Philosophy 101E

On Tuesday, we will discuss Bleecker and Jenkinson, and we will move on to the Chaing short story. Please come to class prepared to discuss all these works.

Remember, your second 10 comments are due by this thursday at midnight!

Finally, we will have our final screening on Thursday at 7pm. The room has changed: it will be in 113 Davenport Hall. As always, I will bring snacks. Feel free to being your friends, although seating may be limited.
We will be watching the local underground cult class Love Machine. The documentary interviews a wide range of famous philosophers, roboticists, sex experts, and tech wizards to ask the burning question: can you ever love a machine? You can read more about the film in the official press release from the original screening at the Beckman Institute a few years ago. You will definitely recognize some of the names in the film, as well as most of the topics discussed.
Because this movie is so wildly popular, a few other classes might show up. Additionally, a lot of my fellow philosophy grad students are coming to see the film, many for the first time. So be prepared to see some new faces. Hopefully this means we will have a good discussion afterwards.

Use this thread to discuss any of the issues raised in class today: Net Neutrality, Wikipedia, Blogjects and the ‘Network of Things’, and Squarepusher’s idea of machine collaboration.

A few links. Don’t take my word on the Net Neutrality debate, it is worth doing research on your own. Here’s some of the links I put on the handout today:

Wikipedia:

   Nature: Internet encyclopedias go head to head
Cnet News: “Is Wikipedia safe from libel?” 12/7/2005    
Wikipedia class action lawsuit
Entity-hood (my commentary)

Google and Internet Neutrality
Google Blog: “Vint Cerf speaks out on net neutrality” 11/8/2005
Networking Pipeline: “Google: We wont pay broadband cyberextortion” 1/18/2006
Neutral Thoughts (my commentary)
Anti-net neutrality ad (paid for by the telecommunications companies)

Tiered Internet
Information Week: “Verizon Says Google, Microsoft Should Pay For Internet Apps” 1/5/2006
Ars Technica: “Monitoring traffic to nickel and dime you” 10/24/2005
Ars Technica: “FTC states in principle that ISPs should not block access to lawful Internet content” 12/28/2005
Quality Optional (my commentary)

Here’s your final. I will spend most of tomorrow going over the final, and it will function much like the review session we had for the midterm. Come prepared with any questions or comments you have.

Remember, the final is due on the date listed for the final in the course catalogue:

DUE: Monday Dec 11th, 1pm.

Final

1) Read the Bleecker article in the course pack for Tuesday. Read the Jenkinson article for Thursday. This week, we will be talking more about the internet and the possibility of machine participation.

2) I will hand out the final tomorrow. It will be online later this afternoon. The final is due on 12/11, as per the syllabus.

3) Your fourth and final post on the website is due this Thursday. I should have your previous posts and comments graded by tomorrow.

Just a few things to reiterate about the midterm.

1) First off, the grading scale is a bit wacky, and I’m sorry about that. I tried to curve it fairly. My original rubric had most people failing the test, so I hope most people are satisfied with the changes. But there are a few confusing issues with the curved scale. The syllabus states that the midterm is worth 200 points, but for 3 questions, that doesn’t really divide by 3 very easily. So I made each question out of 66 points, hoping to keep with a straight scale. Since that didn’t work out, I put in the curve. This means that your final grade in my grade book will be based solely on your letter grade on the midterm, as stated in the syllabus. In other words, the numbers don’t matter at all.

Here’s the scale, if you can’t be bothered to check the syllabus:

A+ = 97% B+ = 87%
A = 95% B = 85%
A- = 93% B- = 83%

And so on. You should be able to calculate your score out of 200 points from that percentage score to figure out your grade in the class.

2) Please don’t be afraid to come talk to me about your midterm. I’ve already had a few students talk to me, and I adjusted their grades accordingly. I’m going to stick closely to the rubric, but I’m human and I make mistakes. I make even more mistakes after reading papers on Descartes for a few hours, which tends to make my brains turn to mush. So if you have any questions or concerns about your grade, or the grading scale, or the rubric, please come talk to me.

3) If you did poorly, even if I didn’t make a grading mistake, still come talk to me. I am willing to let you rewrite your midterm, but you have to come talk to me sometime this week. Anyone who does not talk to me this week will not get a chance to rewrite it. You can come to my office hours on Thursday, or you can schedule an appointment with me on Wednesday or Friday. But please, don’t let a bad grade just sit there. I wont be able to give you full credit for your rewrite, but on the other hand you will have the rubric right there to work off, so it is definitely in your interest to come talk to me.

4) The final will be in the exact same format as the midterm: a series of questions about specific issues in the text for you to write short 2-3 page essays on. There will probably be a few more questions to choose from, and you will probably have to write 4-5 short essays for the final. The essays will cover material from the second half of the course (Turing and after), though there may be a question relating Descartes to one of the readings. The rubric will be similar as well, and I’ll probably grade it even more harshly than I did the midterm (since I don’t have to deal with disgruntled students after the final, heh). So you should use that information to determine how you are going to study and prepare for the final. If you have questions on the material, start asking questions in class! Start posting your questions to the website! Start engaging in discussion about the central themes!

If there are any other questions, send me an email or leave a comment here.

There will be a screening tonight in FLB G30 at 7pm. We will be watching “The Great Robot Race”, along with two short films.

1) Read Kline, Aristotle, and Marx for next week. We probably wont get to Marx until Thursday. Also, watch the Qrio video now!

2) I have grades done for all the comments and posts for the first half of the course. Everything after comment #350 was posted sometime this morning, so it wont count for the first session. I’ve double checked everything, and made some corrections, so everything should be accurate. However, I’m only human, so if you find a mistake, please let me know.

A few things:

First, apparently Cites doesn’t like the volume of emails I’ve been sending out, so I’ve had a few emails bounce back. As a result, you might not have been notified of all your grades. If you are worried about your grades, email me and I’ll tell you what I have in the grade book.

Before you do that, however, you should check to make sure you have posted the correct number of comments. You can’t use the search bar to check your comments, but there is a different way of keeping track of all your posts and comments. Sign into the course website, and at the dashboard, you will see a link titled ‘Manage’. Select it, and then select ‘comments’. Search for your name, and all your comments will come up.

Remember, I’m not giving any credit for anything in this thread, or any other off-topic posts. Off topic posts are fine, but don’t expect class credit for it. Don’t be too worried if that messed up your score, you have plenty of extra credit opportunities to make it up.

Double check with the emails I’ve sent you, and the actual number of comments you made. If there is a discrepancy, let me know which comments I failed to credit you for.

If there are any questions, just let me know.

1) Read Turing’s article for Tuesday. Read Searle’s article for Thursday.

2) As I have mentioned before, the reading load is going to pick up in this course, perhaps in a dramatic way. If people come to class unprepared to discuss the material, I may have to start giving pop quizzes. A good way to dissuade me from giving quizzes is to ask interesting and insightful questions in class that show just how studiously you have been reading. Hint hint.

3) I have finished grading all the posts, I should be finished grading comments some time this week if all goes well. Remember, your first 10 comments are due by this Thursday. By the end of this week, I should have graded 20% of your work, and you will have submitted 40% of your material. This should tell you whether or not you want to stick around in class. Last day to drop classes is on Oct. 13th.

4) I will also have a slightly different policy as far as grading goes on the website stuff. First of all, I will start contributing to discussions a lot more from now on. I hope that means better discussions all around. That also means that I will stop sending you long emails in response; the substance of my response will be in the threads, and I will just email you your grade. I hope that will help everyone out. If there are any concerns, please leave a comment here or bring it up on Tuesday. Second of all, I will be paying close attention to how well you can answer questions and criticisms of your post from other students. This will factor into your overall posting and commenting grade.

1) Your midterm is due next Tuesday at 1pm. I will need a paper copy at the beginning of class, and an online copy submitted through TurnItIn.

2) Your second post is due this Thursday by midnight. Your first 10 comments are due next Thursday by midnight.

3) This Thursday I will also be screening another movie. This time we will be watching Pi to end the God segment of the course and transition into the discussion of technology. 7pm, FLB G30. Same room, same rules- I’ll bring snacks, you can bring your friends, and extra credit all around.

4) I encourage you to use this page to discuss any issues you have about the texts with your classmates. It can be as simple as “I don’t understand this passage from Descartes…” If you write up something substantial I may give you credit, but if you just want feedback and some discussion and help from your peers, please feel free to post something to start a discussion. I’ll contribute too; I’m sure it will help everyone in the class.

1) Here are your midterm questions. Your response is due on October 10th at the beginning of class. You must submit a hard copy at the beginning of class, and submit the paper online through turnitin.com. Instructions for using TurnItIn can be found here.

Midterm (.htm)
Midterm (.doc)

Please come prepared to discuss the midterm on Tuesday. I will go over it in detail, and discuss any questions you might have. Remember, I have office hours on Tuesday and Thursday after class, and lots of time for setting up an appointment. I’d be more than happy to read a draft of an answer and give you a response.

2) Finish reading Hume’s Dialogues by Thursday. You can start reading the John Haugeland article Semantic Engines in the course packet (pg 13) for next Tuesday.

3) Remember, your next post is due by on Oct 5th, and your first 10 comments are due on Oct 12th. That means that the midterm is no excuse to avoid using the website!

Thanks again to everyone who gave me feedback in class. I’ll try to respond here to a few of the comments brought up in the assessment. If you have any other comments or suggestions, please leave a comment in this post. Follow the break to keep reading:

Continue Reading »

I should say that the first round of posts went very well, and I have been impressed by the level of discussion on this website. Keep it up!

1) Read Hume’s Dialogues, Parts I and II for class tomorrow. I would like to get through Part VI by Thursday to make sure we can finish Hume before the Midterm.

2) Our second screening will be Wednesday at 7pm in FLB G30, the same room we had last time. Again, I will bring in snacks and drinks, and you will receive extra credit for attending. I will be screening the Linklater film Waking Life. The movie is about an hour and 40 minutes or so, and I’ll be sticking around until 9pm to talk about the movie afterwards. Feel free to bring your friends.

3) We have finished up the first unit of the course, so everyone should be pretty familiar with the nature of this course. Tomorrow, at the beginning of class, I would like to take a few minutes to ask how you think the course is going. Is the reading or lecture material too difficult? Am I talking too quickly, or not clearly enough? Do you think the course website is helping? If you have any comments or suggestions about the way this class has been going, please come prepared to talk about it at the beginning of class tomorrow. I’d just like some feedback, to make sure the rest of the semester goes smoothly.

Alright, here’s the plan:

1. This week we finish up Descartes. Tomorrow I want to close out Descartes’ interactionism, and move on to the God stuff by Thursday. That means you should finish reading the Meditations by Thursday. A good plan is to read Med. 3 & 4 for Tuesday, and 5 & 6 for Thursday. Meditation 6 will probably spill over into next Tuesday, so if you can’t finish this week thats ok. You need to read Hume’s dialogues this weekend so we can start discussing those next Tuesday, as stated in the syllabus.

2. Remember, your first post is due this Thursday!! It must be in by midnight on Thursday. I will be sitting by my computer like a hawk; anything turned in after 12:00am (by my clock) will be counted as late and not accepted, as per the syllabus. Less than half of you have posted, so get to it!

3. Remember, your first 10 comments are due by 10/12. There have been very few comments so far. Think of it like this: You have 10 comments due, and only 8 weeks to complete them. That averages out to just over one comment every week. Now consider the fact that we are already in the 4th week of classes. To stay on top of this assignment, you need to have around 4 or 5 comments already up. Those of you who don’t have anything posted on this site need to start participating or risk falling far behind.

If there are any questions, leave a comment here or send me an email.

Leave a comment in this post to state your preference for screening times.

We are still scheduled to for a screening this Thursday at 6pm in FLB G30, but this will help us choose better times for future screenings.

Evenings (around 6 or 7pm) any day of the week (except Fridays) work best for me, but I am flexible. It is probably impossible to reach a full consensus on the matter, so we’ll have to go with what works for most people.

Just a couple quick reminders:

1. Read Descartes’ Meditations One and Two (pages 13-24) for class tomorrow.

2. Remeber that your first post is due one week from Thursday, on 9/14.

3. I’m going to be screening the first movie for the class this Thursday evening at 6pm in 1FLB G30. Thats the Foriegn Language Building, and I think its in the basement. I will bring snacks and will be giving extra credit to anyone who shows up. Plus, anything I screen for the class is fair game for web posts and comments, so there’s every reason in the world to show up.

The movie is an hour long nature documentary by David Attenborough on bowerbirds. I dont want to give too much away about the documentary, but its really neat and will help lead us into the discussion of technology later in the course. I’ve got some videos after the break about a couple of interesting birds, to give you a taste of what to expect, but the bowerbird blows them all out of the water.

Continue Reading »

Just a few reminders:

Remember to pick up a copy of the course packet from Notes and Quotes, and to read the first entry (”Plato on Dialectic and Techne”) by Tuesday.

Remember to register for this website!! Less than a third of the class is registered right now, so get moving! You can’t make posts or comments without registering.

Additional:

There seems to be some confusion over exactly what is required in the posting assignments. One student emailed me the following:

i am a little confused about the postings that we have to do. my problem is what are we posting about? is it about the summary of the readings and what we do in class or is it something else?

From the syllabus: You may summarize the reading in your own words, discuss your own view on the issue, put forward arguments for or against a position, and/or raise a question about the material, lecture, or class discussion.

Basically, think of it as a one or two page paper about some topic you find interesting in class. I’m leaving the range of topics pretty open, but it should pertain to the material or discussions in class in some substantial way. Also, it doesn’t have to be formatted exactly like a formal paper. It can be more discursive in nature, perhaps raising a question you would like to discuss further. Or you can just point out something in the reading you found interesting or insightful and explain why. Deni’s post from yesterday is a perfect example.

Hopefully my response helps clarify this for other students with the same question. If there are any other questions or clarifications, feel free to email me or leave a comment in this thread. If you want to just test out how to leave a comment, you can do that here too.

Additional (2)

Another point of clarification on the comments. Please make sure your comment is a direct response to the post you are commenting on. If you have your own original ideas to share, please do so in your own post. However, comments should be kept on the topic of the original post.

That means you can challenge the original poster’s views, raise questions about their textual interpretations, or expand on an idea in the post you find interesting. Your own (condensed) interpretation on the topic is also appropriate, but be sure to keep it within the context defined in the original post.

We can talk about this more on Tuesday.

This is your course website. Please spend some time getting familiar with it, because you will be using it a lot during the semester.

I have set up some tutorials to help you get started. The links to the tutorials are on the sidebar to the left, or you can go here:

How to register

How to write a post

How to make a comment

Please use your full name (and not your NetID) as your username! 

Remember, each student is responsible for making at least 4 posts and at least 20 comments over the course of the semester, so the sooner you learn how to do it, the better. The 4 posts/20 comments is the minimum requirement; however, you are encouraged to engage in more detailed debates and discussions on this board about any issue pertaining to the course material. If some topic interests you, write about it! Its an easy way to get a good participation grade, and you might just earn some extra credit.

If you have any questions, leave me a comment on this post or send me an email: djestrada@gmail.com