Consciousness Explained [Paperback]

Daniel C. Dennett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 20, 1992

The national bestseller chosen by The New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 1991 is now available in paperback. The author of Brainstorms, Daniel C. Dennett replaces our traditional vision of consciousness with a new model based on a wealth of fact and theory from the latest scientific research.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Consciousness is notoriously difficult to explain. On one hand, there are facts about conscious experience--the way clarinets sound, the way lemonade tastes--that we know subjectively, from the inside. On the other hand, such facts are not readily accommodated in the objective world described by science. How, after all, could the reediness of clarinets or the tartness of lemonade be predicted in advance? Central to Daniel C. Dennett's attempt to resolve this dilemma is the "heterophenomenological" method, which treats reports of introspection nontraditionally--not as evidence to be used in explaining consciousness, but as data to be explained. Using this method, Dennett argues against the myth of the Cartesian theater--the idea that consciousness can be precisely located in space or in time. To replace the Cartesian theater, he introduces his own multiple drafts model of consciousness, in which the mind is a bubbling congeries of unsupervised parallel processing. Finally, Dennett tackles the conventional philosophical questions about consciousness, taking issue not only with the traditional answers but also with the traditional methodology by which they were reached.

Dennett's writing, while always serious, is never solemn; who would have thought that combining philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience could be such fun? Not every reader will be convinced that Dennett has succeeded in explaining consciousness; many will feel that his account fails to capture essential features of conscious experience. But none will want to deny that the attempt was well worth making. --Glenn Branch

From Publishers Weekly

Tufts University cognitive scientist Dennett claims to have developed a major new theory of consciousness, yet his view of the brain as a massive parallel processor is a familiar one. What is different in his counter-intuitive theory is the claim that human consciousness, rather than being "hard-wired" into the brain's innate machinery, is more like software "running on the brain's parallel hardware" and is largely a product of cultural evolution. Author of Brainstorms , Dennett leads the adventurous gently through thought experiments, metaphors and diagrams in a treatise keyed to the serious, diligent reader. He presents a plausible evolutionary scenario of how consciousness could have emerged from the hominid brain. Dennett's audacious, tantalizing foray into the mind's inner workings ties up loose ends at the interface of cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience and biology.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Back Bay Books; 1 edition (October 20, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316180661
• ISBN-13: 978-0316180665
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.2 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (119 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #100,364 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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110 of 121 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Conscious is as conscious does, September 2, 2002

By 

Jeremy M. Harris (Worthington, OH USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Consciousness Explained (Paperback)

I believe it was Thomas Wolfe who once remarked with pride that he was a generous literary putter-inner, while minimalists like Ernest Hemingway were stingy leaver-outers. No one who finishes "Consciousness Explained" will doubt that Dennett belongs among the putter-inners. For example, on reaching page 280 the reader is casually told, "I have been coy about consciousness up to now." If only we had known, Daniel, that you've been toying with us through half the book...

Dennett does make a coherent case, but the theme is buried in so many asides and diversions that one needs a conceptual GPS to stay oriented. Since he has the whole map in his head, the author naturally tends to forget that others on the tour bus may have lost their bearings two or three turns ago. On the plus side, Dennett's pleasantly conversational tone, clever analogies and colorful terminology (Stalinesque, Multiple Drafts, Witness Protection Program) help to sustain our interest and clarify difficult concepts.

The big picture (I think) is that investigations of consciousness have traditionally been hindered by reliance on the concept of a "Cartesian Theater" in the mind where a homunculus (the audience) makes conscious observations. As long as the nature of the theater and the homunculus remain elusive, the whole approach merely begs the questions of what consciousness is and how it happens. Dennett proposes that neither the theater nor the audience exists (i.e. the analogies are empty) and that a massively parallel process he calls Multiple Drafts is more descriptive of what happens in a conscious brain. The thrust of his argument is that understanding consciousness requires no ultimate appeal to mind/brain dualities, souls, spirits, quantum weirdness or other trappings of the "it can't be straightforward" school. This has led disappointed devotees of the ineffable to make dismissive remarks like "Dennett explains everything under the sun EXCEPT consciousness." Don't believe it.

Dennett's background in philosophy serves him well in addressing the subtleties of cognition, but the resulting terminology may wear a bit on the reader. Sometimes I thought that if I saw the 22-letter monster "heterophenomenological" one more time, I would scream. On the other hand, Dennett's tale of the imaginary deity Feenoman, based on the root of this word, manages to be both hilarious and instructive. The book is an excellent choice for those who are not merely inclined, but also steadfastly determined, to learn more about the machinery of consciousness.

67 of 77 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Unfulfilled Promise, but a Worthy Read, July 1, 2001

By 

Brian Bagnall (Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Consciousness Explained (Paperback)

The good news is, this is a thought-provoking book, and anyone reading it will walk away feeling they know a little more about what makes humans conscious. The bad news is he doesn't come close to fulfilling the promise of the title. Dennett presents a pretty simple theory that could be explained in a few pages and a nice diagram. The theory is this: `Basically, instead of a tiny "soul" that represents consciousness, our mind is composed of many simple task-specific processes'. He could have presented this concisely and dug deeper into the components of the theory. Instead he seems to want to stretch it out unnecessarily for about the first 200 pages of the book, and he's not even clear in explaining it! He also overstates the impact of this theory repeatedly - commenting that it "might seem outrageous" and that it's "counterintuitive". Actually, it's neither of those things, so it just seems like he's trying to over inflate the theory. Usually when reading these types of books I get that "Aha!" feeling now and then, but I didn't get it once reading this book.

He also builds up a straw man in the form of "the Cartesian theater" and repeatedly bashes it. I don't know why it's so important to him to put this theory to rest - probably this is something important in philosophical circles. If this Cartesian Theater is a big force in philosophy, I must say I'm a little disappointed in the whole philosophical field. They should learn about programming. I would much rather see him building on his existing model, digging deeper into the specifics, cataloguing and explaining what some of these "mini-homunculi" or automatic functions might be. Instead he repeatedly beats a dead horse.

Most programmers have the mindset that complex behavior can be built up from many simple functions. It's what we all do day in and day out when programming. This is exactly what Dennett argues about the human mind, so it is nothing new. Then he starts arguing against the theory of the Cartesian Theater, which posits that the mind has a "center" or pineal gland, or soul, or one of many names it is given. As an atheist, this argument is also pretty much unnecessary to me, and probably to a lot of other readers out there. So it's similar to arguing to an astronaut that the earth is round. For 300 more pages! After a while you just want him to move on.

He also didn't explore very much the role that emotions play, and how these might make our own consciousness seem slightly magical. I would have been interested in hearing him ponder that. He also talked about how words are important to thought, but then never bothered to mention how meditation (the absence of words/pictures/thoughts in the mind) is related to all this. If words are so important, is it possible to do thought without their use? I don't know - he never mentioned it.

It may sound like I didn't like this book, but actually it is extremely thought provoking. Dennett is firmly in the materialist camp, so anyone with a scientific mind towards nature will agree with pretty much everything he says. The chapter on the evolution of consciousness is especially delicious. But it's like reading an astronomy book about the latest theories of the origins of the universe, and every five pages the author builds another straw man in the form of the earth being flat, then gleefully bashes the man down. Too much defense, not enough offense! He should have been braver and included more specifics. I think he was a little fearful of being proven wrong if he mentioned too many details. But a worthwhile read anyway.

57 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Break from Decartes, January 29, 2000

By 

Dan O'Day "Dan" (LA, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Consciousness Explained (Paperback)

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.