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Notes on video lecture:
What Mental Modules Are Not
Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:
blank, nothing, user, CEO, tools, tasks, learning, modules, facial, single, organizing, granted, mechanisms, self, evolutionary, localized
if the conscious          is not the thing directing behavior and directing thought, then what is doing this?
the answer that comes from the modular view of the mind is:                in particular
this doesn't mean nothing, it just means no              thing
rather, there are a number of things called               
they take turns exerting decisive on our thought, our feelings, and behavior
there is no conscious self picking the module that gets to be in charge at any given moment
it's more like the modules are competing and seizing control of the system in a kind of free-for-all, self-                     system
1980s modern                          psychology
critics of evolutionary psychology
asking why we needed to talk of the role of genes in shaping the human mind
the human mind is a            slate
a general-purpose                  machine
response
no, you have to have a number of built-in, functional                     
support from artificial intelligence
AI has learning since the 1950s how hard it is to design into machine functions that we take for               
humans don't spend a lot of time puzzling over how we recognize people's faces, it seems to just happen
Swiss army knife metaphor
the brain has different modules to perform different           
but there are three main ways in which the modular view of the brain is not like a Swiss army knife
1. modules are not                   
each blade defines a particular space and are individualized
modules are not so localized in the brain
the              recognition module is not in one place and no where else
it's a distributed network
2. modules interact and communicate with each other
if you see somebody you know, you also begin to interpret what they mean
the semantic interpretation module takes over from the facial recognition module
3. modules can be more than           
blades are just tools, if there is no         , they have no use
but modules mobilize other modules
if we find enough modules and find out how they work and how they work together, we may have a more useful concept of the self than the        consciousness

Ideas and Concepts:

Thoughts on the self, via tonight's Buddhism and Modern Psychology class: "If the conscious self is not the thing directing our behavior and thought, then what is doing this? The answer that comes from the modular view of the mind is:nothing in particular. This doesn't mean nothing is directing our thoughts and behavior, it just means no single thing is directing our thoughts and behavior. Rather, there are a number of modules, if you will, which take turns exerting decisive influence on our thought, our feelings, and behavior. There is no conscious self picking the module that gets to be in charge at any given moment, it's more like the modules are competing and seizing control of the system in a kind of free-for-all, self-organizing system."
Naturalistic Buddhism
Feelings and Illusions
The First Two Noble Truths
Buddhism as Rebellion Against Natural Selection's Agenda
The Eightfold Path and the Matrix
Mindful Meditation
The Default Mode Network
The Evolution and Purpose of Feelings
Anātman: Buddha's Concept of the Not-Self
The Five Aggregates and the Non-Self
Left Brain, Right Brain, and The Self
Delusions of the Self
What Mental Modules Are Not
The Modular Theory of the Mind
Modular Theory of Mind and the Non-Self
Mind Modularity, Cravings, and Self Control
The Experience of the Not-Self
The Exterior Version of the Non-Self