Mind and Reality

Undergraduate / Graduate

This course brings together the philosophy and the sciences of the mind to examine fundamental questions about our subjective experience of the world, ourselves, and others such as: What is consciousness? Do we all experience and represent the world in the same way? Can we know other minds? What is it like to be other animals? Can machines perceive, think, or feel? The first half of the course challenges the naïve impression that our conscious experience of reality is a passive and accurate reflection of how the world is. By introducing a range of scientific phenomena such as visual illusions, false memories and cognitive biases, the lectures will engage students in analyzing how our experience of an external and internal reality is actively constructed by our minds. Besides lectures, we will do field trips to several museum exhibits to explore hands-on the complexity and error-proneness of our mental processes. The second half of the course delves into ancient and contemporary philosophical thought on the nature of mental representation, self-consciousness, and knowledge of other minds. We will examine how fundamental questions about the nature of our minds can be addressed through philosophical analysis and thought experiments, but also in film, science-fiction, and visual arts.