PHI 101 Mind, Brains, Computers, Cartesian, Turing, Searle

What is it to have a mind? We are certain that anyone reading this text has a mind. But what are the special properties that beings with minds have? What sorts of things have those properties: animals? Infants? Computers? We will discuss some of the approaches contemporary philosophers have taken to the question of what it is to have a mind. We begin our discussion with Cartesian dualism, which claims that mind is immaterial, continue to identity theory, a view that mind is identifiable with physical matter, and finish with functionalism, according to which a mental state is essentially identifiable with what it does. Secondly, we concentrate on the problems that thought experiments of Alan Turing and John Searle pose to the functionalist account of mind.