Having completed several courses on the brain and learning, I thought a course about the mind would be interesting. The blurb from FutureLearn looked promising, too:

“This course is aimed at anyone with an interest in psychology and the mind. The course will also appeal to practitioners, students and researchers from a range of disciplines, whose work directly or indirectly looks at the mind and the brain. This includes, but is not limited to neuroscience, psychology, psychoanalysis, philosophy, psychiatry and neurology.”

I will have to admit the timing of the course wasn’t great. I enrolled for the run starting on May 28, 2018, unaware that circumstances would make it difficult for me to complete the course. Having sped headlong through MalariaX a few weeks ago, I had no great desire to do the same with What is a Mind, but ended up with nine days to finish five more weeks of the course before my free access finished.

FutureLearn Enrollment Policy

FutureLearn currently has a policy of allowing students free courses for the duration of the course plus two weeks. If you want access beyond this limit, you will need to pay to upgrade. You can also earn a certificate if you upgrade. For this six-week course, my access closed on July 22, 2018.

After your free access finishes, you cannot re-join the same run, but you can add the course to your FutureLearn Wishlist to receive email notification if the course is released again in the future.

Another current FutureLearn policy allows new students to continue signing up for each course run for up to six weeks after the end of the course. This means that people can still join the current run of the course after the official run dates have finished, although there will be few others starting so late in the timetable.

The Course

The introductory video explains that you can’t see the mind. It is not a tangible thing, but as Professor Mark Solms asks, “What are you, if not your mind?”

So far, so good.

Like many other FutureLearn courses, this one includes videos, articles to read, and some quiz questions. The glossary of terms used in the course was useful. In Week One, we were introduced to the four defining features of the mind: Subjectivity, Consciousness, Intentionality, and Agency. These features would be explored over the next four weeks of the course.

An exercise in Week Two demonstrated differences in discerning different shades. Students had to arrange little squares of colours in order. Although different device screens may affect the outcome, I found this task interesting. Another positive of this course was the video series produced by Professor Solms in answer to popular questions posed by students.

Too Philosophical for Me

When my brain started shutting down, though, was during the Week Two videos when the professor discussed philosophical questions and the subjective aspect of the mind. “So I can’t know whether you have a mind ever, and you can’t know whether I have one.”  Later in Week Two, we were asked to read an article in Simply Psychology about Behaviourism, then to write 200-400 words on how to determine whether something has a mind or not. Perhaps it was knowing that my time in the course was limited. Perhaps it was simply too much philosophy for my liking. The fact that the essay was not compulsory was beside the point: if I was to claim that I had completed this course, I needed to write that essay.

After a day or so of procrastination, I decided not to finish the course. I looked through the rest of the syllabus and discovered another optional essay was scheduled for Week 5. I dipped into some other pages, but decided that completing 35% of the course was enough for me.

A Popular Course

Despite my opinion, this course is a popular one, taking its place in Class Central’s Top 50 courses list. Student comments on the final page of the current run were enthusiastic in their praise.

A Final Thought

If you think What is a Mind? sounds interesting, don’t let me put you off. Sign up and try it.

By Pat Bowden, published July 24, 2018.