|
Volume CXXXI, Number 23 |
 |
The magic of consciousness
CHRISTOPHER SMITHWICK
STAFF WRITER
At a lecture held Tuesday entitled "Can there be a
'First-Person' Science of Consciousness?" Daniel Dennett, Professor
of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts
University, tackled questions concerning consciousness. Dennett is the
author of eight books, including Consciousness Explained.
 |
| Professor Daniel Dennett. (Karsten Moran, Bowdoin Orient) |
Central to Dennett's attempt to resolve the dilemma of explaining
consciousness is "heterophenomenology," a scientific method
that treats subjects' reports of introspection nontraditionally-not as
evidence to be used to explain consciousness, but as data to be examined
and explained.
By using this method, Dennett argued against the myth of
the Cartesian theater-the idea that consciousness can be precisely located
in space or in time.
Dennett is interested in the objective possibility of a
science of consciousness. His theory goes back to Descartes, who invited
readers to leave aside all prejudices about the senses, and who wanted
his meditations to be understood by humans and non-humans alike.
Dennett reacted to the number of books published in the
past few years about a first-person as opposed to a third-person science
of consciousness, arguing that if you assume there is a homunculus sitting
in our heads that "understands" us or exists separate from our
body, as first-person cognitive science does, you have not yet begun to
explain consciousness.
"If you try to do the science by yourself," says
Dennett, "you are a helpless victim of the cheating that the brain
does and you end up misidentifying your own consciousness. The brain cheats,
and this is precisely what people don't know."
Dennett referred to stage magic to explain how the brain
cheats. He says magic is making you believe that something is the case,
and first-person cognitive neuroscience is a process of reverse engineering
the magic show. When the brain takes a suggestion, as in magic, it is
forming a belief or an explanation.
But what does it mean for the brain to take the suggestion?
asks Dennett. What needs to be explained is what the audience thinks happened
on stage.
"The 'magic' of consciousness, like stage magic, defies explanation
only so long as we take it at face value," concluded Dennett. "By
using the standard third-person methods of science, we can uncover and
explain all the 'mysteries' of consciousness without remainder."