CS 24: Minds and Machines (LINGUIST 35, PHIL 99, PSYCH 35, SYMSYS 1, SYMSYS 200)

Course Description

(Formerly SYMSYS 100). An overview of the interdisciplinary study of cognition, information, communication, and language, with an emphasis on foundational issues: What are minds? What is computation? What are rationality and intelligence? Can we predict human behavior? Can computers be truly intelligent? How do people and technology interact, and how might they do so in the future? Lectures focus on how the methods of philosophy, mathematics, empirical research, and computational modeling are used to study minds and machines. Students must take this course before being approved to declare Symbolic Systems as a major. All students interested in studying Symbolic Systems are urged to take this course early in their student careers. The course material and presentation will be at an introductory level, without prerequisites. Note that this is a hybrid course. Students should plan to enroll by the first day of the quarter and check their Stanford email account for instructions on how to access the course material. If you have any questions about the course, please email symsys1staff@gmail.com.