Class notes
PS2061: Brain and Behaviour lecture notes
- Course
- Institution
25 pages worth of notes from the brain and behaviour module. I got a high first in this module and hope i can do the same for you!
[Show more]
Seller
Follow
phoenixfantasies
Reviews received
Content preview
PS2061: BRAIN & BEHAVIOURCan Neuroscience explain the ghost in the machine?
The Human Brain:
➢ Consists of about 100 billion neurons..Each neutron can form between 5,000-200,000
connections with other neurons.
Levels of Organisation:
The Ghost in the Machine:
➢ Cartesian Dualism: Descartes recognised that mind and brain were inextricably linked,
but also separate.
➢ Many schools of thoughts in philosophical psychology.
Behaviourism:
➢ Behaviour can be researched scientifically without recourse to inner mental states.
➢ Free will is illusory, and all behaviour is determined by a combination of forces
(environment, genetics, etc).
➢ Mind may not exist and is not necessary to study it. Only input/output is important.
Materialism:
➢ Occams Razor: logical principle that the simple explanation is the best, and no extra
assumptions should be made.
➢ The only thing that can exist is ‘matter’. All things are composed of matter and
phenomenon are the result of material interactions, therefore the ‘mind’ must be a
property of matter (brain).
Monism to Dualism:
➢ Substance Dualism: Mind and matter are fundamentally different. (Science rejects).
➢ Property Dualism: even if mind comes from brain, subjective experience has properties
that cannot be reduced to brain states.
➢ Monism: identity theory. Mind = Matter in an absolute sense.
Property Dualism:
, ➢ ‘Non-reductive physicalism’: low level physical states (brain) cause higher level states
(eg. Mental state). But one cannot explain higher level effects in terms of lower-level
causes.
➢ Conscious experience cannot be explained by physical properties of the brain. Mental
properties are distinct from physical properties.
➢ Mind states come from brain states but we can’t explain mind states in terms of brain
states.
➢ They have ‘properties’ that are distinct from the properties of brains.
Functionalism:
➢ A form of Property Dualism.A response to behaviourism.
➢ The doctrine that what makes something in a mental state depends on the functions of the
brain such as sensory inputs and behavioural outputs.
➢ Assert that mental life can be explained in terms of higher-level functions.
➢ Assumes that info processing occurs at a level of abstraction that doesn’t depend on the
physical composition of a system.
Artificial intelligence: Connectionism
➢ An approach that explains mental phenomena using artificial neural networks.
➢ Memory is distributed in networks of neurons, such that experience is encoded
in the strength of connections between them.
➢ Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP):
– Inspired by the massively parallel nature of brain networks.
– Acquired knowledge is distributed across the network rather than at any single point
in the network.
➢ Backpropagation: is a way of training neural networks. The networks are
presented with training sets containing several examples of inputs along with
corresponding desired outputs.
– The extent of the difference between actual and desired outputs is the degree of
the error.
– Connections have values (‘weightings’) reflecting their strengths (the degree to
which an input can activate its target).
– The error signal is propagated backwards (in a sense, to ‘blame’ the layer above
the outputs). The initially random weightings are adjusted with learning until
errors are minimal.
Against Functionalism:
➢ Functionalism argues that in theory, even consciousness can be implemented
in any computer.
➢ John Searle (1980) argues: emulating the functional behaviour of the brain, or
some part of it, is insufficient grounds for attributing to a machine or computing
device the cognitive states such as those experienced by conscious beings like
ourselves.
➢ The Turing Test (1950s): A person converses ‘virtually’ with a another person
(A) and a computer (B) but does not know the true identity of either.
The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:
Guaranteed quality through customer reviews
Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.
Quick and easy check-out
You can quickly pay through credit card or Stuvia-credit for the summaries. There is no membership needed.
Focus on what matters
Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!
Frequently asked questions
What do I get when I buy this document?
You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.
Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?
Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.
Who am I buying these notes from?
Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller phoenixfantasies. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.
Will I be stuck with a subscription?
No, you only buy these notes for $5.85. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.
Can Stuvia be trusted?
4.6 stars on Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)
75323 documents were sold in the last 30 days
Founded in 2010, the go-to place to buy study notes for 14 years now