Also, choose one of the following topics and write a short response (less than 1 page).

(a) A personal meditation on an event that happened in your childhood, your memories of it now, and your feelings as to the reliability of your memories of it now.

(b) A poem or painting involving/evoking memory, forgetting, and/or their connections to the ways in which we think, reason, or justify ourselves.

(c) An answer to the question: what makes you the same person that you were two years ago? (Or are you?)

We discussed the story Funes the Memorious, by Jorge Luis Borges. We also discussed students' assignments. Finally, we discussed the concept of "abstraction" and how abstract thought involves forgetting differences between the objects one lumps together.

In the second half of class, we discussed mathematics, as an example of the art of thinking abstractly. We discuseed Hotel Infinity and its interesting properties. We used basic mathematical problems to illustrate just how unreliable some of our intuitions are. Specifically, we looked at a problem that nearly all students attempted (independently) to solve in the same way, a way which we called "greedy." We saw how that greedy attempt failed to find the optimal solution to the problem.

The reading assignment for the following week was to read part of the book Logic, by Wilfrid Hodges

We discussed part of the book Logic, by Wilfrid Hodges. A power point presentation can be downloaded here.

Choose one of the following assignments:

(1) Find two examples of seemingly contradictory sets of beliefs that some politicians are accused of having. Evaluate the merits of the accusations. (You cannot use the examples in the book.)

(2) Write down a poem (consisting of ten verses at the very least) the verses of which are, each one of them, selection violations or hopelessly ungrammatical, and, most importantly, *which you think works well to express something.* (This must be a poem of your creation.) Write down what you think the poem should convey to someone reading it.

(3) Find five examples of funny ambiguous sentences, and for each one of them, write down two meanings that it could have. (You cannot use the examples in the book.)

We discussed the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. We also discussed conceptual metaphors, and their cultural significance. Books involved in this discussion: The Metaphors We Live By, by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, and Metaphor, by Zoltán Kövecses.

A power point presentation can be downloaded here.

The reading assignment for next class was to pick one of chapters 4 and 5 of the book Geography of Thought, by Richard Nisbett, and come prepared to class to discuss.

Do one of the following:

(a) Write a short reflection on what it would be like if the dominant metaphor for arguments in our culture were "an argument is a dance."

(b) Identify a few metaphors that Senators McCain and Obama have used in their respective Presidential campaigns.

(c) After reading one of the reading assignments, propose an experiment you think could be interesting to run on Salem State students. (You might want to run one of the experiments in the reading, but focusing on something else: for example, most experiments in the reading pit Westerners vs. Asians; how about men vs. women, or young vs. old, or... you get the idea.)

We started class with a general discussion of how to buy books online. A handout can be downloaded here.

We talked a bit about how to research possible majors for college. A handout can be downloaded here.

We discussed chapters 4 and 5 of the book Geography of Thought, by Richard Nisbett.

Discussion questions for chapter 4 can be downloaded here.

Discussion questions for chapter 5 can be downloaded here.

We started with reminders: Witch Hunt shows on Tuesday, October 21, at 4:30pm, and on Wednesday, October 22, at 6:30 pm. Proof shows October 16-18, 23-25, at 8 pm.

A summary of discussion can be downloaded here.

Write a draft of an email (addressed to a particular Professor from some department that offers a major you are interested in), and send that draft to me. Use my Salem State email address: lpoitevin at salemstate.edu.

Read chapters 1 and 2 of Predictably Irrational.

Answer the question on slide number 22 of the lecture.

For next class, you are to bring in a preliminary proposal for your final project. Select either an experiment you would like to perform on SSC students or a topic you would like to write a final essay on. The following are possible experiments:

• Classification Task: Show SSC students three pictures-cow, chicken, patch of grass--and ask them to pick the one that doesn't fit. Compare two very different populations of SSC students proposed by you. (Provide a guess for what the project's results will be.)
• Basketball Passes Task: Show a video to SSC students of two teams playing basketball, and ask them to count the number of passes the white team makes. See if they detect the gorilla. Again, compare two very different populations of SSC students proposed by you. (Provide a guess for what the project's results will be.)
• Morality and Disgust Task: Choose a disgusting story in which no hurt can possible come to anyone. Tell the story to a number of SSC students, and ask two questions to them: (1) Does the story produce disgust in you?; (2) Do you think the person in the story did something deserving of punishment? Again, compare two very different populations of SSC students proposed by you. (Provide a guess for what the project's results will be.)
• Disappearing Objects Task: Ask SSC students to identify an object that disappears from the scene in a clip. Compare the performance of two very different populations of SSC students proposed by you. (Provide a guess for what the project's results will be.)
• Movie with Multiple Changes Task: Ask SSC students to watch a movie clip (twice). The first time, don't tell them anything about the clip. The second time, explain that some things are changing during the clip, and ask them to identify them. Ask the students to identify all changes in the clip, both after the first showing of the clip, and after the second showing of the clip. Compare the performance of two very different populations of SSC students proposed by you. (Provide a guess for what the project's results will be.)
• Intentions Task: Give to SSC students two totally symmetric scenarios and ask whether the actions of an indifferent actor are intentional or unintentional. Give them also two totally symmetric scenarios and ask whether the actions of an emotionally invested actor are intentional or unintentional. (Provide a guess for what the project's results will be.)
• Compatibilism Task: Give to SSC students a task to test whether they are compatibilists. (A compatibilist is someone who believes that even when a person can't help but to act a certain way, that person may sometimes fairly be held morally responsible for his or her actions.) This task will be described this coming week. So if you pick this one, you don't need to provide a guess for what the project's results will be, nor will you have to provide a justification for it. Simply pick it, if you are interested.
• The Happiness Machine Task: Again, this experiment will be discussed this coming Friday. So, again, if you wish to do this task, you don't need to provide a guess for what the project's results will be, nor will you have to provide a justification for it. Simply pick it, if the following scenario strikes you as interesting: "suppose you are offered to get connected to a machine like the matrix, so that you will forget at all that you were connected to the machine, and you will live an incredibly exciting life inside the machine: everything you always wanted to be true in your life will take place, and you will be successful and happy. Will you take this deal?" Most people will say no, and philosopher Robert Nozick says that this is because people value reality. But a student of Joshua Knobe has come up with another scenario that seems to contradict this notion. We will discuss this in class next time.
• The "Free!" Trap Task: Set up a table with the sign ("One chocolate per customer") to sell Lindt truffles and Hershey kisses at different prices (1 cent for a kiss, 10 cents for a truffle). Record how many people buy each. Later on, discount the prize to "Free!" for the kiss and 9 cents for the truffle (or 5 cents for the truffle). And see if the proportion of people buying each changes. (This project is described in Chapter 3 of Predictably Irrational, the book you are supposed to bring to class next time.)
• Keep Doors Open Task: Have SSC students play an online game the purpose of which is to earn points by opening doors and clicking with a mouse inside each door. Compare two very different populations of SSC students and see whether there is a difference. We will discuss this experiment later on in class. (This project is described in Chapter 8 of Predictably Irrational, the book you are supposed to bring to class next time.)
• Easy Math Problems Task: Ask the following easy questions to two very different populations of SSC students to be proposed by you. (1) A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? (2) If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets? (3) In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake? Record the success rate of the two groups and compare.

We discussed Chapters 1 and 2 from Predictably Irrational. Discussion worksheets are here and here.

We also observed some simple biases and blunders of our brain's automatic system.

We discussed four different scenarios that illustrate the issue of whether compatibilism is intuitive or not.

Finish filling out discussion worksheets for chapter 1 and chapter 2.