Minds & Oliver Sacks

How to Study the Brain
http://m.chronicle.com/article/How-to-Study-the-Brain/149945/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Brain Training May Help Calm The Storms Of Schizophrenia : Shots - Health News : NPR

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/11/03/359655855/a-new-way-of-thinking-about-schizophrenia-could-lead-to-new-treatments

 
Learning How Little We Know About the Brain - NYTimes.com

Directly applicable to today's discussion about Chpt 6.!

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/science/learning-how-little-we-know-about-the-brain.html?referrer=

Do any of the above three essays give us different models of the mind than the modularity model we discussed yesterday? What kind of models are being sought?


Christopher Nolan's Memento (thriller whose main character has severe memory loss)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_%28film%29

Background information on Dr. Sacks
http://www.oliversacks.com/
http://www.ted.com/speakers/oliver_sacks

Dr. Sack's TED talk about hallucination
http://www.ted.com/talks/oliver_sacks_what_hallucination_reveals_about_our_minds?language=en

Philosophy

Has your understanding of philosophy changed over this course?  How?  Please explain.

Do minds exist?

Specifically, does Will's mind exist?  Someone needs to argue that minds are not real.

Does the thought of a cookie in Will's mind exist?  Is there anyway to prove scientifically that Will's mind does exist?

How does this discussion (that you will generate below) relate to today's reading about realism & anti-realism?

Why should we trust science or scientists?

*new*
What are scientists responsible for?
Italian Court Overturns Scientists’ Convictions for Failing to Warn of Deadly Earthquake – The Ticker - Blogs - The Chronicle of Higher Education
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/jp/italian-court-overturns-scientists-convictions-for-failing-to-warn-of-deadly-earthquake?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Does knowing that scientists believe that scientific laws and science in general are fallible, make you trust science less?  Argue for or against, using some detail.  Feel free to just play Devil's advocate.  Let's have a full-discussion back and forth with everyone engaged.

Relatedly, has your perception about the trustworthiness of science changed since we started this course?

Observation

What does it mean to observe?  Can you use glasses, telescopes, microscopes.  How would you know what to look at?  What does "looking" mean?

Eugenics

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/10/14/science/haunted-files-the-eugenics-record-office-recreates-a-dark-time-in-a-laboratorys-past.html?referrer=
Look around the site a bit and then connect to your upcoming reading (chapter?? 8??) which talks about eugenics.  You'll know it when you read it.  What is most surprising about the eugenics movement?  What is most shocking or disheartening or shameful?  Do you think science could go so wrong again?  Why or why not?