There is a difference between Dennett and Baars,
Dennett says the theater metaphor is not useful
to understand consciousness. He argues in
"consciousness explained" what consciousness
is not: it is not happening in a Catesian theater
where a single person, the self, sits before a
large stage or screen and watches what happens.
It is always easier to say what something
is not (e.g. non-linear, non-equilibrium, etc.)
than to say what it actually is.
Baars says the theater metaphor is useful to
understand consciousness. He argues that
consciousness is like the bright spot cast
by the spotlight on to the stage of theater.
The other actors and those in the backstage
or in the audience represent the unconscious
elements. Dennett's theater is empty except
the little self sitting there, Baars' theater
is full of actors.
I was asking about the latter version of
the theater metaphor. Dennett writes about
it "for those who want to join the race
to model consciousness, this is the starting
line" (on the Back Cover of Baars' earlier book
"A Cognitive Theory of Consciousness"). Is it?
Does anyone agree?
-J.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nicholas Thompson" <nickthomp...@earthlink.net>
To: <Friam@redfish.com>
Sent: Friday, October 23, 2009 6:57 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] In the theater of consciousness
The idea you describe here is familiar to me as the "cartesian theatre",
which I think arises from Daniel Dennet, Consciousness Explained??? It is
also represented, I think, in a book called the User Illusion, which I
have
never read. It's a very tempting view because it is deeply imbedded in
our
day-to-day conversations about behavior.
It is called the Cartesian Theatre because of Descartes's "brain in the
vat" argument that leads to the conclusion that all we can for sure is the
content of our own minds. On that basis, we start to think of experience
as something we sit and watch played out sort of screen on the inside of
our skulls, watched perhaps by the cyclopean eye of the pineal. As you
know, it is my view that this sort of cartesian skepticism leads
further:--
to the conclusion that we cant know anything for sure. On my account, if
we cannot know about the world, we surely cannot know about our own minds.
The argument is as follows: Any knowledge requires a knowledge-gathering
mechanism that uses cues. If we doubt that there are more or less
accurate
mechanisms for gathering information about the world, why would we be
confident that there are mechanisms for gtathering information about one's
own mind. This is how I arrive at my position, "O what the fuck, why not
just be realists and get the silliness over at the beginning."
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