Abstracts of Papers, Part 3

Here are the last of the abstracts for the conference’s concurrent sessions. Abstracts of the plenary sessions will follow next week.

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Cognitive Science Study Abroad in Budapest

This is an undergraduate program in the Fall of 2009 for students majoring in psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, biology, linguistics, computer science, or artificial intelligence.
The deadline to apply is April 15th.
For more information contact : bscs@makog.hu or jhegedus@kzoo.edu or visit the SA website.

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The Dust Hypothesis

Fascinating argument and discussion at the Splintered Mind.

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Conference Papers

Congratulations to the students whose papers have been accepted for presentation at the 12th Annual Northeast Florida Student Philosophy Conference at UNF on February 7th:
“How to Motivate the Maxim that ‘Ought Implies Can’ to Defend the Principle of Alternate Possibilities”
Sean Armil (University of Florida)
“On the Limitations of Formal Methods”
Wataru Asanuma (Florida State University)
“A Defense of [...]

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Stimulating the Cerebral Cortex

Stimulating points on the cerebral cortex with the tip of an electrode can make a subject experience various sensations. A patient may move an arm and experience this movement as external, i.e., not originating from the subject, experienced as a reflex. Some have taken this to show there is part of the mind (higher order [...]

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H.M. Dies at 82

A famous participant in neuroscience research, H.M., died last week. NYT reports:
In 1953, he underwent an experimental brain operation in Hartford to correct a seizure disorder, only to emerge from it fundamentally and irreparably changed. He developed a syndrome neurologists call profound amnesia. He had lost the ability to form new memories.
For the next 55 [...]

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Sure, I beat my kids. What? Don’t you?

A few years ago, when my boys were 1 ½ years old, one of them ran from me while I was taking him out of the car in a crowded parking lot. He ran headlong right in front of an oncoming car. Despite what is often said about aging female drivers, the operator in this [...]

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Cognitive Neuroscience, Moral Psychology and Psychopathology

Interesting stuff right here.

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Whatever Makes a Person Human Seemed Somehow Missing*

JJ at Feminist Philosophers posted a recent case of a child who appears to have had little social contact for the first five or six years of her life. As JJ notes, feral children, while thankfully rare, are interesting to theorists for a variety of reasons. Questions about the nature of language, human capacity for [...]

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Sense-Data, Perception, and Illusions

Some philosophers- e.g. Frank Cameron Jackson, Howard Robinson- contend that the sense-data theory of perception is the only theory that can make proper sense of the term ‘illusion’. Take, for instance, two birds in a field on a sunny day. One bird, a cardinal, is perched atop a tree branch relatively close to our position; [...]

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Philosophers’ Carnival #53

Class is officially in session for the 53rd Philosophers‘ Carnival!
Since we at the Florida Student Philosophy Blog have recently returned to class, we thought you should too. We would like to thank all those who submitted, and we hope that you find the current selection as engaging as we did. Courses (or posts if you [...]

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Philosophy Soup, the Second Helping

With the Fall semester fully in swing there are great articles and discussions abound. Here are some for your consideration:
In his most recent post, Efficiency and Value, Richard from Philosophy, Etc. wonders whether supporting high-efficiency superstores provides more value than less efficient craft oriented systems.
Over at Brains, the most recent post is a [...]

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How Well Do We Know Ourselves?

Eric Schwitzgebel (UC-Riverside) has an interesting discussion of introspection and self-knowledge at The Splintered Mind. It’s worth a look.

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Why We Should Not Fear Death

Death is a common topic of speculation and frequently anxiety. In the time that Epicurus was laying out his way of life and sharing it with others this was the case. Epicurus, though, claimed that we should not fear death because, “Death, the most frightening of bad things, is nothing to us; since [...]

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An Interview with Richard Swinburne

… on philosophy of mind, compliments of The Sci Phi Show. Click on ‘Outcast 39′.
- Rico Vitz

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An Interview with David Chalmers

… is available here. Click on ‘Outcast #36′.
Thanks to The Brain Science Podcast for the tip.
- Rico Vitz

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Conference on Color

… at FSU, Saturday, April 14th. Details available here.
- Rico Vitz

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More on Buddhism

… here and here, compliments of our friends at R-P-E.
There are also interesting discussions for students both of Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas” as well as of brain damage and moral reasoning.
- Rico Vitz

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“The Emotion Machine”

… a colloquium featuring Marvin Minsky (MIT) at the University of Central Florida, Monday, April 2, 2007; 2:00 – 3:15 P.M.
- Rico Vitz

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Minding the Body

… the inaugural conference of the Center for Mind, Body, and Culture will take place March 29-30. Check out the site for details.
- Rico Vitz

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An Interview with Richard Shusterman

Our good fortune continues. Today, we are very pleased to welcome Richard Shusterman (Florida Atlantic University) to our blog for a brief interview related to the opening of the Center for Body, Mind, and Culture and its inaugural conference, which will take place this week.
FSPB: Richard, thank you for joining us. Congratulations to [...]

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Concept Possession and the Ability to Sort

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s entry on concepts explains three commonly held views of concepts. On the first, concepts are taken to be psychological entities that serve as constituents of the mental representations that feature in the representational theory of mind. On the second, concepts are understood in terms of concept possession which is explained [...]

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The Peculiar Phenomenology of Hallucination

It seems to me that when hallucination is discussed in Phenomenology, it is generally in the context of perception. Hallucination might be considered a type of perception, but this is not very illuminating for a phenomenon that seems to be so apart from what we consider normal perception. In the phenomenological context of [...]

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Freedom and Neurobiology

… a review and discussion of Searle’s new book is available at the GFP, as is an interesting discussion of Searle’s claim that “we cannot escape the presupposition of freewill.”
- Rico Vitz

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Nature of Mind: Dualism vs. Monism vs. ?

I’ve always had a deep interest in the nature of the human mind, but I have never been able to comfortably assert a philosophical stance on the subject, i.e. am I a dualist, monist, or something else entirely. This winter break I read The Mysterious Flame by McGinn and found myself less certain than ever. [...]

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