CLUSTER 73B
Mind over Matter: History, Science, and Philosophy of Brain
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, two hours. Enforced requisite: course 73A. Limited to first-year freshmen. Human brain is most complex structure in universe and last major organ system to be understood. Our brains give us power to see and hear, learn and remember, interpret others, and act purposefully in our environment. We can lose these abilities that we take for granted, naturally over time or as result of injury or disease. Brain function from historical, biological, psychological, and philosophical perspectives to enable students to better understand organ responsible for all mental processes and behavior in health and disease and to encourage them to think and write critically about interaction of neurobiological, philosophical, and psychological factors that control behavior and our experiences as human beings. Use of historical perspective to better understand how field of neuroscience and study of brain have emerged over time. Letter grading.
Units: 6.0
Units: 6.0
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2022 - Incredibly interesting class. All professors are clearly passionate about the material. There is some disconnect between the professors and their sections of the course. The assignments, quizzes, and tests are somewhat difficult, but if you rewatch lectures (Bruincast!) then you should be fine.
Winter 2022 - Incredibly interesting class. All professors are clearly passionate about the material. There is some disconnect between the professors and their sections of the course. The assignments, quizzes, and tests are somewhat difficult, but if you rewatch lectures (Bruincast!) then you should be fine.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2023 - Wow, wow, wow. If someone would have told me last year that I would be taking anything remotely similar to a philosophy course, I would have not even looked their way. I would have thought they were joking! But here I was at UCLA starting my journey with my very first philosophy experience. I won't lie, some of the conversations and topics that we learned about in class were not the easiest to understand, but upon having experienced college, really digging into the readings and having profound conversations with individuals outside of this course, I realized how important, deep, and applicable the topics really were. I never in a million years would have thought about how deep and extremely flawed certain systems like the mental health system is in this country, but through the amazing philosophy articles, literary readings and even films, really connecting these pieces to the other topics (ie. neuroscience, theater, disability studies), my goodness you are really able to see how connected everything truly is!! I thoroughly enjoyed Professor Gibbons' lectures because not only was she a profound lecturer that goes into detail about our readings the best, but the philosophical conversations that she allowed in class and in our discussion sections were so amazing. I can't even begin to explain the impact this class has had on my life and my experience here at UCLA. Professor Kristal!! How amazing were his lectures!! His passion for literature was seeping through his veins and was just reflected so beautifully during his lectures. Though the books we read were difficult, I can't explain how his passion and deep understanding of these novels made me absolutely fall in love with this portion of our class. King Lear!! Oh the lessons I personally have learned from this novel and the connections I've been able to make within psychology and philosophy. His paper assignment was my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE to write!!! Though it was during the TA strike, I really wished I could have had access to his feedback to my paper on what I could have improved and what I did well. Even so, I got a 100 percent on the assignment which made me so happy! I hope he continues to exuberate his beautiful passion for literature because it is truly, truly such a RICH subject! The only minor suggestion I wish is that on the lecture slides, sometimes the pacing was a little bit too fast and there was sometimes a lot of material to write down, but if that aspect gets altered, then his lectures are chef's kiss! Rebecca Smith is hands down one of the best TAs! As a doctoral student, she gave some of the best advice and really made sure you were learning. She gave the best feedback on our paper assignments and has held some of the most productive, deep and profound conversations during section. The discussions and conversations truly helped me with understanding for the exams. Not to talk of organization!!!! Preparation??!! Oh my, Rebecca's organization of the study materials needed for us to study for the exams are the best! Words can't even begin to describe how her willingness to take time out of her day to create those study guides/presentations for studying have helped me not only fare well during exams, but also feel less anxious!! This is something that I currently have issues with in my stem courses/discussions/labs and I can truly say I am appreciative of this amazing woman! She is so knowledgeable and she knows what she is teaching! Her passion is so beautiful to watch and I have had some of the most intellectual and profound conversations with her. She has helped me prepare for my papers and even when I was writing out of the conventional way of writing for my paper assignments, she was so accommodating and accepting of my curiosity and creativity! Disclaimer: The readings!! Gosh the amount of readings we had to do in this class was UNREAL. It was WAY WAY WAY too much. If you are a student who is more engaged in the arts as a major, it may not be too difficult, but if you are a STEM major who does not like to read, please do reconsider. The thing I can really appreciate though about this course is that the discussion section was super super helpful. If not for the discussion sections, the cluster would be really difficult. However, if the amount of readings can be modified, then this class is worth a shot. Overall though, I loved this cluster with everything in me. Hands down taking this cluster was one of the best decisions I made as a freshman. Not only am I qualifying multiple GEs WITH Writing II through one course (alleviates stress), but goodness was the material, discussions and and overall just topics of this class truly profound and interesting. There's not one distinct topic that we went over in this class that I didn't like. Each and every single topic was so applicable to what we were learning and I found it so beautiful to make connections. Who knew that film and literature could be associated with philosophy and psychobiology? Who knew? It was a beautiful class. To this day, some of the material I have learned are still applicable to my life and have helped me to have deep, intellectual conversations with my peers. If not for this class, I wouldn't have been able to adjust to college in the best way. One class where you worked with the same students for the whole year. How convenient!! It is so necessary for freshmen to engage in clusters especially because the transition from high school to college can be so daunting but these clusters really helped balance that. Amazing instructors, Amazing TAs! Keep them all! They absolutely did a beautiful job of connecting all the topics. I truly was able to see the diverse perspectives through the different lectures. My absolute favorite was the film component! I never saw studying film as something that could be interesting, but when you really take the time to see how people experienced in the subject are able to take one single scene and come up with such profound findings, especially in relation to the deep topics of mental health we had in the class, it was amazing. Truly amazing. I loved the interdisciplinary components of combining the arts and psychology. It's so funny because these two subjects are things that I am SO passionate about. I plan on majoring in psychology and minoring in theater so this class was truly a dream come true
Winter 2023 - Wow, wow, wow. If someone would have told me last year that I would be taking anything remotely similar to a philosophy course, I would have not even looked their way. I would have thought they were joking! But here I was at UCLA starting my journey with my very first philosophy experience. I won't lie, some of the conversations and topics that we learned about in class were not the easiest to understand, but upon having experienced college, really digging into the readings and having profound conversations with individuals outside of this course, I realized how important, deep, and applicable the topics really were. I never in a million years would have thought about how deep and extremely flawed certain systems like the mental health system is in this country, but through the amazing philosophy articles, literary readings and even films, really connecting these pieces to the other topics (ie. neuroscience, theater, disability studies), my goodness you are really able to see how connected everything truly is!! I thoroughly enjoyed Professor Gibbons' lectures because not only was she a profound lecturer that goes into detail about our readings the best, but the philosophical conversations that she allowed in class and in our discussion sections were so amazing. I can't even begin to explain the impact this class has had on my life and my experience here at UCLA. Professor Kristal!! How amazing were his lectures!! His passion for literature was seeping through his veins and was just reflected so beautifully during his lectures. Though the books we read were difficult, I can't explain how his passion and deep understanding of these novels made me absolutely fall in love with this portion of our class. King Lear!! Oh the lessons I personally have learned from this novel and the connections I've been able to make within psychology and philosophy. His paper assignment was my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE to write!!! Though it was during the TA strike, I really wished I could have had access to his feedback to my paper on what I could have improved and what I did well. Even so, I got a 100 percent on the assignment which made me so happy! I hope he continues to exuberate his beautiful passion for literature because it is truly, truly such a RICH subject! The only minor suggestion I wish is that on the lecture slides, sometimes the pacing was a little bit too fast and there was sometimes a lot of material to write down, but if that aspect gets altered, then his lectures are chef's kiss! Rebecca Smith is hands down one of the best TAs! As a doctoral student, she gave some of the best advice and really made sure you were learning. She gave the best feedback on our paper assignments and has held some of the most productive, deep and profound conversations during section. The discussions and conversations truly helped me with understanding for the exams. Not to talk of organization!!!! Preparation??!! Oh my, Rebecca's organization of the study materials needed for us to study for the exams are the best! Words can't even begin to describe how her willingness to take time out of her day to create those study guides/presentations for studying have helped me not only fare well during exams, but also feel less anxious!! This is something that I currently have issues with in my stem courses/discussions/labs and I can truly say I am appreciative of this amazing woman! She is so knowledgeable and she knows what she is teaching! Her passion is so beautiful to watch and I have had some of the most intellectual and profound conversations with her. She has helped me prepare for my papers and even when I was writing out of the conventional way of writing for my paper assignments, she was so accommodating and accepting of my curiosity and creativity! Disclaimer: The readings!! Gosh the amount of readings we had to do in this class was UNREAL. It was WAY WAY WAY too much. If you are a student who is more engaged in the arts as a major, it may not be too difficult, but if you are a STEM major who does not like to read, please do reconsider. The thing I can really appreciate though about this course is that the discussion section was super super helpful. If not for the discussion sections, the cluster would be really difficult. However, if the amount of readings can be modified, then this class is worth a shot. Overall though, I loved this cluster with everything in me. Hands down taking this cluster was one of the best decisions I made as a freshman. Not only am I qualifying multiple GEs WITH Writing II through one course (alleviates stress), but goodness was the material, discussions and and overall just topics of this class truly profound and interesting. There's not one distinct topic that we went over in this class that I didn't like. Each and every single topic was so applicable to what we were learning and I found it so beautiful to make connections. Who knew that film and literature could be associated with philosophy and psychobiology? Who knew? It was a beautiful class. To this day, some of the material I have learned are still applicable to my life and have helped me to have deep, intellectual conversations with my peers. If not for this class, I wouldn't have been able to adjust to college in the best way. One class where you worked with the same students for the whole year. How convenient!! It is so necessary for freshmen to engage in clusters especially because the transition from high school to college can be so daunting but these clusters really helped balance that. Amazing instructors, Amazing TAs! Keep them all! They absolutely did a beautiful job of connecting all the topics. I truly was able to see the diverse perspectives through the different lectures. My absolute favorite was the film component! I never saw studying film as something that could be interesting, but when you really take the time to see how people experienced in the subject are able to take one single scene and come up with such profound findings, especially in relation to the deep topics of mental health we had in the class, it was amazing. Truly amazing. I loved the interdisciplinary components of combining the arts and psychology. It's so funny because these two subjects are things that I am SO passionate about. I plan on majoring in psychology and minoring in theater so this class was truly a dream come true
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