Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Wanted: Functionalist Group-Mind Affirmers

Dear Brain Hammer-heads,

I'm looking to round up a pile of citations of functionalists who have explicitly endorsed, in response to Ned Block's Chinese Nation argument from "Troubles with Functionalism," that an appropriately organized Chinese population would give rise to a solitary group mind.

Thanks in advance,

Pete

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Introducing Dr. Collins

Earlier today, Mike Collins passed his defense of his doctoral
dissertation in philosophy at the CUNY Grad Center. Mike was one of my
students in philosophy and cognitive science at WPU and was one of my
coauthors on "Evolving Artificial Minds and Brains" (http://www.petemandik.com/philosophy/emb.PDF
).

I was pleased to serve on the committee today with Jesse Prinz
(director), Michael Devitt, Michael Levin, and Samir Chopra.

(Since Jesse was on my defense committee back in 2000, we decided this
makes Collins Jesse's intellectual grandson. Nice work, gramps!)

Congrats Dr. Collins!