The Society of Mind
This MIT OpenCourseWare course introduces Marvin Minsky's theory that minds emerge from collections of simpler processes rather than a single unified mechanism. It covers vision, language, learning, reasoning, memory, consciousness, and personality, drawing on psychology, artificial intelligence, and computer science to work through debates like wholes versus parts, symbolic versus connectionist models, and logical versus common-sense theories of learning. Materials include lecture notes, readings, and assignments from the MIT course, structured around weekly topics that build toward a computational account of intelligence. The course is aimed at students already familiar with AI or cognitive science concepts and treats Minsky's own writings as primary texts alongside supplementary papers. No video lectures are included, but the full set of course materials is available to work through independently, free of charge, under MIT's open license.