Consciousness Explained...Away?

[Book Review #1]

The most hideous book cover…ever?

Consciousness Explained is the Bible of the Physicalist; a book meant to enlighten our world, threatened by the obscurantist woo of panpsychists, idealists, or worse: dualists. After being begged by my physicalist friends Joseph Rahi and Mark Slight, I decided to read it. I had high hopes, as my views broadly align with illusionism. However, despite Dennett's remarkable flashes of brilliance throughout the book, I find myself rather disappointed in several respects.

Let’s begin.

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This article belongs to my book review series, in which I briefly share my thoughts on my recent reads. I aim to give a fair, if subjective account.

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Context

Before critiquing the book, I should note that Daniel Dennett wrote Consciousness Explained (CE) in 1991—his choices in both content and style might have been justified, given the state of the field at the time. For instance, Dennett deliberately focused on challenging the persistent assumption of Dualism, which was a reasonable priority at the time, even if it left other theories underexplored.

Disappointing Prose

I know. Dennett is a great writer. He’s clear and engaging, at least according to popular belief. Unfortunately, I don’t think it is the case in CE¹. Some sections are opaque, convoluted, and it isn’t always clear where Dennett is going. The book also has its fair share of clunky sentences; see for yourself:

"They are under the impression that they actually observe themselves judging things to be such as a result of those things seeming to them to be such. No one has ever observed any such thing "in their phenomenology" because such a fact about causation would be unobservable."

I never analyze people’s intentions because I consider it cheap and inelegant. I’ll make an exception here. I think Dennett is a good writer—some passages are excellent. It just so happens that the critical passages are muddy and convoluted. The book could be cut in half without losing much content. Here is my theory: Dennett was confident about his thesis, but did not want to make it easy to reject. A clear claim calls for a clear objection, whereas a vague one lets you hide behind misunderstanding, instead of addressing warranted objections.

Lastly, I found Dennett too confident in his assertions. This is philosophy of mind; we’re working with best explanations. He could have spent more time acknowledging the limits of his framework, as well as the areas requiring further investigation. Now, as mentioned earlier, confidence was probably what the field needed at the time. To his credit, he did suggest further experiments.

Slaves of Analogy™

The title of this section is a courtesy of Ishmael Hodges. Check out his piece, which is not unrelated to our discussion:

Slaves of Analogy

A full article should be dedicated to philosophers misusing analogies. Since this is a brief piece, I won’t linger: analogies are valuable insofar as they illustrate a philosophical claim; they are not claims in their own right. Philosophers of mind have a pernicious tendency to treat analogies as explanations, rather than as illustrations. Dennett is no exception.

In Consciousness Explained, Daniel Dennett sometimes gestures at computer science, but doesn’t always cash it out. An analogy must connect to the underlying point it is meant to illustrate—using the analogy as an intuition pump doesn’t cut it.²

This is clearest in Dennett’s account of color processing. He discusses, at length, how computers “understand” color (whatever that means). Unfortunately, he does not cash it out by connecting it back to our biological brains. Dennett’s move is essentially: “computers can, so why not brains”. These tactics earned the book its famous rebrand: “Consciousness Explained Away”. This is certainly uncharitable, but Dennett had it coming.

Admittedly, I might be slightly unfair to Dennett, since he explicitly states that he uses experiments and analogies to challenge our intuitions. I don’t fully agree with the following quote, for the reasons listed above, but I believe it is a defensible position:

“My explanation of consciousness is far from complete. One might even say that it was just a beginning, but it is a beginning, because it breaks the spell of the enchanted circle of ideas that made explaining consciousness seem impossible. […] All I have done, really, is to replace one family of metaphors and images with another […] but metaphors are not “just” metaphors; metaphors are the tools of thought. No one can think about consciousness without them.” — Daniel Dennett in Consciousness Explained

Unaddressed Idealism and Panpsychism

I hope non-physicalists will forgive my provocative hook. Friendly banter aside, idealism and (especially) panpsychism are robust theories. Unfortunately, Consciousness Explained does not address them; it focuses on rejecting the dualist assumption of the Cartesian Theater. To Papa Dennett’s credit, the book is a positive account of consciousness, meant to stand on its own. There is no need to discuss alternatives, since they contradict the position that was just established. Naturally, this is only valid if the thesis is correct…

A Brilliant Framework (Multiple Drafts Model)

Whether the book deserves the criticism mentioned above becomes secondary next to Dennett’s brilliance. A few sections of the book are particularly insightful, but let’s go over the main thesis: the Multiple Drafts Model (MDM). Consider the various drafts of a book being edited before publication. Writers will often send different drafts to different people, each at a different stage of revision. Can you determine which is the “canonical” (the “real”) version of the book at any instant t, while dozens of them are being reviewed and edited? The answer is no.

Dennett posits that consciousness works much the same way. There is no Cartesian Theater, meaning that there is no central place where each perceptual input gets funneled to be “shown” to consciousness. Instead, consciousness is nothing more than a set of functions. Each brain function (whether perceptual or computational) constantly writes its own story, or draft. Consciousness, then, is the constant flow of different drafts competing and revising each other.

Is there a moment when you “become aware” that you are in pain? Well, this very framing smuggles in the Cartesian Theater—the idea that pain must travel somewhere in your brain to be projected to your consciousness. Dennett argues that there is no point t at which you become aware of the pain. When would this time t occur? When the C-fibers fire? When you start wincing? When you verbally report being in pain? According to the MDM, these questions are invalid. Rather, there is a continuous flow of drafts competing and revising each other. These processes are happening simultaneously such that no time t can meaningfully be identified. It is even possible that you remember having been in pain, while not having been conscious of it at that point in time. It may be, for instance, that a memory be created post hoc without ever having been experienced in real time.

It follows that there is never a time t at which an experience can meaningfully be said to occur. Remember, the drafts constantly revise each other, such that there is no canonical “draft” promoted to consciousness.

Now, you probably think that it’s nonsense. Probably. But let’s illustrate Dennett’s point with an illusion called the Color phi phenomenon. When people are exposed to two lights, one red and one blue, flashing in quick succession, they “experience” it as though the red light moves toward the blue light and changes color mid-air:

Now, when did the experience of the color change actually occur? Surely, we can’t experience the change in color before having perceived the color blue. Dennett uses this to argue that the various perceptual and computational “drafts” occur simultaneously; they continuously revise each other (sometimes retrospectively). This constant back-and-forth is experience. Dennett explains it in much more depth in the book, so if you find it interesting, you know what you have to do!

(One last bit of criticism: the effect Dennett describes is largely overblown. Not everyone can see it, and recent research has shown the illusion may have little to do with consciousness. This doesn’t necessarily undermine the MDM, but it’s another example of the book feeling deceitful at times).

See the Colour Phi Phenomenon here.

Should You Read The Book?

Consciousness Explained is a cornerstone of Philosophy of Mind, and many non-physicalists seem surprisingly oblivious to its core thesis. For both reasons, I believe it is worth reading. Remember, you don’t need to endorse a theory to appreciate its merits. Besides, ignoring such a heavy hitter might undermine your attempt to defend your own position.

That said, the length of the book is not justified, in my opinion, especially if you are a layman whose time is limited. If so, I would suggest reading secondary accounts. Dennett is brilliant, his thesis is robust, but you don’t need to read Consciousness Explained to appreciate it.

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Thank you for reading this far. I will be giving away one copy of Consciousness Explained (via an amazon gift link, or a Kindle donation, sent via email to maintain privacy). Respond to this poll if you’re interested:

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1. Before you insult my mother: I am not claiming my prose is any better, nor am I claiming Dennett is a bad writer.

2. Pun intended.