Our Programs
Puzzles about consciousness: Minds, brains, and robots
In this course, students engage in philosophical inquiry into classic and contemporary puzzles about consciousness. These questions include: Do colors look the same to you as they do to other people, and what about flavors and the sensation of pain? Could robots ever have conscious experiences, and if so what might they be like? What is it about human brains that allows us to have conscious experiences? Is there a way for science to someday allow us to know what the experiences of others are like?
Each session begins with a presentation by the instructors on a puzzle about consciousness, combining observations from Philosophy, Cognitive Science, and Robotics. Students are then given a short break followed by a question to discuss in small groups. The group then reconvenes to discuss the question together. Students are encouraged to label their contributions to the discussion (e.g., hypothesis, reason, analogy, thought experiment, supporting example, counter-example, objection, clarification request, etc.). They also fill out inquiry diagrams that map out the hypotheses, reasons, and challenges as they come up. After another short break, students will spend the last 30 minutes choosing a question of their own to discuss together with class, again using labels and filling out inquiry diagrams.
Sessions 1-4 explore questions about sensory experiences, looking at visual perception and flavor perception in humans, and sensory processing in robots.
Sessions 5-7 explore questions about conscious experiences of pain and emotions, looking at what happens in the human brain during such experiences and exploring what it would take for robots to have similar 'brain' features.
Sessions 8-9 explore the limits and possibilities for a science of consciousness.
In Session 10, students will choose two of their inquiry diagrams and present summaries on how their positions have changed (or become strengthened) on the questions explored.
Availability
Monday – Saturday
Morning, Afternoon or Evening
Location
TBD
San Francisco, CA
Puzzles about knowledge: brains, babies, and bots
What is knowledge? What do illusions, magic tricks, and cognitive biases reveal about our brains? What do babies know and how do they learn? Can robots ever have knowledge, and if so what can they know? In this class, students will engage in philosophical inquiry on these classic and contemporary puzzles about knowledge. Each session begins with a short lesson, followed by a discussion question. Students will be encouraged to label their contributions to the inquiry (hypothesis, reason, analogy, thought experiment, counter-example, etc.) and fill out inquiry diagrams to map out the discussion. In the last 20 minutes of each session, students are asked to come up with their own questions to discuss as a group. Several sessions have a short optional (but encouraged) reading. On the final day, students give presentations to parents and guests on their two favorite inquiries.
Week 1: Philosophical Theories of Knowledge: Foundations, Coherence, and Infinite Regression.
Week 2: Perception (Part 1): What can we know from perception?; Descartes’ Skepticism, The Matrix, and Fallibility. [Reading: Rene Descartes “Meditation One” from his Mediations on First Philosophy. http://www.classicallibrary.org/descartes/meditations/4.htm]
Week 3: Perception (Part 2): Optical illusions and Magic Tricks—How our brains deceive us.
Week 4: Reasoning (Part 1): What can we know through reasoning? — Deduction, Induction, and Abduction.
Week 5: Reasoning (Part 2): Can our reasoning go wrong? Cognitive biases —how to spot them in ourselves and in others.
Week 6: Memory: What can we know from our own memories? Can our memories deceive us?
Week 7: Experts and what can we know from expert testimony?Which experts should we trust? [Reading: David Hume “On Miracles”, from his Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding. https://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/courses/43811/hume-on-miracles.htm]
Week 8: Babies: What are babies born knowing? How do they learn? How does early knowledge influence later knowledge? [Online Only; no class]
Week 9: Robots: Can robots ever be said to have knowledge? How are they similar to and different from humans?
Week 10: Presentations: Each student will have 2-5 minutes to present one or two of their favorite inquires from class, stating the question, their initial hypothesis, and how their ideas were changed or strengthened through the inquiry.
Availability
Monday – Saturday
Morning, Afternoon or Evening
Location
TBD
San Francisco, CA
Magic and the mind
In this program, students engage in a series of exercises designed to reveal how magic tricks deceive the human mind—a compelling and fun way to learn about perception, attention, memory, assumptions, reasoning, and social cognition. As the mind is one of the most complex and elegant systems in the world, understanding how it works is valuable in itself. But studying how it can be deceived has practical value as well. As critical thinkers, we are better able to override many of our minds’ fallacies. Students are expected to be active participants, learning and practicing magic tricks and engaging in discussions about how our minds fool us.
Session 1: Introduction, Perception, and Cognition: Magic tricks involving visual illusions; discuss assumptions, Basics of Vision --light, retina, fovea, neurons, V1, consciousness.
Session 2: Attention and Memory: Magic tricks involving attention and memory; discuss assumptions. Basics of Attention --exogenous, endogenous, tracking. Basics of memory --planting memories, revising memories, forgetting.
Session 3: Expectations and Background Assumptions; Probability. Magic tricks involving expectations/assumptions.
Session 4: Misconceptions about Probability and Randomness. Heuristics and biases. Magic tricks involving priors/base rates; discuss assumptions. Why extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Astrology demo. Practice cold reads; experiment with factors; discuss.
Session 5: Group presentations. Magic tricks. Explanations.
Availability
Monday – Saturday
Morning, Afternoon or Evening
Location
TBD
San Francisco, CA
Puzzles about Language, Logic, and Truth
This program uses Raymond Smullyan's puzzles about Knights and Knaves as a fun way for kids to sharpen their critical thinking skills. On the Island of Knights and Knaves, knights can only speak the truth and knaves can only speak falsehoods. For example, in one puzzle, a visitor to the island meets inhabitants A and B. Inhabitant A says, "All of us are knaves" and inhabitant B says, "Exactly one of us is a knave". Students must deduce from this information whether B is a knight or a knave. Ultimately, the puzzles lead kids into an understanding of Gödel's incompleteness theorem about language and truth.
Availability
Monday – Saturday
Morning, Afternoon or Evening
Location
TBD
San Francisco, CA