Graeme M wrote:I recently began tackling the question of mind and how it arises from the brain. I'm always pressed for free time but have made a start reading articles on the web. My first serious book on the subject is Consciousness Explained by Daniel Dennett.
Given my relatively early stage of understanding about the consciousness question, I've found Dennett's book tough going. In particular, I'm struggling with what appears to me a central dichotomy of definition. I'm hoping someone can clarify for me.
Dennett presents his Multiple Drafts model in which he argues against what he terms the Cartesian Theatre - the idea that there is some central stage or place where the outcomes of experience arise in a comprehensible form for consciousness to observe. He suggests that events in the brain are spatially and temporally smeared across the neural substrates concerned and only when a probe occurs does a particular event arise to the level of consciousness.
While I follow that, I don't see exactly how he can argue there is no privileged internal observer and yet have mental events visible in consciousness. Consciousness itself must be that privileged observer else we should not have any conscious awareness of our experiences, or so it seems to me.
Clearly I misunderstand what he means.
To explain a little more clearly, his current approximation is what he calls Fame in the Brain. Events in the brain play out and multiple 'drafts' of experience are prepared, but it is only when a proble occurs (ie the focus of attention is placed on an aspect of the experiential stream) that a particular draft becomes elevated in priority such that it modifies behaviour and leaves its traces in memory.
Yet clearly the observed or consciously experienced draft is observed by some thing. Even if this does not happen immediately and depends on memory fixation of behavioural responses, surely it still implies a central observer. If there is NO observer to form the narrative explanation of those events, then there is no ME.
Similarly I do not see how only events that rise to conscious awareness and thence memory are reportable. We act in many ways without conscious thought - for example during an animated discussion over dinner I reach for the salt. My focus is on the discussion and the salt reaching is something of an automatic act, or at least it is an act beneath conscious consideration, and yet I remain aware that I did it. Even if I am not aware that I did it, it was an act of conscious appreciation of my world. Being so inconsequential, or perhaps mundane, the act does not remain in memory for long (it does not achieve 'Fame') yet it cannot have been anything other than a conscious act (or perhaps more exactly an act of consciousness).
It seems to me that much of my everyday life involves events - mental events - that result in behavioural outcomes and yet which are not directly conscious in the form that Dennett is proposing.
Can anyone shed light on where I am going wrong in appreciating Dennett's model?
G.M.
There is one and only one fundamental error in your thinking. It is, that because Dennett has the right academic credentials, a three-digit I.Q., and is somewhat famous among atheist circles, he is right.
Dennett's model sucks, in more respects than those you've noted. It blows off the entire diverse spectrum of paranormal phenomena, for starters. You mistakenly think that you are "going wrong" by finding the flaws in the arguments of a brilliant idiot. You got it right. But don't expect support from the faithful followers of authority figures you'll find on this site.
The only mistake you made was to write, "
Clearly I misunderstand what he means." That's horseshit, and I think you know it.
You understand Dennett perfectly well. Grow cojones.
Trust your own analysis. It has been put forth by others, notably Rene Descartes himself, Descartes was considerably smarter than Dennett, as demonstrated by his invention of Analytic Geometry and the Cartesian coordinate system, still a useful tool for the analysis of physics problems. By way of contrast, Dennett is conspicuously ignorant of and uneducated in mathematics and physics, despite that unlike Descartes who provided the mathematical underpinnings of modern physics, a rich understanding of physics was there for Dennett's taking. He studied philosophy instead, dooming himself to an irrelevant life.
I'm guessing that you read Dennett before Descartes, rather than in their historical sequence, because you've been programmed to favor atheism. However, Descartes, despite being forced to join the religion of his country or die as another of the Inquisition's victims, was not a Catholic at heart. His belief in "soul" translates into your belief in mind. You might be well advised to treat all religious beliefs exactly like all atheistic beliefs, as complete nonsense.
Why? Because neither have proved their case, and the fundamentals of each are functionally identical. No scientist can verify the existence of God because God is a spirit, beyond the measure of physical instruments. Nor can any scientist verify the existence of the cosmic micropea, singularity, or however the alleged precursor of the universe might be defined in "
Cosmology This Month," because it blew up a while back.
Likewise, scientists cannot verify the existence of soul, because religionists have defined it as a "spirit," beyond the reach of physical instruments. But if you take a brief course in neurophysiology you'll find lots of well defined brain sections: cortex, prefrontal cortex, limbic system, amygdala, thalamus-- even Descartes' hypothetical interface to the soul, the pineal gland.
What you will not find is a map of the conscious mind. Nor will you fine the mechanisms responsible for the subconscious or super-conscious minds. You might ask yourself how it happens that the human brain (not monkey, rat, or fruit fly brain) is the only mechanism on the planet which contains no components to implement its primary functions.
My suggestion is that you pursue your curiosity about the nature of mind by studying hard science and ignoring philosophy. Neither field knows jack shit about consciousness, but hard scientists are less inclined to pretend to knowledge they lack. An honest neuroscientist will admit that Wilder Penfield's 1948 experiments can be reproduced but not explained, and that the Sperry/Gazzaniga experiments of the 1960s remain unexplained.
You are as likely to understand Dennett as you are to understand the Pope, because both are teaching ideas based upon childish hypotheses that you know are absurd. Trust your own mind. Compensating for youth and educational programming, you seem competent enough. When you cannot make sense of something, it may be because you lack the background. Or, as is the case more often than anyone wants to admit, you could be trusting authority figures or a brilliant idiot who's trying to bullshit you.
On rare occasions in human history an independently intelligent individual has bowed his head and subtracted his excellent mind in deference to powerful agreement systems. Very rare. This almost never happens. I believe that an obscure and irrelevant math teacher named Galileo made such mistakes-- but then risked his life to undo them.
If you are predisposed towards atheist principles, you might find "The Mind's I," (by Dennett and Hofstadter) an agreeable but more balanced (thanks to Doug) presentation. It is so diverse that it even includes a chapter from one of my books (under my given name).
If you insist upon an entirely atheistic perspective, try Sam Harris' books and many interesting video presentations and debates. If, in a few years you find your questions unresolved, good! Then it will be time to peruse my stuff. You won't be able to ask questions then because, with luck, I'll be dead; but the ideas needed to fully and completely explain human existence, human consciousness, and the beginnings of things are available.