Daily Schedule
| Date | Topic | Reading | Lecture notes | Quizzes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tues, Jan 3 | Course introduction & Free will | “What’s expected of us” by Ted Chiang (2005) | Decoding in fMRI | Pre-course survey |
| Wed, Jan 4 | Free will | “Neuroscience vs philosophy: Taking aim at free will” by Kerri Smith (2011) “Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain” by Chun Siong Soon et al (2008) | Free will in neuro | Free will in neuro |
| Thurs, Jan 5 | Memory | Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) | Memory intro | Eternal Sunshine |
| Fri, Jan 6 | Memory | “The legacy of patient H.M. for neuroscience” by Larry R Squire (2009) optional: “A mouse. A laser beam. A manipulated memory” | Cognitive neuropsychology | Patient H.M. |
| Mon, Jan 9 | Language & thought | Arrival (2016) optional: “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang (2002) | Categories | Arrival |
| Tues, Jan 10 | Language & thought | “New perspecitves on language and thought” by Lila Gleitman & Anna Papfragou (2017) Note: Skip the sections on spatial relations, motion, evidentiality, and number (p. 30-37, 41-42, 44-49). | NA | Language & Thought |
| Wed, Jan 11 | Social Cognition | “The lifecycle of software objects” by Ted Chiang (2010) | Social cognition | Software objects |
| Thurs, Jan 12 | Social Cognition | “Functional MRI adaptation” by Nancy Kanwisher “Asymmetric fMRI adaptation reveals no evidence for mirror neurons in huamns” by Agelkia Lingnau et al (2009) Note: Do not read the “Materials and Methods” section Mirror Neurons after a quarter century: New light, new cracks by JohnMark Taylor (2016) | NA | Mirror Neurons |
| Fri, Jan 13 | Visual Plasticity | Ghost in the Shell (1996) | NA | Ghost in the Shell |
| Tues, Jan 17 | Visual Plasticity | Neuralink’s vision restoration Note: Watch the visual section to 10:48 “Partial recovery of visual function in a blind patient after optogenetic therapy” by José-Alain Sahel et al (2021) Note: Only read pg 1-6 | Visual Plasticity | Visual Plasticity |
| Wed, Jan 18 | Consciousness & Intelligence | All Systems Red by Martha Wells (2017) Artificial Condition by Martha Wells (2018) | NA | Murderbot Diaries |
| Thurs, Jan 19 | Consciousness | “Are large languague models sentient” by David Chalmers (2022) Note: Start 7:00 and stop at 1:07:00 | NA | LLMs |
| Fri, Jan 20 | Intelligence | Commonsense psychology in human infants and machines” by Gala Stojnic et al (2022) Note: Read p. 1 to top 16 | NA | Infant intelligence |