Please note that had "in real life" sessions at UC Berkeley starting with a
Seminar in Beach Room, 3rd floor Tolman hall, UC Berkeley April 18 2014 2pm
The next took place 2-10 pm May 30 Beach Room, 3rd floor Tolman hall, UC Berkeley and they continued till the summer recess
Please see updates at http://foundationsofmind.org/blog.html
Proceedings of FOM have been available free on the e-journal "Cosmos and History" since late June 2014
http://www.cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/issue/current
and will later be issued by Cambridge scholars' as a book.
Both the consciousness and general cog sci online courses will now start Sept 22 2014
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Starting Sept 22, we will discuss 1 lecture a week here
The first formal week's lectures will be at sites to be announced; this is a summary and a sample lecture wich is also an introduction;h
http://universityofireland.com/newsyll2010.html
http://universityofireland.com/neuro-lecture-sampler/
User name and password have been given to registered students
You will also have access to the entire foundations of mind video archive, including great videos like this;
Please note;
1. This course costs $75. that fee also gets you access to the video record of the landmark associated conference;
http://foundationsofmind.org/
Please register at http://foundationsofmind.org/register.html
2. While it has been taught for credit at Stanford, the on-line version is beta. It will be precisely as taught for credit at Stanford, by the same professor, who will issue a certificate of completion.
3. For the moment, communication will be done through the blog, with students commenting on the blog. They are of course free to contact each other independently. We may have Skype meetings later
4. The text is "The Search for Mind" by Sean O Nuallain (third edition).
5. The material moves into pretty cutting-edge neuroscience for a few sessions - I deliberately put this on the sampler lecture to discourage the uncommitted
Have fun!
Syllabus
The detailed syllabus is as follows;
Course
description
Subject area Cognitive: science
Position within subject area: Neuroscience and
philosophy of mind
Intended audience
College students; intelligent and interested
laypeople
Course objectives
When
students have Completed this course, they will:
-know the essentials of neuroscience,
including the perhaps more veridical theories of neural function and
communication that may currently be emerging from such areas as non- linear
systems, quantum mechanics, and analysis of subthreshold neural oscillations
- know the basic arguments in the philosophy
of mind from Plato through Descartes, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Levine and such
popular putative contributions as that of Chalmers.
- In the absence of any certain conclusions
about the nature of subjective experience , which this course dues not claim to
give, be able to evaluate the many current and future claims that will be
presented to them proposing a direct link from neural fact to subjective experience
Prerequisites for students
Interest in the area; commitment to engage
with others in dialogue
Session by Session
Week 1: Historical aspects: Plato, Aquinas,
Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Husserl, Levine; the advent of cognitive
science. Neurophysiological
plausibility: assessment of conventional neural networks, the integrate and
fire paradigm, and approaches built on subthreshold resonance. Introduction of
the resonate and fire (RFNN)paradigm; vocabulary of non-linear systems to be
used in the course. The Hilbert transform as superset of the Fourier transform;
its applicability to brain function. Criteria for consequences for phenomenal
experience.
Week 2: RFNs continued. The encompassing
context; how does this work relate to contemporary controversies exemplified by
the Noe/Hurley/Block debate, and the notion of a neural correlate of conscious
experience.
Week 3:
Continuation of analysis of the work of RNF theorists like Izhekevich,
Reinker and Doris. The interaction of spatial and temporal codes. Topographic
maps that go point-to-point into higher-level maps and retinotopic mapping from the retina to LGN, from there to V1, and
in the other "V areas" up to IT.
How do these spatial maps interact with spectral codes of Karl Pribram?
Week 4: Multimodal mapping. Spatial location
and information integration. What other binding mechanisms are there, for
example in Martin's LIMSI work? ;Filling ; mechanisms and change blindness.
Week 5 The
contrastive approach in consciousness studies. Axonal versus dendritic
communication. The FM radio analogy pioneered by Izhekevich, Doris and Freeman. Meaning as AM in the work of Freeman
Week 6:
Other theories of consciousness; conscious inessentialism in Lashley and
Jackendoff. Fodor versus Descartes on modularity. Freeman, Suppes;
consciousness as a sample.
Week 7:
Edelman, involving the dynamic core hypothesis. Llinas and the
thalamocortical system. Pellionisz and Llinas on tensors in the work
popularized by Churchland
Week 8: Recapitualtion of historical aspects
and summary.. What theory, if any, will prevail? What seem to be the relevant
criteria?
Weeks 9 and 10 Student presentations.
Methods of Instruction While the instructor will
prepare a detailed presentation for each topic, the students will be encouraged
to debate the topics vigorously throughthe internet , and work together to give
presentations
Credit requirements and course grade 50% end
of session examination50% project work (to be finalised)
Background Reading
Barlow H. B. (1972) Single
Neurons
and Sensation: A neuron doctrine for perceptual psychology. Perception.
Perception 1, 371-394.
Biebel, U.W., Langner, G., 1997. Evidence for
"pitch neurons" in the auditory midbrain of chinchillas. In: Syka, J.
(Ed.), Acoustic Signal Processing in the Central Auditory System. Plenum Press,
New York
Braun, M., 2000. Inferior colliculus as
candidate for pitch extraction: multiple support from statistics of bilateral
spontaneous otoacoustic emissions. Hear. Res. 145, 130-140.
Braun, M., 1999. Auditory midbrain laminar
structure appears adapted to f 0 extraction: further evidence and implications
of the double critical bandwidth.
Hear. Res. 129, 71-82.
J. C. Eccles (1957). The Physiology of Nerve
Cells. Academic Press, New York, 1957
G Callewaert, J Eilers, and A Konnerth Axonal
calcium entry during fast 'sodium' action potentials in rat cerebellar Purkinje
neurones J Physiol (Lond) 1996 495: 641-647
Georgopoulos, A., Kalaska, J., Caminiti, R.,
& Massey, J. (1982). On the relations between the directionof
two-dimensional arm movements and cell discharge in primate motor cortex.
Journal ofNeuroscience, 2(11), 1527-1537.
Hubel and Wiesel (1959) Receptive fields of single
neurons in the cat's striate cortex
Hutcheon, B. and Yarom, Y. "Resonance,
oscillation, and the intrinsic frequency preferences of neurons" Trends
Neurosci. 2000 May; 23(5): 216-22
Izhikevich (2002) "Resonance and
selective communication via bursts in neurons having subthreshold
oscillations" Biosystems 67(2002) 95-102
Langner, G., Schreiner, C.E., Biebel, U.W.,
1998. Functional implications of frequency and periodicity coding in auditory
midbrain. In: Palmer, A.R., Rees, A.,
Summerfield, A.Q., Meddis, R. (Eds.),
Psychophysical and Physiological Advances in Hearing.
Whurr, London, pp. 277-285. Langner, G.,
Schreiner, C.E. and Merzenich, M.M. (1987) Covariation of latency and temporal
resolution in the inferior colliculus of the cat. Hear. Res. 31, 197-201
McCulloch, W. and Pitts, W. (1943). A logical
calculus of the ideas immanent in nervous activity. Bulletin of Mathematical
Biophysics, 7:115 - 133.
Rees, A. and Sarbaz, A. (1997) The influence
of intrinsic oscillations on the encoding of amplitude modulation by neurons in
the inferior colliculus. In: J. Syka (Ed.), Acoustic Signal Processing in the
Central Auditory System, Plenum Press, New York, pp. 239-252
O Nuallain, Sean (2003) The Search for Mind;
third edition. Exeter: England
Pribram, K. (1991) Brain and Perception:
holonomy and structure in figural processing. N.J. : Lawrence Erlbaum
Reinker, S, E. Puil, and R.M. Miura (2004)
"Membrane Resonance and Stochastic resonance modulate firing patterns of
Thalamocortical neurons: Journal of computational Neuroscience 16 (1): 15-25,
January-February, 2004
Rock, I. (1983) The logic of perception.
Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press
Rudolph, M. and A. Destexhe (2001) "Do
neocortical pyramidal neurons display stochastic resonance?" Journal of
computational neuroscience 11,19-42
DeSchutter, E. and Bower, J.M. (1993) Parallel
fiber inputs gate the Purkinje cell response to ascending branch synaptic
inputs. Soc. Neurosci. Abst. 19:1588.
Sherrington CS. 1906. Integrated Action of the
Nervous System. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK
Wu, M, C-F Hsiao, and S.C. Chandler (2001)
"Membrane reonance and subthreshold membrane oscillations in Mesencephalic
V Neurons: Participants in Burst Generation The Journal of Neuroscience, June
1, 2001, 21(11):3729-3739
