Competent technical writing involves more than good English writing. Technical writing involves a keen ability to do ‘content editing’. This course will develop this ability in students. Content editing consists of a thorough reexamination of the logic, correctness and organization of the ideas in the report: both self-critically and in […]
Courses that were offered in the M.Phil. Program
13 posts
This is a course dealing with an advanced pursuit in assigned areas of professional interest. Each student will work under the overall supervision and guidance of a Supervisor. The course must end with a well defined project report outlining all the investigative efforts and conclusions at the end of each […]
The course will explore the interface between consciousness and clinical medicine; how consciousness affects the body — in health, disease and the intervening transitional states. For example, mind/body interventional techniques (such as biofeedback, electronic entrainment devices, visualization, neurolinguistic programming and cognitive therapy) are known to bring about an alteration of […]
The prerequisite for this course is either a major in physics, or a major that included college level courses in mathematics and physics. Enrollment needs instructor’s permission. This course focuses on critically studying and learning about foundational or open problems in physics.
The field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has a natural connection with consciousness. The field aims to develop computational methods of a variety of cognitive tasks such as machine learning, problem solving, robotics and control. After introducing symbolic and connectionist computational models, several approaches to machine learning and data mining will […]
In last year’s offering, the course began with sixteen hours of lectures on foundational issues in quantum mechanics (with the teaching of relevant basic theory included). The other topics covered included a detailed study of Godel’s Theorem (15 hours), Skolem’s theorem and nonstandard numbers (7 hours); selected topics in philosophy […]
The course explores various behavioral studies conducted on animals and insects to answer the following questions: What is the extent of animal cognition? Do they have purposive behavior? Do they communicate through semantic symbols? Do animals have consciousness? The nature of life, which is closely related to consciousness, is also […]
Theories in neuroscience concerning the neural substrates and neural dynamics associated with cognition, emotion, attention, and consciousness of self will be introduced. The course also reviews known mechanisms by which cortical neurons or brain areas interact during certain behavior or internal states. Finally the last part of the course deals […]
This course is meant to develop and test the ability of the student to critically read advanced research papers in the field of philosophy. A wide variety of recent papers dealing with the philosophical issues underlying the field of consciousness studies will be taken up for reading. Topics to be […]
A sound background in analytical philosophy and philosophy of science is imperative for students to be successful in consciousness studies. This course will introduce basic philosophical issues in epistemology, ontology, and metaphysics and assign relevant reading material from the seminal works of principal Western philosophers. A variety of schools such […]