Brainchildren: Essays on Designing Minds

by Daniel C. Dennett

Overview

A new collection of wide-ranging essays from one of cognitive science's most distingushed figures.

Minds are complex artifacts, partly biological and partly social; only a unified, multidisciplinary approach will yield a realistic theory of how they came into existence and how they work. One of the foremost workers in this multidisciplinary field is Daniel Dennett. This book brings together his essays on the philosphy of mind, artificial intelligence, and cognitive ethology that appeared in inaccessible journals from 1984 to 1996. Highlights include "Can Machines Think?," "The Unimagined Preposterousness of Zombies," "Artificial Life as Philosophy," and "Animal Consciousness: What Matters and Why." Collected in a single volume, the essays are now available to a wider audience.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262540902
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	02/17/1998
Series:	Representation and Mind series
Pages:	430
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Daniel C. Dennett is University Professor Codirector of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. He is the author of Brainchildren: Essays on Designing Minds; Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness; Elbow Room The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting; Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness (all published by the MIT Press), From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Mind, and other books.

Table of Contents

Preface
I Philosophy of Mind
1 Can Machines Think?
Postscript [1985]
Postscript [1997]
2 Speaking for Our Selves
with Nicholas Humphrey
Postscript
3 DoItYourself Understanding
4 Two Contrasts: Folk Craft versus Folk Science, and Belief
versus Opinion
5 Real Patterns
6 Julian Jaynes's Software Archeology
7 Real Consciousness
8 Instead of Qualia
9 The Practical Requirements for Making a Conscious Robot
10 The Unimagined Preposterousness of Zombies: Commentary on
Moody, Flanagan, and Polger
II Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Life
11 Cognitive Wheels: The Frame Problem of AI
12 Producing Future by Telling Stories
13 The Logical Geography of Computational Approaches: A View
from the East Pole
14 Hofstadter's Quest: A Tale of Cognitive Pursuit
15 Foreword to Robert French, The Subtlety of Sameness
16 Cognitive Science as Reverse Engineering: Several Meanings
of "TopDown" and "BottomUp"
17 Artificial Life as Philosophy
18 When Philosophers Encounter Artificial Intelligence
19 Review of Allen Newell, Unified Theories of Cognition
III Ethology, Animal Mind
20 Out of the Armchair and into the Field
21 Cognitive Ethology: Hunting for Bargins or a Wild Goose
Chase
22 Do Animals Have Beliefs?
23 Why Creative Intelligence Is Hard to Find: Commentary on
Whiten and Byrne
24 Animal Consciousness: What Matters and Why
IV Standing Back
25 SelfPortrait
26 Information, Technology, and the Virtues of Ignorance
Bibliography
IndeX

Editorial Reviews

The author of Darwin's Dangerous Idea and Consciousness Explained here collects essays from conference volumes and "specialized journals" that have appeared from 1984 to 1996, with the idea of making them available "for students and other readers." But any reader curious about the nuts and bolts of recent theories of mind and our attempts at modeling it will find even Dennett's technical side accessible enough, given a willingness to be occasionally thrown in medias res. The lead essay, "Can Machines Think?" is a clearly formulated reassessment of current contenders for passing the Turing testthe criterion by which thinking machines are judged. "Speaking for Our Selves" evaluates claims for the legitimacy of multiple personality disorder, and extends the discussion into questioning the notion of selfhood. "Real Patterns," which Dennett calls "utterly central to my thinking," is tougher going, as Dennett seems to be addressing an ongoing dispute among philosophers about what it might mean for a belief to be "real," but the essay rewards repeated reading. A section on animal cognition and one on the philosophical possibility of zombies are further draws, but many of the other essays and reviews will hold interest only for the specialist. Throughout, however, Dennett's careful attention to word choice and definition helps the uninitiated along, and reveals one of our most celebratedand controversialphilosophers of mind at work. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Dennett has got in among my prejudices and changed my mind; this book has opened up new areas of contention for me. This man improves my universe and yours. Enjoy him. - Jack Cohen

Scientific American