PSY1914: What is the Human Mind?

You are reading the description of a seminar. That is, some part of you is capable of taking a series of shapes as visual input, abstracting intended meaning from them, organizing the information, and evaluating what you've organized (e.g. "fascinating seminar!"). Your mind accomplishes this task, not your lungs or heart, but what is this thing - "mind" - that is capable of such complex internal information processing? Is it just a flurry of activated brain cells? Is it something non-physical? When you think about it, one of the most intriguing aspects of the universe is that you can think, that minds operate as entities that appear to be crucially tied to physical brains but that are also importantly different. In this seminar, we will examine conceptions of the human mind from psychological, philosophical, and neuroscientific perspectives. Can science and critical analysis offer a concrete and compelling specification of the human mind?

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