This is one of the "hard problems" and there are many different types of determinism. I'll mention three. In some of my recent blogs (e.g. on the free-will theorem), I have been discussing what we may refer to as "Newtonian" determinism (it preceded Newton, but it is the most consistent with that version of physics). The other two: "psychic determinism" (e.g Freudian) and "historic determinism" (e.g. Marxist). In the past, these latter two were more central to the discussion in many disciplines,… Continue

Wasn't really planning to listen to this, but with UCSD, one has to scan things quickly, because they disappear, and since I have been listening to podcasts on cognition, and this one covers a specific component of this, I decided to sample it.

Robert Kluender is quite engaging; in lecture one he has the audience exclaiming and laughing at some of his introductory slides.

I have only listened to lecture 1 (after skipping the first part, which was primarily course logistics), and part of lectur… Continue

This course "society of mind" is actually from 2007, but is listed as "new" on MIT Courseware, so I am not sure when this was added.

Marvin Minsky is a professor of media and art sciences at MIT (according to his website), but has made contributions in psychology and AI. In listening to him, it is quite clear that he has a very deep understanding of a number of related disciplines, and in that way he reminded me of John Conway.
I didn't start this at the beginning, but rather at lecture 6. Mins… Continue

I have been listening to the Free Will Theorem podcasts (Princeton U, itunes) by John Conway.

Using three axioms: SPIN (related to Quantum uncertainty), TWIN (related to quantum entanglement) and FIN (related to the speed of information transfer being limited by the speed of light), Conway and Specher have developed a theorem that states that if humans have free will, so do elementary particles. "Free will" in this context implies only that behavior is not exclusively a function of the past (ot… Continue

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.

Just a reminder to make sure you download any UCSD you MAY want to listen to later, because they will disappear soon.

I would again recommend "Distributed Cognition." The reductionist mind = brain paradigm is firmly imbedded to a astonishing degree (usually implicitly) in academia. This podcast offers a very fresh alternative paradigm. Others which also get at that "brainist" paradigm are available from Berkeley (and won't go away in the next few days)… Continue