Consciousness explained (original 1991; edition 1991)

Daniel Dennett's eliminative materialism tries to cut through the hard problem of consciousness by completely removing the concept of qualia as a wrongheaded folk psychological epiphenomenon and replacing it with reductionist models of self-reflection and intentionality. To give him credit, if his thesis is correct then he really has explained consciousness, at least from a high-level conceptual perspective without the messy details. While I do think a lot of what he writes about is on the right track, I fear he goes one step too far by prematurely declaring qualia an illusion through a priori reasoning without any empirical justification. The problem of empirically understanding qualia is unique mainly because of the epistemological limitation of probing subjective experiences which breaks with the historically objective methods of scientific investigation. Dennett introduces heterophenomenology as a possible way to circumvent this limitation, but I feel it is just a sideshow that doesn't address the core of the problem. Furthermore, due to this epistemological limitation, the ontological reality of qualia is left as mysterious as ever, that doesn't mean it will always be mysterious, but for the moment it has not been explained, despite Dennett's claims. I can sympathize with Dennett's project, I don't think the alternatives to his views have been very fruitful either, for example, I agree with him that Chalmers' p-zombie thought experiment is an incoherent idea, however, just because your opponents are wrong doesn't mean you are right. I still liked the book, I think Dennett's ideas are helpful and point the way towards further research, but I'll stop short in agreeing with him that consciousness has been conceptually explained. Explained away, maybe, but not explained. ( )

don't get me wrong, dennett is a brilliant philosopher. however, this book is more aptly titled, 'Consciousness Can Be Explained'. dennett has provide a wonderful precis to a philosophy of mind, but falls short insofar as he has only illustrated the subjunctive stance that consciousness is explainable. what the explanation is is another issue entirely. ( )

It's rough when you get to page 433 of a long, often tedious slog (detailed examinations of dozens of very specific experiments) and the author says "My explanation of consciousness is far from complete. One might even say that it was just a beginning..." Dude! His brain as computer and consciousness as software-effect and self as narrative center of gravity are all interesting, though seem less profound than he suggests. Would rather have read a highly abbreviated version of this ala Freud's Ego and the Id. It basically ends pointing to the Blade Runner idea: that a conscious robot that can suffer is not so far from us. Hard to excite the imagination with this idea when BR already did that quite awhile ago, and threw in contemplations on death, desire, memory and purpose as well! ( )

Yeah .. this is pretty much it. We have this jelly-like blob in our heads: chemical computer composite, slow synaptic schematic, nature nurtured neurons Dennett demonstrates definitely has holistic whole. ( )

What started as an enthusiastic quest ended in... giving up over halfway. Daniel Dennett's view on consciousness may be interesting, but it's also complicated. You need to be fully attentive when reading to grasp it all, save if you're familiar with this kind of material (psychology, metaphysics, ...). There are interesting elements in CE, but the way it's written doesn't make you slide through the book, by manner of speech. I might try again later, but at this point... let's carry on with other books. ( )