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Ideas for 'works', 'Brainchildren' and 'Number Determiners, Numbers, Arithmetic'

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4 ideas

15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / a. Consciousness
2528 Does consciousness need the concept of consciousness? [Dennett]
     Full Idea: You can't have consciousness until you have the concept of consciousness.
     From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.6)
     A reaction: If you read enough Dennett this begins to sound vaguely plausible, but next day it sounds like an absurd claim. 'You can't see a tree until you have the concept of a tree?' When do children acquire the concept of consciousness? Are apes non-conscious?
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / c. Parts of consciousness
2525 Maybe language is crucial to consciousness [Dennett]
     Full Idea: I continue to argue for a crucial role of natural language in generating the central features of consciousness.
     From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.25)
     A reaction: 'Central features' might beg the question. Dennett does doubt the consciousness of animals (1996). As I stare out of my window, his proposal seems deeply counterintuitive. How could language 'generate' consciousness? Would loss of language create zombies?
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 4. Intentionality / b. Intentionality theories
2527 Unconscious intentionality is the foundation of the mind [Dennett]
     Full Idea: It is on the foundation of unconscious intentionality that the higher-order complexities developed that have culminated in what we call consciousness.
     From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.25)
     A reaction: Sounds right to me. Pace Searle, I have no problem with unconscious intentionality, and the general homuncular picture of low levels building up to complex high levels, which suddenly burst into the song and dance of consciousness.
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 4. Objectification
10004 Our minds are at their best when reasoning about objects [Hofweber]
     Full Idea: Our minds mainly reason about objects. Most cognitive problems we are faced with deal with particular objects, whether they are people or material things. Reasoning about them is what our minds are good at.
     From: Thomas Hofweber (Number Determiners, Numbers, Arithmetic [2005], §4.3)
     A reaction: Hofweber is suggesting this as an explanation of why we continually reify various concepts, especially numbers. Very plausible. It works for qualities of character, and explains our tendency to talk about universals as objects ('redness').