Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Dennettisms

The New York Times has an article on Dan Dennett, "perhaps America’s most widely read (and debated) living philosopher." I've read some of his stuff, but haven't found it terribly useful for my own work.  But, FWIW, I'm sympathetic to these two bits:
The self? Simply a “center of narrative gravity,” a convenient fiction that allows us to integrate various neuronal data streams.

The elusive subjective conscious experience — the redness of red, the painfulness of pain — that philosophers call qualia? Sheer illusion.
And, if he wishes to dismantle Searle's famous Chinese room argument, more power to him. But he really ought to give up on Dawkinsian memetics.

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