Multiple drafts model

Abstract: In the years since Daniel Dennett's influential Consciousness Explained was published in 1991, scientific research on consciousness has been a hotly contested battleground of rival theories -- "so rambunctious," Dennett observes, "that several people are writing books just about the tumult." With Sweet Dreams, Dennett returns to the subject for "revision and renewal" of his theory of consciousness, taking into account major empirical advances in the field since 1991 as well as recent theoretical challenges. In Consciousness Explained, Dennett proposed to replace the ubiquitous but bankrupt Cartesian Theater model (which posits a privileged place in the brain where "it all comes together" for the magic show of consciousness) with the Multiple Drafts Model. Drawing on psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and artificial intelligence, he asserted that human consciousness is essentially the mental software that reorganizes the functional architecture of the brain. In Sweet Dreams, he recasts the Multiple Drafts Model as the "fame in the brain" model, as a background against which to examine the philosophical issues that "continue to bedevil the field." With his usual clarity and brio, Dennett enlivens his arguments with a variety of vivid examples. He isolates the "Zombic Hunch" that distorts much of the theorizing of both philosophers and scientists, and defends heterophenomenology, his "third-person" approach to the science of consciousness, against persistent misinterpretations and objections. The old challenge of Frank Jackson's thought experiment about Mary the color scientist is given a new rebuttal in the form of "RoboMary," while his discussion of a famous card trick, "The Tuned Deck," is designed to show that David Chalmers's Hard Problem is probably just a figment of theorists' misexploited imagination. In the final essay, the "intrinsic" nature of "qualia" is compared with the naively imagined "intrinsic value" of a dollar in "Consciousness -- How Much is That in Real Money?"

Abstract: Two models of consciousness are contrasted with regard to their treatment of subjective timing. The st andard Cartesian Theater model postulates a place in the brain where "it all comes together": where the discriminations in all modalities are somehow put into registration and "presented" f or subjective judgment. In particular, the Cartesia n Theater model implies that the temporal properties of the content -bearing events occurring within this privileged re presentational medium determine subjective order. The alternative, Multiple Drafts model holds that whereas the brain events that discriminate various perceptual contents are distri buted in both space and time in the brain, and wher eas the temporal properties of these various events are determinate, none of these temporal properties determine subjec tive order, since there is no single, constitutive "stream of conscio usness" but rather a parallel stream of conflicting and continuously revised contents. Four puzzling phenomena that resi st explanation by the standard model are analyzed: two results claimed by Libet, an apparent motion phenomenon involving color change (Kolers and von Grunau), and th e "cutaneous rabbit" (Geldard and Sherrick) an illusi on of evenly spaced series of "hops" produced by tw o or more widely spaced series of taps delivered to the skin. The unexamined assumptions that have always made the Cartesian Theater model so attractive are exposed and dismant led. The Multiple Drafts model provides a better ac count of the puzzling phenomena, avoiding the scientific and metaphysical extravagances of the Cartesian Theater.

Abstract: Consciousness has always been a baffling phenomenon, and some have seen it to be fundamentally mysterious, irretrievably beyond human understanding. I argue, on the contrary, that its mysteries are beginning to dissolve, thanks largely to the onslaught of empirical and conceptual advances in cognitive science. So entrenched, however, are the traditional ways of addressing the philosophical problems, that a frontal assault on them is doomed. One cannot hope to convince philosophers by straightforward arguments to abandon the "obvious" assumptions whose mutual acceptance has defined the debates. A more indirect approach is called for ("Preview," pp. 16-18), postponing a direct confrontation with the traditional categories until a new perspective has been created, and the reader familiarized with some of its powers. This is a three-stage operation. In Part I, a survey of phenomena and putative difficulties sets the problem and establishes a method. The goal is to create a materialistic, scientifically supported but still deliberately sketchy, model that can actually explain all the puzzling phenomena. The method for achieving this goal requires a philosophically and scientifically neutral way of describing the data-a phenomenology in its original sense of a pre-theoretical catalogue of phenomena. In Part II, the sketch of the model, the Multiple Drafts Model, is developed and supported, and put through some of its paces. Finally, in Part III, the philosophical implications of the Multiple Drafts Model are examined. Only then do I confront the challenges invoking folk psychological categories, and such philosophical terms as qualia, epiphenomenalism, zombie, and finctionalism, the staple diet of philosophical debate in recent years. (This indirect approach does not work for all readers, I have learned. Some find the temporary suspension of allegiance to traditional categories beyond them, or are unwilling to venture it. Those who insist on trying to impose their favorite philosophical distinctions on the book from the outset are almost bound to find the first two parts "exasperatingly elusive, even

Abstract: Two models of consciousness are contrasted with regard to their treatment of subjective timing. The standard Cartesian Theater model postulates a place in the brain where "it all comes together": where the discriminations in all modalities are somehow put into registration and "presented" for subjective judgment. In particular, the Cartesian Theater model implies that the temporal properties of the content-bearing events occurring within this privileged representational medium determine subjective order. The alternative, Multiple Drafts model holds that whereas the brain events that discriminate various perceptual contents are distributed in both space and time in the brain, and whereas the temporal properties of these various events are determinate, none of these temporal properties determine subjective order, since there is no single, constitutive "stream of consciousness" but rather a parallel stream of conflicting and continuously revised contents. Four puzzling phenomena that resist explanation by the standard model are analyzed: two results claimed by Libet, an apparent motion phenomenon involving color change (Kolers and von Grunau), and the "cutaneous rabbit" (Geldard and Sherrick) an illusion of evenly spaced series of "hops" produced by two or more widely spaced series of taps delivered to the skin. The unexamined assumptions that have always made the Cartesian Theater model so attractive are exposed and dismantled. The Multiple Drafts model provides a better account of the puzzling phenomena, avoiding the scientific and metaphysical extravagances of the Cartesian Theater.