Dennett on The Binding Problem

Daniel Dennett is a prominent American philosopher whose research centers on philosophy of mind and philosophy of science; particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science. He is currently the co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies and the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_problem

In this clip, Dennett discusses what is known as "The Binding Problem." Namely, how is the unity of conscious perception brought about by the distributed activities of the central nervous system? Dennett argues that while it may intuitively seem like consciousness is a unitary phenomena, cognitive science has illustrated that one's experience is much less unified then first believed. As a result, Dennett concludes that one's sense of unity is simply an illusion.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Binding Problem
• Philosophy of Mind
• Consciousness
• Physicalism
• Neuroscience
• Neurophilosophy
• Conceptual Revision

[Huesos138]

Daniel Dennett: Explaining things away since 1963.

[Waranoa]

Logic IS a mental construct, it is a space with quite clearly defined laws and characteristics where arguments are defined and tested. An illusion is the subjective impression of something which is more, or less, or something quite different, than what it seems to be to us. Which is not the case with his logic. His logic is sound. Also, unscientific only means that it's not focussed on creating novel experimental predictions; which is true. But it IS based on current scientific theory.

[shandcunt]

@GermanOperaSinger Check out V.S. Ramachandran, amazing neuro scientist, also we know that to experience anything in the sense you speak of we need minds, the only minds that we have ever seen are the results of brains - we see animals with brains that dont have the same "Experience" as us and thats due to the development of the brain - we know that a more complex and developed brain can give range to greater experience, also maybe try Betrand Russel or Sam Harris

[shandcunt]

@petestrat07 " If its not fact then its a dogmatic response to explain the unknown which is similar to the dogma of religion." Come on man, even you must realise this is inherently dishonest, Your saying the science of philosiphy has nothing to say about consciousness? not only that but you sort of implied that the only philosiphy is religous philosiphy. Going beyond philosiphy we have many scientific fields that study conciousness, like say, neuro science?

Come on bro, use your brain

[HomuncuIus]

Dennet is using consciousness to deny consciousness

[petestrat07]

I recommend people here watch "The Primacy of Consciousness" by Peter Russell Seriously, Dan Dennet's views and opinions on what consciousness is fails to explain anything. Science cannot explain consciousness and there is a very good reason why this is so. They can't see it, touch it, weigh it, count it, measure it or analyse it yet he pretends to understand it. If its not fact then its a dogmatic response to explain the unknown which is similar to the dogma of religion.

[dubstepagh]

haha.. daniel dennett is in a church! but as per usual.. hes not facing the front.

[sorensofos]

@petestrat07 what do you mean?

[cunnidvd]

who is the master that gives all the "bits of consciousness' meaning context continuity interpretation. How does it happen by individual bits alone. Do they simply interact with one another. what edits the bits. do all bits interact with all bits at all times. if they are not all assembled somewhere or somehow then how do we experience time, sequences of awareness.

[GermanOperaSinger]

I have tremendous respect for Dennett as one of the leading philosophers of mind. However, I feel his experiments still do not adequately tackle the 'hard problem'. They deal with perception and the senses. One can be deprived of all his senses, but simply by being aware that he is experiencing nothing, he is experiencing SOMETHING, and therefore conscious. Consciousness may not be a grand, elaborate phenomenon, but awareness itself hasn't been satisfactorily explained by Dennett or anyone else.