Introduction to Philosophy – Week 2 (The Pre-Socratics)

The main topic this week were the Pre-Socratic philosophers. In particular we talked about Thales, Parmenides, Heraclitus and Democritus. The pre-socratics were framework breakers. They invented a whole new way of thinking.  Framework breakers ask open questions, not closed questions. Why does the sun move across the sky? Instead of, which God makes the sun …

Minds & Machines: Week 2 – Minds and Computers (part II)

This week both lectures continued on from part one and the debate between strong AI and weak AI. This week we also looked at what is an argument and what makes a good argument. An argument is a list of sentences. These sentences are called premises and they need not be true. If they are …

Introduction to Philosophy – Week 1

My new philosophy course is an introduction to the subject that aims to cover the history of philosophy and explore some of the great thinkers including Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Hobbs, Lock, Kant, Nietzsche and Foucault. This first session was an introduction to the course. What is Philosophy? Philosophy is the activity of working out the …

Minds & Machines: Week 1 – Minds and Computers

This week I started a new online MOOC through MITx called Minds and Machines. This course is an introduction to philosophy of the mind. Some of the questions we will be thinking about in this course are: Are you an “immaterial soul” , distinct from your brain and body? Alternatively, are you simply a material …

Who was Leonardo of Pisa?

Leonardo of Pisa is probably not a name you will instantly recognise, but, you are sure to know him by his nickname - Fibonacci, the 13th century mathematician from Italy. Fibonacci roughly translates to 'Son of Bonacci' and this name was given to Leonardo by the French mathematician Édouard Lucas in the 1870s. A recent Sydney …

AI, robots and lawn bowls

Topic: Robotics, Artificial Intelligence Year group: Year 6 Task: Build and code a robot that learns from past experiences Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the most important technology of our era. In particular, machine learning (ML) is going to play a vital role in how the human race makes progress in the decades to come in …

Philosophy of Technology: Humans vs Machines – Final Week

In this final session we discussed some of the best sci-fi films that explore issues of technology, artificial intelligence, robotics and more. In particular we discussed the film Ex Machina and watched some scenes from the movie. Kerry has recommended Ex Machina from week 1 of the course and says it was one of the best …

Philosophy of Technology: Human vs Machine – Week 9

The penultimate week of the course. This week we focused on self-driving cars and drone technology. We started by talking about how the motor vehicle has shaped our urban environments. Cities are designed around cars, street layout, bridges, intersections, tunnels, road signs, traffic lights and more, it is all because of the car. When something …

Philosophy of Technology: Human vs Machine – Week 8

This session featured two main topics: medicine and crime. We started by reading an article titled 'Human Enhancement and Personal Identity' by Philip Brey. The article talks about the implications of human enhancement for personal identity and assesses the social and ethical consequences of these changes. Human enhancement is an emerging field with medicine with the …

Philosophy of Technology: Human vs Machine – Week 7

In our session this week we finished our discussion of Machine Ethics and began discussing Medical issues and technology. We started the session by talking about intelligent machines that could be capable of thinking of their own rules. We asked who would be to blame when something goes wrong? The programmer did not code in …