is very useful advice at the end regarding preservation of our navigation skills by over-reliance on GPS. View it here.
