BS: I wonder what Dennett thinks of this

Subject: BS: I wonder what Dennett thinks of this
From: GUEST,282RA
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 09:04 PM

How the World Works

Subject: RE: BS: I wonder what Dennett thinks of this
From: Sorcha
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 09:24 PM

Warning--You Tube link.

Subject: RE: BS: I wonder what Dennett thinks of this
From: GUEST,282RA
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 09:45 PM

Uhh, yeah...a youtube link. So be careful everybody.

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Subject: RE: BS: I wonder what Dennett thinks of this
From: Sorcha
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 09:56 PM

Some of us can't play them. Sometimes they lock up our computers.

Subject: RE: BS: I wonder what Dennett thinks of this
From: Riginslinger
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 12:02 AM

But what's it got to do with Dennett?

Subject: RE: BS: I wonder what Dennett thinks of this
From: GUEST,282RA
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 01:03 AM

Dennett believes that consciousness is an illusion. Consciousness creates multiple drafts of reality which are not cut and pasted together but seems that way. There is no "me" making a decision. My body-brain complex makes the decisions.

Subject: RE: BS: I wonder what Dennett thinks of this
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 03:02 AM

That was kind of cute in a bizarre kind of way. It must hve been done quite awhile ago though; the stars were a lot younger then and some of them have since died.

There was a funny moment when Woody played the harmonica. :)

Subject: RE: BS: I wonder what Dennett thinks of this
From: Sorcha
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 08:57 AM

Who is Dennet? God, I love these 'leading' titles and entry lines.
Euclidate please?

Subject: RE: BS: I wonder what Dennett thinks of this
From: GUEST,Keinstein
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 05:17 AM

Daniel C Dennett, philosopher and author of Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Consciousness Explained, and Breaking the Spell, among many other important works. He would enjoy the multiple infinite regressions implied by the utube clip- the controllers in the brain have their own brains, presumably each with their own team of controllers.

Subject: RE: BS: I wonder what Dennett thinks of this
From: Riginslinger
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 12:00 PM

"Dennett believes that consciousness is an illusion."

            I just read a book by Daniel Dennett, and I never got the impression that he thought consciousness was an illusion. He thinks religion is an illusion, and I think he's right about that.

Subject: RE: BS: I wonder what Dennett thinks of this
From: SINSULL
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 12:06 PM

From Wikipedia:
In Consciousness Explained, Dennett's interest in the ability of evolution to explain some of the content-producing features of consciousness is already apparent, and this has since become an integral part of his program. He defends a theory known by some as Neural Darwinism. He also presents an argument against qualia; he argues that the concept is so confused that it cannot be put to any use or understood in any non-contradictory way, and therefore does not constitute a valid refutation of physicalism.
Much of Dennett's work in the 1990s has been concerned with fleshing out his previous ideas by addressing the same topics from an evolutionary standpoint, from what distinguishes human minds from animal minds (Kinds of Minds), to how free will is compatible with a naturalist view of the world (Freedom Evolves).
His most recent book, Breaking the Spell, is an attempt to subject religious belief to the same treatment, explaining possible evolutionary reasons for the phenomenon of religious adherence.

Subject: RE: BS: I wonder what Dennett thinks of this
From: GUEST,282RA
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 12:22 PM

The Wiki article hits it.

Qualia do not refute physicalism in Dennett's view. Consciousness isn't a physical object in and of itself whereas physicalism says that everything that can be considered real MUST have a physical counterpart. Dennett, whose cagey on these matters, seeme to believe the experience of consciousness is itself a quale, i.e. it is the way it appears to us. We think ourselves as having a consciousness but it is an illusion that arises from the workings of the brain-body complex.

The brain creates "multiple drafts" of reality but these are not edited together into a seamless whole and presented to consciousness. It just feels that that. To Dennett, there is no need for this. The multiple drafts work just by themselves. They don't required editing into a seamless whole.

There is some truth in that. We know, for example, that we don't decide to do something. Neurologists have found that the brain decides on a course of action and only then does the mind kick in with what appears to be a conscious decision. To us, it appears we took this course of action because we decided to--it was voluntary. In reality, the brain made the decision and consciousness went along wtih it without realizing it had made no decision. In this way, consciousnes does indeed to appear to arise after the fact.

In this way, it is an illusion.

Subject: RE: BS: I wonder what Dennett thinks of this
From: Stringsinger
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 02:43 PM

If we consider that reactions occur spontaneously to given circumstances that have a neural basis, then consciouness might very well be illusory. There is a deterministic aspect to this.
In a sense we are programmed physically to respond to certain stimuli. The decision as to how to respond has a physical component. Conditioning precedes response.

I haven't completely worked my way through Dennett yet. But what I've read of
"Breaking the Spell", it echoes Dawkins in that "memes" can be transmitted like genes.
There well may be a physical component to why human beings choose religion.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: BS: I wonder what Dennett thinks of this
From: Riginslinger
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 03:00 PM

Yeah, I read "Breaking the Spell," and Dennett holds Dawkins in very high esteem. I think it would be pretty hard to argue that religion doesn't evolve, at least at some level.

Subject: RE: BS: I wonder what Dennett thinks of this
From: GUEST,Keinstein
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 04:27 AM

We think ourselves as having a consciousness ... it's an odd one, and one that people are not yet ready to talk about. It's a bit like being in the Church of England- if you think you are, you are. But on the other hand, no one would deny that some people are more conscious than others, and that most people are more conscious than, say, all slugs (though we don't know, not having asked the slugs).

The mystery is that it "seems to" matter at all- it's an obvious evolutionary advantage to have a sense of me- ness, the unwillingness to let go of life that could ensure that you survive to reproduce when others have given up and perished. But at least as far as people are concerned, you can't deny that you "really" have that unitary sense without ruling yourself out of the argument. It's likely that resolution of the problem will require much deeper insights into the nature of reality.

For myself, I suspend judgement, and until some evidence otherwise turns up, I assume that consciousness is a property of matter in sufficiently organised systems. Note that the system does not have to be an individual living creature- I'm not ruling out the possibility of consciousness developing in electronic systems, or communities of non- conscious individuals, say a colony of termites. After all, the individula cells in our bodies are not conscious as far as we know.

Subject: RE: BS: I wonder what Dennett thinks of this
From: GUEST,282RA
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 12:41 PM

>>it's an obvious evolutionary advantage to have a sense of me- ness<<

Sure. If "I" didn't feel hunger, "I" wouldn't eat which would eventually destroy the mind-body complex. If "I" didn't feel pain or have a sense of "me" I could simply chew my own hand off and swallow it. "I" am a correlator of sense-data. "I" put it together and react accordingly but it isn't "me" that makes the decision to react. "I" think "I" made that decision but the brain "pinged" me to react but I'm not conscious of the workings of my own brain--none of us are--otherwise "we" would get lost in our own brains and ignore the external world altogether. Imagine being conscious of the billions of things that occur in the brain every second. You would become preoccupied with it and conscious of little else. When organisms combine, a mind or consciousness simply forms as an overall correlator whether it be ants or bees or billions of little cells all bonded together.