Ep. 399: Dan Dennett's Model of Mind (Part One)
episode
The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
47 min
4 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 16 hours ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the central question about consciousness and the brain that frames this episode?
You're listening to the Partially Examined Life, a podcast by some guys who at one point set out doing philosophy for a living, but then thought better of it. Our question for episode 399 is something like, how does consciousness relate to the brain? And we read portions of Daniel C. Dennett's Consciousness Explained from 1991. More information about the text and the podcast, please see partiallyexaminedlife.com. This is Mark Linsenmeier, despite Dennett's claim, smelling my phantom foot
in Madison, Wisconsin. This is Seth Paskin. a center of narrative gravity in Austin, Texas.
This is Dylan Casey, drafting behind the theater in Madison, Wisconsin.
And this is Christopher Heath, doomed to a lifetime of playing Donkey Kong in Hollywood, California.
Focusing on the very beginning, so we read the prelude, How Are Hallucinations Possible?, which is sort of just getting you into it. And then we read what's supposed to be the meat of it, chapter five, which is called Multiple Drafts versus the Cartesian Theater. So, well, first, Chris, thanks for coming back, giving us a little more continuity, given that Wes was going to be gone this time. Thanks for having me. Love it. Love to talk with you guys. I don't know that it's going to connect to Donald Davidson particularly, but...
I
mean,
insofar as it's in the realm of the philosophy of mind, sure. But that's about it. Well, people that liked Wittgenstein. Sure. Yeah, they were both
Wittgensteinian. And Quine, I guess, as the intervening figure. So there's some sort of, is there any distinction that doesn't make a difference? Pragmatic kind of thing that comes up in this text.
Yeah.
Yeah. Right. He's trying to get, well, let's first, I picked this given that Wes was going to be gone because long time ago, our first philosophy of mind episode, we did one little article by Quine along with like four other articles, five other articles, a lot of articles called Quining Qualia. Right, by Dennett. And Wes just had no tolerance for it at all. And I think in talking to him about it now, I think he actually has chilled out and he has more respect for Dennett now, but he just, the whole idea that by explaining consciousness, you are denying, you know, what is it like to be a bat? principle that there is some subjective private essence that somehow he was denying that. And then as soon as you deny that, well, that's the thing to be explained.
So how could you even deny that? And just, that was such a point of furious contention that he just couldn't, you couldn't even have a conversation with him about the rest of it, about like the actual positive thing that we read in chapter five here. And we did have an optional, this chapter 12, where he does respond directly to the that article and other ones like it. Maybe we'll do that in a part three or another episode or whatever, but we didn't all read that. So, you know, So
does that mean I have to change my intro? No,
your intro is fantastic. But yeah, that's, yeah. And Dennett even points to this like incredulous attitude towards his way of thinking because it can seem so counterintuitive. So, you know, it's at least, it makes sense that someone might think this sounds ridiculous on the face of it.
Yeah. That's actually one of the virtues. I was surprisingly pleased by this just because, you know, I kind of lump them all together. Dennett, Davidson, you know, like Quine, Nagel, it's all just kind of like soupy. But he's actually
quite an excellent... It's a smear. It's a smear. It's a smear.
It's a grue. But he's actually quite an excellent writer, does a very good job of clearly explaining. And like you said, Chris, he's quite self-conscious of what he's doing. And when he's saying things that are going to seem counterintuitive to the point where he's like, make sure you don't sneak this back in and try to take this perspective. The kind of thing that a really... good writer does when they're trying to talk about something that hasn't been talked about before or that is countervailing, you know, against the dominant paradigm or whatever.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the central question about consciousness and the brain that frames this episode?
0:07–5:30
2
How do the hosts introduce Dennett’s “Multiple Drafts vs. Cartesian Theater” model?
5:30–11:11
3
Why do the hosts argue that the Cartesian Theater is a misleading metaphor?
11:11–17:46
4
What evidence do they use to support Dennett’s claim that there is no single central place for experience?
17:46–23:21
5
How does the “dot illusion” experiment illustrate parallel processing in perception?
23:21–28:03
6
What do the discussions of hallucinations and dreams reveal about the brain’s hypothesis‑generation system?
28:03–34:32
7
How do the film‑frame and motion‑perception analogies help explain Dennett’s multiple‑drafts view?
34:32–40:17
8
What are the key takeaways and what will be explored in part two of the discussion?
40:17–47:32
Speakers
4 identifiedMore from The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
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Ep. 400: Dennett Rejects Qualia (Part One)
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