Marshall Abrams

Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy,
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Office: Humanities Building 418
Phone: (205) 996-7483
Email: mabrams@uab.edu

Welcome to my boring course web page! No colors! Animated pictures! (No YouTube links??)
Feel free to email, call, or stop by with questions about courses listed below.
(Information about my research can be found here.)

Spring 2010 course: Minds and Machines

	This course focuses on questions like the following: Can computers think? Is the mind just the brain's software? Could intelligence consist of following sophisticated rules? How could a machine understand metaphor, analogy, or symbolism? Would a computer be smarter if it had emotions? How can a computer or brain represent—think about—anything outside of itself? We'll approach such questions from the perspectives of philosophy of mind, artificial intelligence, and cognitive psychology.

	PHL 372-2C, Tuesday and Thursday, 11:00am to 12:15pm

	Required textbooks: The Mechanical Mind, 2nd edition (2003) by Tim Crane Publisher: Routledge ISBN-10: 0415290317 ISBN-13: 978-0415290319 Mental Leaps: Analogy in Creative Thought (1996) by Keith J. Holyoak and Paul Thagard Publisher: The MIT Press ISBN-10: 0262581442 ISBN-13: 978-0262581448 (Other readings will be available as handouts during the semester.)

Turing machine simulator
(modified version of http://www.turing.org.uk/turing/scrapbook/tmjava.html)