Free will and conciousness: Daniel Dennett
Thursday, January 1, 2009 at 21:23 Philosopher Dan Dennett makes a compelling argument that not only don’t we understand our own consciousness, but that half the time our brains are actively fooling us.
One of our most important living philosophers, Dan Dennett is best known for his provocative and controversial arguments that human consciousness and free will are the result of physical processes in the brain. He argues that the brain’s computational circuitry fools us into thinking we know more than we do, and that what we call consciousness — isn’t.
This mind-shifting perspective on the mind itself has distinguished Dennett’s career as a philosopher and cognitive scientist. And while the philosophy community has never quite known what to make of Dennett (he defies easy categorization, and refuses to affiliate himself with accepted schools of thought), his computational approach to understanding the brain has made him, as Edge’s John Brockman writes, “the philosopher of choice of the AI community.”
“It’s tempting to say that Dennett has never met a robot he didn’t like, and that what he likes most about them is that they are philosophical experiments,” Harry Blume wrote in the Atlantic Monthly in 1998. “To the question of whether machines can attain high-order intelligence, Dennett makes this provocative answer: ‘The best reason for believing that robots might some day become conscious is that we human beings are conscious, and we are a sort of robot ourselves.’”
In recent years, Dennett has become outspoken in his atheism, and his 2006 book Breaking the Spell calls for religion to be studied through the scientific lens of evolutionary biology. Dennett regards religion as a natural — rather than supernatural — phenomenon, and urges schools to break the taboo against empirical examination of religion. He argues that religion’s influence over human behavior is precisely what makes gaining a rational understanding of it so necessary: “If we don’t understand religion, we’re going to miss our chance to improve the world in the 21st century.”
A prolific writer, Dennett’s landmark books include The Mind’s I, co-edited with Douglas Hofstedter, Consciousness Explained, and Darwin’s Dangerous Idea.
“Dan Dennett is our best current philosopher. He is the next Bertrand Russell. Unlike traditional philosophers, Dan is a student of neuroscience, linguistics, artificial intelligence, computer science, and psychology. He’s redefining and reforming the role of the philosopher.”
Marvin Minsky
Reader Comments (2)
I assume you've heard of Matthew Alper's "The God Part of the Brain?" Another book on my ever lengthening "to read" list.
At the link Alper writes:
"Essentially, what I'm suggesting is that humans are innately "hard-wired" to perceive a spiritual reality. We are "hard-wired" to believe in forces that transcend the limitations of this, our physical reality. Most controversial of all, if what I'm suggesting is true, it would imply that God is not necessarily something that exists "out there," beyond and independent of us, but rather as the product of an inherited perception, the manifestation of an evolutionary adaptation that exists within the human brain. And why would our species have evolved such a seemingly abstract trait? -In order to enable us to deal with our species' unique and otherwise debilitating awareness of death.
With the dawn of human intelligence, for the first time in the history of terrestrial life, an organism could point its powers of perception back upon its own being; it could recognize its own self as an object. For the first time, when an animal kneeled down to drink from the watering hole, it recognized its own reflection. Only humans possess the advanced capacity for self-awareness. Though, in many ways, this capacity has helped to make our species the most versatile and powerful creature on earth, it also represents the source of our greatest affliction. This is because once we became aware of the fact that we exist, we became equally aware of not just the possibility that one day we might not, but the certainty that one day we will not. With the advent of our species, with the emergence of self-conscious awareness, a life form became cognizant of the fact that it is going to die. All we had to do was to look around us to see that death was inevitable and inescapable. More terrifying yet, death could befall us at anytime. Any moment can be our last."
I've understood for quite some time that who I think I am is merely a function of my brain. Rather than be disappointed, I am so in awe of the evolutionary processes that have brought us this far. Sadly though, this "god part of the brain" may indeed spell our demise.
I've heard of Alpers' writing, but haven't read it.
Many years ago ( well over 30 now), the epiphany came from reading Ashley Montague and similar writers about evolutionary psychology ( the bi-lateral brain ).
Montague posited that much of what we know as religious belief stemmed from a very early, primitive 'conversation' between as yet unconnected right and left hemispheres - and backed it up with sound contemporary evidence from studies in abnormal psychology ( schizophrenia for example).
It immediately seemed so intuitively obvious to me that religious belief was just another natural function of the neural processes, having nothing to do with any supernatural causes.
That was about the time I really left religion in search of a belief system based in reason.
It's interesting that nothing yet seems to have come forward to dispute this theory, but rather new evidence ( Dawkins and Dennett ) seems to support it.
I have been happier and more satisfied without superstition and make believe - and managed to get through some incredibly difficult times in my life ( my own advanced cancer, for example ) without resort to religion.
We should get together for coffee and conversation sometime.