This document provides an overview of the Cognitive Science major at Carleton University. It outlines the required courses which include introductory courses in cognitive science, philosophy, linguistics, psychology, and computer science. It also details the philosophy and linguistics courses students must take based on their chosen stream of language, vision, or artificial intelligence. The major prepares students for graduate school or employment and includes an honours thesis project. Direct questions to the undergraduate coordinator.

1. CGSC 1001
Mysteries of the Mind
by Jim Davies
jim@jimdavies.org
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2. Making the world better
• Part of that is reducing problems
Cue:
http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_dawkins_
on_our_queer_universe.html
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3. Problems getting
worse:
• Environmental
damage
• Social capital
 Read “Bowling Alone”
by Robert Putnam
3
Problems on the
decline:
War and Torture
Crime
Starvation
Disease
Short life span
Inequality

4.  Reduce Carbon Emissions
• Technological Solution: Come up with an alternate,
safe energy source.
 Fund science and engineering to do it.
 Get more people to care so our representatives will make it
happen.
 Market the problem.
 Get money to market the problem.
 How?
• Social Solution: Convince people to use (much) less
oil.
 Market the problem.
 Get money to market the problem.
 How?
4

5. The reason we can’t solve all the problems
in the world is, ultimately, because we
don’t know how to do it.
Figuring out how to do it requires thinking
and problem solving.
Guess what field is best suited to study
thinking and problem solving?
• Artificial blood vessel example
5

6. The human modeling side of cognitive
science studies how people actually solve
problems, and all of the other cognitive
functions it takes to do it.
The AI engineering side of cognitive
science tries to make programs that can
solve problems for us, often better than us.
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7. Stock Trading
Arithmetic and Statistics
Scheduling
Search Engines and Aggregating
Many games
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8.  Language
 Physical Movement
 Creativity (arts, science, etc.)
 Science
 Social interaction
 Vision
 Many games
 Most everyday tasks, etc.
 However, AIs and other programs can make
humans more effective, used as tools.
8

9. Even if there is some other problem you
think is more important, you can apply
cognitive science to the problem solving in
that problem.
That’s what I did for a time.
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10. 10
Primary
Structure
Tertiary
Structure
Overall
Shape
Viewed
Without
Internal
Structure
Ordered list of amino
acid residues. Easy
to get for unknown
proteins.
Pink ribbons are alpha
helices, yellow arrows
are beta sheets, white
strings are turns
Gray cloud represents van
der Waals forces of the
side chains. Blue and
yellow lines are chemical
bonds. Magenta is the
active site.
Gray blob is an
inhibitor.

11. 11
 http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_dawkins_on_o
ur_queer_universe.html

12.  There are currently about 220 majors
 Small classes
 Majors have to take some programming
 Honours project or extra course
 Also a non-honours 3 year degree
 About half of our graduates go on to graduate
school, and the other half goes to work
 Required classes are 15 or 16 credits (4 year
degree; out of a total of about 20 for your
entire time at Carleton)
 It’s not particularly easy
12

13. 13

14. All cogsci majors must take everything on
the top half (3 year degree does only top)
The bottom half is split by “stream.”
So if you’re a language stream student,
you must take all of the classes in the
language column on the bottom half.
Direct questions to ugrad coordinator:
Mark MacLeod mark.macleod@carleton.ca
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15. 15
General Cogsci Courses Majors must take:
CGSC 2001 Kind of like this course but
more in depth (often taught by MacLeod)
CGSC 2002 Focus on Methodologies
(Davies)
CGSC 4808 Honours Thesis. Original
research mentored by a faculty member
Philosophy Courses majors must take
Two of the following:
PHIL 1301 philosophy of mind
PHIL 2501 official philosophy of mind
PHIL 3502 Agency, free will, rationality,
etc.
One of the following:
PHIL 2001 Symbolic Logic
PHIL 2520 Logic and rational thinking
(non-symbolic)
PHIL 3306 Symbolic Logic 2
One of the following:
PHIL 3201 Analytic philosophy (how to think like a
philosopher)
PHIL 2504 philosophy of language and communication
PHIL 3104 Roots of Analytic philosophy
PHIL 3301 Philosophy of Science
PHIL 3501 Philosophy of Cognitive Science
PHIL 3502 Agency, free will, rationality, etc.
PHIL 3504 Pragmatics (language) same as LING 3504
PHIL 3506 Semantics (language) same as LING 3505
PHIL 3530 Philosophy of Language
CGSC 3004 Philosophy of mind, reliably offered
(MacLeod)
Linguistics courses majors must take:
LING 1001 introduction to linguistics
LING 2001 Phonetics
LING 2005 Linguistic Analysis
LING 3505 Semantics same as PHIL 2506
Psychology courses majors must take
PSYCH 1001 Introduction to psych
PSYCH 1002 intro to psych 2
PSYCH 2001 Research methods
PSYCH 2700 Cognitive Psychology
NEUR 2200 Biological Foundations of Behavior
Computer Science courses majors must take
CS 1005 Java programming and introduction to object-
oriented programming.
CS 1006 Creating computer applications (graphics,
user interface, etc.)
One of the following:
CGSC 4001 Artificial intelligence for cognitive
scientists (Davies)
COMP 4106 Artificial intelligence for computer
scientists (difficult)