Dennettian Dualism

(If you disagree with this article feel free to comment)

In Consciousness Explained p407-408. Dennett considers the experiences of someone looking at the world, and describes his idea of the relationship between conscious experience, mind and representation:

"It seemed to him, according to the text, as if his mind - his visual field - were filled with intricate details of gold-green buds and wiggling branches, but although this is how it seemed this was an illusion. No such "plenum" ever came into his mind; the plenum remained out in the world where it didn't have to be represented, but could just be. When we marvel, in those moments of heightened self-consciousness, at the glorious richness of our conscious experience, the richness we marvel at is actually the richness of the world outside, in all its ravishing detail. It does not "enter" our conscious minds, but is simply available"

The key feature of Dennett's description is that it must be explained by physical events beyond the body because "it didn't have to be represented, but could just be" and "It does not "enter" our conscious minds but is simply available".  Dennett is declaring that any explanations of the phenomena that he describes must be physical explanations based on the arrangement and transfer of objects beyond the body.

Dennett explicitly describes a "view", events arranged in a plenum but seen from one side and from a viewing point (See Note below where Dennett describes the viewing point).  Given that this is the "world outside" how does Dennett imagine that the view is created?  Although he does not provide explicit details we have the impression of a pin hole camera type device taking in the view because it is one sided, focused but arranged around the observer.  There has to be such a device because the light from the "gold green buds" goes everywhere without one - just hold up a white sheet of paper, there are no images on it.

Where is the pin hole?  Light falls all over the cornea of our two eyes so there is no single pin hole in the eyes. All we have is two disparate retinal images.  So Dennett's view is the view of some sort of supernatural point or pin hole located somewhere around the bridge of our nose but just "outside".  This is surely a new sort of dualism: the brain is a mechanical device connected somehow to the miraculous viewing point on the nose.  I propose to call this "Dennettian Dualism"

I am unhappy with this type of dualism because it fails to give a physical explanation for the geometrical form of the "richness of the world outside" as it presents itself to an observer but instead has something akin to Descartes' unextended Res Cogitans sitting on the nose providing "details" to the mechanical brain.

The dualism gets more intense when the "wiggling branches" are considered. How do we have movements in the view?  The point on the nose would need some sort of "specious present" to have a view with movements because, as any snap photo will show, the world is static at an instant.

Dennett has done us all a favour because he has shown that if you ignore the viewing point we have "consciousness explained".  Once this problem of the viewing point is ignored it is possible to account for almost all of what people might consider to be attributes of consciousness by physical properties of the brain.  Dennett's separation of the viewing point from the brain focuses attention on the true problem of consciousness which is how simultaneous and time extended events occur at a point (see Time and conscious experience).


Note:  Dennett actually admits to this problem of the viewing point: "My point of view had lagged somewhat behind, but I had already noted the indirect bearing of point of view on personal location.  I could not see how a physicalist philosopher could quarrel with this except by taking the dire and counterintuitive route of banishing all talk of persons. " (From the presentation: Where Am I?  by Daniel Dennett).  "Where am I" shows that Dennett does not understand that viewing points are hugely problematical and require a special physics and geometry to describe simultaneous viewing at a point. See Simultaneity - the key to understanding mind?.