Dennet Debunked?

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Sciborg_S_Patel

Can Consciousness Be Explained? Dennett Debunked

Do you see how Dennett is contradicting himself? On p. 454 he states that a successful explanation must leave something out, which seems plausible enough. Then he half-realizes that this spells trouble for his explanation of consciousness -- since what is left out when we explain consciousness in unconscious terms is precisely the explanandum, consciousness itself! So he backpedals and implies that nothing has been left out, and suggests that someone who affirms the irreducibility of qualia is like a lady who hides her 'kwalia kitties' under her skirt where no mean neuroscientist dare stick his nose.

The whole passage is a tissue of confusion wrapped in a rhetorical trick. And that is the way his big book ends: on a contradictory note. A big fat load of scientistic sophistry.
 
Dennett's poor arguments have been extensively critiqued by Uwe Meixner in his book "The Two Sides of Being: A Reassessment of Psycho-Physical Dualism".

The critiques are conveniently summarized in Mohrhoff's review of Meixner, at http://anti-matters.org/articles/129/public/129-204-1-PB.pdf, with Part II at http://anti-matters.org/articles/142/public/142-250-1-PB.pdf .

Another Dennettian wisecrack: “Leaving something out is not a feature of failed explanations, but of successful explanations.” Meixner’s response: “As long as you don’t leave the explanandum out.”
 
Another Dennettian wisecrack: “Leaving something out is not a feature of failed explanations, but of successful explanations.” Meixner’s response: “As long as you don’t leave the explanandum out.”
You also have to be careful that the explanandum doesn't assume a dualistic explanation.

There is no reason to believe that an explanation of consciousness is going to have us saying "Aha, yes, that sounds like something that could produce my internal feelings." Does learning that temperature is the vibration of molecules have us saying "Aha, yes, that sounds like something that could produce temperature"?

It will certainly be cool if the explanation does satisfy our desire for understanding, but it might not.

~~ Paul
 
No. If you read anything about this book, such as at http://philosophy.stanford.edu/apps/stanfordphilosophy/files/wysiwyg_images/newman.pdf , you will see that 'consciousness' and 'explanation' are keys to what Dennett is thinking he is doing. (Not that he is actually doing it, of course!)
Of course he thinks that. However, that does not mean he believes he has a complete explanation. I've read subsequent books and I'd say he does not believe he does.

~~ Paul
 
It's not a very good book. Part of the problem that comes from materialist explanations of consciousness is that while they acknowledge difficult qualia problems, they tend to gloss over them. For example it takes consciousness to examine consciousness. You cannot experience the world without it and you can't even imagine what an objective world might look like without using experience and information (both are aspects of consciousness) to describe and define it.
 
I'm not a huge fan of Dennet's explanations for consciousness, but I do want to say the man does manage to explain other things with some degree of skill.

His explanation of probability due to ignorance of the future versus genuine indeterminacy at the quantum level was pretty good, as was his neutral explanation of how qualia are defined.

eta: I should note the question of macro-scale randomness is unanswered.
 
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It's not a very good book. Part of the problem that comes from materialist explanations of consciousness is that while they acknowledge difficult qualia problems, they tend to gloss over them. For example it takes consciousness to examine consciousness. You cannot experience the world without it and you can't even imagine what an objective world might look like without using experience and information (both are aspects of consciousness) to describe and define it.
You say difficult qualia problems are glossed over. Wouldn't that be the wiser approach than the immaterial approach that places,what seems to be, high value upon conjectures?
 
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Claiming qualia has no role to play, despite subject experience telling us otherwise, is just as much if not more of a conjecture. Clifton notes this in his Empirical Case Against Materialism.

When you remove consideration of qualia, you end up going down strange roads like illusions fooling a literal "no one" apparently pretending to be an "I".

That or one just goes completely down the rabbit hole and insists puppets are conscious entities.
 
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When you remove consideration of qualia, you end up going down strange roads like illusions fooling a literal "no one" apparently pretending to be an "I".
I don't think Dennett removes all consideration of qualia. From Intuition Pumps:

"Some years ago, in an essay, I proposed that the root concept of qualia has four conditions ...
they are (1) somehow atomic to introspection, and hence indescribable ...; (2) not relational or dispositional or functional ...; (3) "You had to be there, but you can't be there ..."; (4) your qualia are known to you more intimately than anything else."

Dennett argues that nothing can meet those conditions. I don't think that means he believe there is nothing like qualia at all, but that the philosophical definition of qualia is hopelessly muddled. Something like species in biology.

~~ Paul
 
You say difficult qualia problems are glossed over. Wouldn't that be the wiser approach than the immaterial approach that places,what seems to be, high value upon conjectures?

If your goal is to explain consciousness, then glossing difficult qualia problems is not the way to go about it. I don't know what you mean by conjecture. Qualia is not measurable but it undeniably exists. It cannot be described in ordinary scientific terms. You just have to take the words at face value. For example, you cannot break down the experience of the color red into pieces or describe it in any way that does not end up as "well, it's just . . . red!" Is this merely conjecture to you?
 
If your goal is to explain consciousness, then glossing difficult qualia problems is not the way to go about it. I don't know what you mean by conjecture. Qualia is not measurable but it undeniably exists. It cannot be described in ordinary scientific terms. You just have to take the words at face value. For example, you cannot break down the experience of the color red into pieces or describe it in any way that does not end up as "well, it's just . . . red!" Is this merely conjecture to you?
I agree with you to some degree, but in the absence of any good scientific explanation, should conjecture of what qualia is be more acceptable if it has an existential addressment?
 
I agree with you to some degree, but in the absence of any good scientific explanation, should conjecture of what qualia is be more acceptable if it has an existential addressment?
I don't understand "be more acceptable if it has an existential addressment." Can you explain what you mean by that?
 
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