"Out of Our Heads" by Alva Noë

"Why you are not your brain, and other lessons from the biology of consciousness".

Read my blog yourself: http://karmabuster.gaia.com/blog/2009/9/out-of-our-heads-by-alva-no

Category:

Education

Tags:

• alva
• noe
• consciousness
• brain
• science
• mind
• cognition
• daniel
• dennett

[matn79]

Dennett doesn't claim that consciousness is 'in the brain', 'there is no reason to assume that the functional boundary of consciousness should be the skin' and he acknowledges to be a ´mild fan´ of extended mind theory such as that of Andy Clark. Making straw men of your opponents doesn´t help anybody.

[0ThouArtThat0]

I've never had the pleasure of speaking with Dennett myself, though I've read much of his work (including a text book on Mental Representation where some discussions between he and Clark are recorded). If you watch the video that LennyBound posted which I am here responding to, you'll hear Dennett say where he thinks consciousness and cognition are at about 1:54. Don't mean to straw man, I just call 'em like I hears 'em.

[grosenberg45]

Lots of food for thought--and if consciousness would be a combination of the brain in relationship to its inputs (or the world) then how much do they influence each other? Many of us have experiential evidence of what gets referred to as "The Law of Attraction" that our desires and expectations can control our environment Equally I doubt anyone can argue that our environment can alter our perceptions.

[0ThouArtThat0]

Noe is not suggesting consciousness is a combination of brain and "brain inputs." He is saying the world itself (not merely inputs) is involved in bringing forth conscious experience.

I think the "law of attraction" is mostly self-fulfilling prophecy. What truth there is in it is simply common sense: greet the world with a smile and you'll probably turn out happier.

[zygodactylexicon]

I wanted to go to your blog but the link you provide doesn't get there, you might want to check it. I do agree with you and I also admire Noe.

[Korovev1]

@0ThouArtThat0 I've just readed alva noe's book and i found it quite interesting. I Found many analogies with other another books. from an author who is ,unfortunatly , known only for his ethic :Hans jonas; his " organism and freedom" is a book that i would reccomend even to my worst enemy .

Sorry for my bad english

[lookatmepleasesir]

Maybe daniel dennet and alvin noe are both right. I tend to think all capable ideas have some truth to them. They all come from one creature after all.

[AmbiVex]

And we appreciate your work....great videos, thanks....especially when you can't find a conversationalist on topics like these around....

[treyboone]

Where does this come from? Dennett is not a reductivist! To call him a computationalist is also grossly oversimplified. He believes there are computational processes that go on in the brain, but the content of those processes does not map straightforwardly onto the content of conscious experience. Keep in mind that Dennett has always been a chief critic of Fodor (who is a computationalist through and through).

[ComplexEmergence]

Dennett is wish-washy on this point, it seems to me. Sometimes I think it depends on his audience; he seems to like saying things to shock and astound the crowd. That's why he's Dennett. At any rate, Dennett has said, as ThouArtThat noted, in the conference-turned-text-book ed. Hugh Clapin, that consciousness is the result of code "a bit like java applets" which are memetic infestations of brains. "I continue to believe with all my heart and sole that this is exactly what conciousness is!"

[patternsinchaos]

In a very real physical sense, the inside and outside of the head are connected. And in that sense there are two views which present a more interesting philosophical issue. We cannot ignore that the apparent separation is real, nor can what the brain does be divorced from it's appearances. How to integrate the treatments of the discrete and unified views becomes the new problem.

Wonder if Dennett would reject the unified view...?

[gerontodon]

This sounds very interesting. I'll have to get it, and hope to understand it. Does he bring in Godel's work like Roger Penrose does? I like Penrose and Chalmer's approach much more than Dennetts' reductionist one, but would like it more if they didn't think that there had to be a scientific model of consciousness. I don't like the 'mysterian' approach either, which says that consciousness is a mysterious 'thing' that's beyond us. I personally don't think it's a 'thing' at all.