Abstract
Managing the pedagogical aspects of the ''computational turn'' that is occurring within the Humanities in general and the discipline of Philosophy in particular implies, first and foremost, facing the challenge of introducing students to computation. The experience described here presents what has proven, over the last three years, to be an efficient approach to bringing undergraduate Humanities students to reach insight into the nature of computation and its bearing on reflecting upon the mind. It is set within the context of a course on the topic of Perception (designed from a Cognitive Science perspective) featuring a neural-network-design laboratory component where students are asked to conceive of, implement, test, and discuss the neurophysiological, psychological and philosophical implications of the neuronal blueprints (of the MacCulloch-Pitts type) of a virtual creature which they are challenged to ''wire'' in such a way as to allow it to ''see the world'' within which they choose to place it. The technical insight on which we are reporting here is simply that basic competence in using a spreadsheet application (e.g. MS Excel) is all that is required to allow implementing and testing MacCulloch-Pitts neural-networking, bringing the miracle of computer simulation within the reach of even the most computer-shy undergraduates. ''Framing'' local spreadsheet areas and ''defining cell content'' as the result of applying ''conditional statements'' (featuring conditions based on basic arithmetic or logical operations applied across rows and columns of these local spreadsheet areas) is just about all there is to master in order for students to be able to simulate their neural networks. Once introduced to MacCulloch-Pitts neural networking (over an initial set of two ninety-minute laboratory sessions), only another two ninety-minute laboratory sessions were sufficient to bring groups of up to some forty (second- and third-year) undergraduates, most of which had never used a spreadsheet before, to manipulate these spreadsheet operations successfully. The students were then left to develop and implement their virtual creature's ''visual brain'', gently tutored into noticing the key-problems out of which arise the great philosophical debates about such issues as consciousness, qualia, categorization, induction, computational explanation, and the like.