Consciousness Explained

by Daniel C. Dennett

Book Overview

Daniel Dennett's "brilliant" exploration of human consciousness -- named one of the ten best books of the year by the New York Times -- is a masterpiece beloved by both scientific experts and general... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316180661
• Release Date: October 1992
• Publisher: Back Bay Books
• Length: 528 Pages
• Weight: 1.18 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 1.6" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

The Best Book on Consciousness I've Seen So Far

This book's great drawback is that it is probably overly long. I'm sure the basic ideas could have been laid out more succinctly with much greater verbal economy. That said, however, it is probably the case that there are few books out there which do a better job of deconstructing the idea of consciousness. This is a big debate, particularly among some philosophers, no doubt reflecting the tendency to want to believe in the specialness of consciousness. But it's Dennett's contention that consciousness is not so special after all, that it is a natural result of evolutionary forces and that it can be adequately explained in mechanistic terms, thus discarding the misleading "ghost in the machine" notion which seems to infect our thinking about mind at every turn. Dennett's major antagonist in this debate has been John Searle whose Chinese Room argument has been deployed again and again to deny the possibility which Dennett is here asserting, that consciousness is basically a natural phenomenon (Searle agrees, by the way that consciousness is natural, while arguing against a genuinely naturalistic description). Dennett spends a lot of time exploring side paths and building alternative models for understanding consciousness as he works to get his reader to jettison old notions about the mind as an entity uniquely set apart from the things it attends to, what he calls the "central meaner" or the audience in the Cartesian theater (alluding to Descarte's insight that our mental life is qualitatively different from the physical world we encounter). Dennet builds his case by exploring recent research on brains and human behavior as well as by sketching out an evolutionary picture about how consciousness may have come to be. But he does not get around to dealing with Searle's Chinese Room argument until the book's end and then it is almost as though it were an afterthought. It's the great strength of Dennett's book that, in fact, Searle's argument seems, by the time he comes to it, to be worth no more than that. Dennett rightly shows that Searle's argument fails because Searle insufficiently depicts the level of computer functionality required to generate and sustain a conscious mind. Where Searle, in his argument, notes that the simple mechanism of a look up table could not possibly constitute a program capable of creating mental life, Dennett rightly points out that this fails to address the problem since it is not a simple look up table that is at the heart of the claim of the AI people. If Searle's Chinese Room argument, constituted as Searle constitutes it, is inadequate for the purpose, this is yet to say nothing about the sort of system that would be required and is theoretically available. It is not a Chinese Room on the Searlean model that must be considered but, perhaps, using the same metaphor, a Chinese Building or a Chinese City. The capacity for sustaining consciousness would necessarily require a vast complex of systems and, as Dennett note

And then a miracle occurred

Consciousness Explained is a hard, but very rewarding, book. I first read it five years ago, and thought I mostly got it, but on reflection, I realise now I probably didn't. After recently getting through Dennett's equally fascinating (and hard) "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" I read it again. It's properly sinking in now, and I think I mostly have it. I think. If you're considering reading Consciousness Explained, I recommend having a look at Darwin's Dangerous Idea first; some of the ideas Dennett expounds there, particularly on the nature of algorithmic progression, are extremely useful for getting a handle on Dennett's central theme in Consciousness Explained. Dennett's views in each are really quite closely related. However, the "intuitive gap" (i.e., the distance in credibility between what Dennett proposes and how things "seem" intuitively) is huge in the case of consciousness, but comparatively small for Evolution. To wit: Consciousness: Intuitively, there's a "central meaner" in the brain sitting in a "Cartesian theatre" enjoying the son-et-lumière. Dennett says this is an illusion, and there is no "narrative centre" of consciousness at all - in not so many ways, consciousness itself is an illusion; an aggregation of multiple sensory inputs and outputs of the cerebellum, all of which are performing their own functions independently of each other. "BUT AN ILLUSION TO WHOM?" you want to scream. It just doesn't seem to make sense. Evolution: Intuitively, the universe seems designed. It seems impossible that it could be the result of blind, unintelligent operations. Darwin says that this is nevertheless the case, through the algorithmic mechanism of reproduction, mutation and natural selection of multiple organisms performing their own functions independently of each other. This isn't such a stretch, especially as the notion of a designer of the universe is an even more problematic idea, when you give it a moment's thought. And that's precisely the point. Dennett argues persuasively (as, of course, many have before him) that a Cartesian theatre is just such a preposterous idea as a designer of the universe. Once you've ruled it out, all you are left with is the mechanical functions of the brain (unless, with Roger Penrose, you want to say "Quantum Mechanics did it!"), so you don't have any choice in the matter: the only question is how to build these mechanical, independent operations up into something which can function like consciousness. Like evolution, an aggregation of algorithms can be a "crane" which can achieve more than a simple algorithm. And so on. When you account for the actual - heterophenomenological, if I may be so bold - quality of consciousness, you notice it's incomplete, it's bitty, it's missing stuff: it isn't quite the widescreen, 7.1 THX certified surround-sound audio-visual experience we think it is, which is all grist to Dennett's mill. Dennett is open that this is an opening salvo rather than a complete theory, and

A Break from Decartes

Contrary to other reviewers, I believe Dennett has a very powerful definition of Consciousness. Having studied this subject for over 12 years I found this book to be truly original. It was a breakthrough - even for Dennett himself (having read many of his other works).His theory is that there is NO central meaner. No homunculus sitting in our heads that "understands" us or exists separate from our body. We are all narratives of our own existence. No more or less real than a character in a story, and like a story our experience is drafted - the blanks are filled in with the most reasonable explanation. Self is the center of narrative gravity of a body. Not something separate from it.Dennett goes to great length to discredit other theories before presenting his own. Thus Dennett holds out from explaining his theory until the end of the book. This may cause many readers to loose interest. If you enjoy reading philosophy you will enjoy this book.IMHO - There is a good chance that 100 years from now Dennett's view of Consciousness will be widely held.

One of the great books of this century!

The persons critizing Dennet for "denying" the phenomenon he claims to "explain", apparently fail to understand his theory. Dennet does not deny that "consciousness" exists, he only claims to show that it is nothing more than the accompanying effect of a lot of complicated neural activity. I think his claim is valid, but I understand a lot of people will be uneasy with this conclusion. Sometimes Dennet provokes his opponents somewhat more than necessary. If he argues that "qualia" (the subjective impressions of our sensory perceptions) do not really exist, it is possible he goes a step too far. He might be more persuasive if he recognized more explicitly the existence of two aspects of reality: the material world with its neurons, molecules, quarks, etc. on the one hand, and the "qualosphere", i.e. our subjective world with all its "qualia", on the other hand. I grant that this second world is derived from the physical world. However, in our "human condition", we human beings live in this "qualosphere" and not in the world of molecules and quarks. This explains the emotional resistance many people put up against Dennet's theory. Dennet's critcism of John Edelman seems a bit too harsh to me. Edelman's research on neural networks might contribute some day to a more profound insight in the neural processes that are at the base of our mental processes. Dennet's modell of consciousness will acquire a more solid foundation once we know more about this. I think he is a bit too dismissive of people who concentrate their attention on this aspect. But, of course, "Consciousness Explained" is one of the great books of this century.R. Holsbergen Luxembourg

The naysayers are missing the point.

Consider this: A magician makes a coin "disappear" and you are asked to explain it. You can analyze the illusion and figure out how it works, but you can't actually explain how he made it vanish, since he didn't. It's just a trick, so all you need to do is explain how the trick works, how he made it SEEM to happen. That should be enough to please anyone, but then someone in the audience, upset that you've taken away the mystery, complains that you didn't explain how the disapearance "actually" happened.This is exactly the reaction Dennett's book is getting. He analyzes what consciousness really is and how it must have come to be, yet these people want something more. Not content with having the actual explained, they demand that he explain the mythical but intuitive notions of the Cartesian theater and qualia and a host of other pleasant falsehoods, just so that they can lock science and philosophy out of the human mind, to keep it sacred for the new mysterians.Well, they just can't have it. Dennett does explain consciousness, but to do so he must first blow away the myths and that makes the myth-believers unhappy. He shows that evolution is frugal, never paying for more than is actually needed to get the job done. And this leaves us with a true understanding that is all that much more awesome than the illusion it replaces.If you want to live in a world of pretty colors, avoid this book. But if you care about the truth and want to know what consciousness is and isn't, read it now.