Kinds of Minds by Daniel C. Dennett

¶ … Minds

The fields of literature and research are the ever-flourishing disciplines. With various researchers, experts and other prominent figures including writers producing remarkable works based on extensive research, expertise, experience and relentless efforts, literature is making unmeasured and unbelievable advancement with every sketching moment. Like many writers, one personality that has made a mark in the western literature and one name that often emerges in research and literature pertaining to human mind and behavior is Daniel C. Dennett. The following passage of our research paper will present an overview of the renowned writer of the marvelous book, The Kinds of Minds: Towards an understanding of Consciousness.

Overview of the author

Educational Qualifications and Teaching Career:

Daniel C. Dennett was born in 1942 in the city of Boston at a historian's place. After receiving schooling in the hometown, he completed his B.A. In philosophy in 1963 from the prestigious institute of Harvard (Dennett's Home Page). He further did D.Phil in philosophy under the supervision of Gilbert Ryle, from the University of Oxford in 1965 and started his teaching career from U.C. Irvine in the same year. In 1971, he left for Tufts University and is an integral part of the faculty ever since apart from serving the Universities of Harvard, Pittsburgh, Oxford and the Ecole Normal Superieur in Paris as one of the visiting faculty members. (Dennett's Home Page)

Published Articles:

His articles have been published in scholarly journals as reputed as the journals of Artificial Intelligence and Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Poetics Today and the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (Dennett's Home Page). In addition to writing over hundred erudite research articles pertaining to multifaceted human brain, he has produced various well-written masterpieces on human brain and it's functioning. (Dennett's Home Page)

Books Written on Human Mind:

Daniel Dennett's initial book Content and Consciousness, which, was published in 1969, turned out to be a major success from where the writer embarked on an odyssey that unfolded his strong writing skills and assisted him in proving his depth of knowledge regarding the human mind (Dennett's Home Page). Dennett also wrote Brainstorms (1978), Elbow Room (1984), The Intentional Stance (1987), Consciousness Explained (1991), Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995) and Kinds of Minds (1996) (Dennett's Home Page). Furthermore, with the assistance of Douglas Hofstadter, he also came up with another magnum opus by the title The Mind's I in 1981. His book, Brainchildren: A Collection of Essays 1984-1996 (MIT Press) that appeared in 1997 enhanced Dennett's reputation as a writer and an expert on human psychology and brain. (Dennett's Home Page)

Lectures and Fellowships:

Apart from various other lectures, Dennett also conducted the "John Locke Lectures at Oxford in 1983, the Gavid David Young Lectures at Adelaide, Australia, in 1985 and the Tanner Lecture at Michigan in 1986 (Dennett's Home Page). He has received two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Science. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1987." (Dennett's Home Page)

Others:

In addition to the above, Daniel C. Dennett Co-founded the Curricular Software Studio of the University of Tufts in 1985 and also took the credit graciously for being the Co-director of the same (Dennett's Home Page). Furthermore, Dennett also extended his helping hand in designing the museum exhibitions using the computer technology for the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum of Science in Boston and the Computer Museum in Boston. (Dennett's Home Page)

Contemporary Status:

Dennett to date serves the Tufts University as Distinguished Arts and Sciences Professor, Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies. He lives with his wife, daughter, son and a grandson in North Andover, Massachusetts. Sailing is one of his all-time favorite hobbies apart from shaping sculptures (Dennett's Home Page). He also owns a farm in Maine, where he appreciates spending all his summers for harvesting "blueberries, hay and timber" (Dennett's Home Page). In addition to the exhaustive list of activities partaken by the versatile writer, he also produces Normandy cider wine (Dennett's Home Page).

The subsequent part of the research paper will present the summary of the book under consideration, that is, The Kinds of Minds: Towards an Understanding of Consciousness by Daniel C. Dennett.

Part II: Summary of the Kinds of Minds: Toward an Understanding of Consciousness

The book is divided into six organized chapters with the first chapter answering the question, "What kinds of minds are there?" moving onto chapter two, which discusses the foremost theme of the book, intentionality as observed by the author. The third chapter talks about "The Body and its Minds" (Dennett). The subsequent chapter highlights the reasons for "How Intentionality came into Focus." The fifth chapter is based on human brain's ability to think and develop concepts thereby entitling the chapter as "Creation of Thinking" (Dennett). The sixth and the last chapter wraps the entire book most skillfully and provides a thought provoking conclusion under the title "Our Minds and Other Minds." (Dennett)

Daniel Dennett, a renowned philosophic figure based his book Kinds of Minds on the concept of intentionality and brain functioning of humans and how it differs and is better than the brain of the animals. By determining and discussing the various levels of intentionality, the author probes into the deeper levels of various kinds of minds functioning distinctly with common functions and responsibilities. However, intentionality can be best defined by a single word "aboutness," "it is being about something else, not necessarily in the manner that the English "intentional" word means" (Daniel Dennett). The author considers all human beings and some non-living things as intentional systems where intentional stance is applied in order to determine the brain functioning by gauging the desires and convictions. The philosopher is of the view that "adopting the intentional stance," that is examining the behavior and its modifications in humans, animals as well as in non-living things, "helps us both highlight the evolution from our ancestors' foggy consciousness to today's mind and differentiate our mind from the mind of other beings" (Daniel Dennett).

In his book, the author contemplates the notion that human beings are sensitive to communication but the brain is not cognizant thereby maintaining that humans can feel but are not aware of their surroundings in reality. Furthermore, Dennett theorizes the unique idea that the distributed sagacity due to the process of evolution, growth and change in all creatures who are guided and governed by their creator's, the wisdom is scattered all over the body (Daniel Dennett). Hence, speculating that it is not the brain that dictates the bodily organs but the human development equips all parts to perform their tasks automatically for every body component receives wisdom apart from brain. In addition to the above, Dennet believes that it is this apportioning of wisdom that results in the malfunctioning of the brain followed by a gradual sluggishness and procrastination in other parts of the body. The author in his later chapters presents his analysis of the brain that the information transmitted to various parts of a body by the Darwinian process does not have to be repeated by the brain. However, "a brain can analyze the environment on a broader scale, can control movement in a much faster way and can predict behavior over a longer range" (Daniel Dennett).

Dennett also believes that all information-seeking components of a system form various intentional systems and get in order to be powerful enough to produce and work towards the common goal of improving the future. In order to "produce for the future" (Daniel Dennett), different steps determine distinct stages of intentionality thereby displaying altered kinds of minds. Step one is where varied creatures having different abilities are defined as well as examined by different philosophers, holding different opinions followed by stark opposite explanations. All of these philosophers observe humans and animals from different angles of their multifaceted being. They focus on one of the aspects. Each of these creatures was classified on the basis of varied levels of intentionalities, representing different kinds of minds. For instance: Darwinian Creatures were selected on their ability to endure the test proceedings on the grounds of trial and error (Daniel Dennett). "Skinnirean Creatures were chosen on their capability to manage to survive. These creatures were capable of searching and narrowing down only the best possible action to sustain their living (conditioning overcame the genetic trial and error of Darwinian creatures) (Daniel Dennett). Moreover, there were two other kinds of creatures with different abilities and tactics to survive and thrive in the environment around them and presented different types of minds (Daniel Dennett). Hence the third kind was the "Popperian creatures, which can play an action internally in a simulated environment before they perform it in the real environment and can therefore reduce the chances of negative effects (information about the environment supplements conditioning)" (Daniel Dennett). The fourth and the last division on the basis of ability to survive, constituted the "Gregorian creatures" who were "tools-enabled, in particular they mastered the tool of language" (Daniel Dennett).

The subsequent step involves those creatures that have the ability for an intentional stance towards other beings and those beings that are only capable of an intentional stance towards intentional stance. Hence the second step constitutes gauging the intentional stance in response to creatures and intentional stance in response to intentional stance of other beings. Therefore, intentional system with the ability to have an intentional stance towards other intentional systems and also towards other intentional stance has an edge over the first-order intentional system. Hence, the higher-order systems are successful in maintaining their ability to respond to the desires and convictions of other intentional systems with their own beliefs and aspirations. Dennett in his book proposes his beliefs regarding the existence of unaware high-order intentionality than the few examples that we find around ourselves of aware thinking. For example, animals betray each other as well as humans are capable of cheating on their fellow beings. According to Dennett, this becomes possible only when these animals and human beings know how to penetrate into and identify the intentional stance of their colleagues. Hence "drawing from ethology," the author of the Kinds of Minds culminate that "thinking arose from inner conversations (self-commentary) which arose from outer conversations (the need to argue with others of the same species) and from the biological need to keep secrets (to secure competitive advantages)" (Daniel Dennett).

In addition to the above, Dennett explains his firm belief regarding the source of human intelligence as his book unfolds the intricate experiences of the functioning of human body and different kinds of minds. The philosopher cum author is of the opinion that the process of cognitive activities and the human ability to expend most of there mental laborious work and responsibilities into their working milieu and natural setting permit human beings to perform with ease. This ability to "off-load" (Daniel Dennett) ameliorates the mental as well as physical conditions and helps all creatures to be less dependent on the wonders of their brains. Therefore we may culminate that Daniel Dennett was of the opinion that "species that store and use signs in the environment have an evolutionary advantage because they can "off-load" processing. It is like "taking a note" that we can look up later, so we don't have to remember it. They shape their environment. Their brains are semiotic devices that contain pointers and indices to the external world. Thanks to these artifacts our mind can extend out into the environment" (Daniel Dennett).

Furthermore, the renowned and the remarkable philosopher of his time, Dennett outlined further differences that makes human beings better and more cognizant than animals and other living creatures. Dennett uses the art of learning, comprehending and speaking language as a tool that paves the way for further human alertness regarding their surroundings and their ability to think in ways impossible for animals to adopt (Daniel Dennett). He believes that since animals are incapable of speaking the language as ours, they lack not only the essential communication skills but also the ability to think rationally unlike human beings. Thus Dennett believes that "language is more than just communication: it is a way to unravel the representations in our mind and extract units of them. Without language, an animal may have exactly the same representation, but it doesn't have access to any unit of it. If it can't talk, it can't think" (Daniel Dennett). Thus Daniel Dennett believes that it is through language, "labels learned and added to," that we human beings transform into rational thinkers and social animals. It is language that explicitly differentiates human beings from animals (Daniel Dennett). This is because the author thinks that the "communication of thoughts and feelings through a system of arbitrary signals, such as voice sounds, gestures, or written symbols" or the language helps us to develop and refine our concepts, an attribute that the animals and other living creatures lack. (The American Heritage Dictionary)

In short, Daniel Dennett believes that mind "the faculty of thinking, reasoning, and applying knowledge" (The American Heritage Dictionary) has various stages and levels that classify it. However, the philosopher of cognitive sciences believes that brain plays little role in measuring the human intelligence or in improving the consciousness of the sensitive but not sentient beings. (Daniel Dennett)

Having summarized the contents of the masterpiece under consideration, it is now conveniently possible to analyze the Kinds of Minds in part III, the last section of our research paper.

Part III: Analysis of the Kinds of Minds: Toward an Understanding of Consciousness

Reviewing the book by the noteworthy philosopher is no doubt a highly challenging task. However, analyzing the masterpiece for its contents enables us to identify the mental processes and various kinds of human minds. Though the book has received far more appreciation than criticism, the magnum opus, Kinds of Minds has both its shortcomings and strong points.

From the very first line of the book, the author provides the inkling regarding the depth of the masterpiece and his ability to rack his reader's brain for answers to thought provoking questions. Daniel Dennett writes, "I am a philosopher, not a scientist, and we philosophers are better at questions than answers" (Dennett: 1). Hence, the book by Dennett puts forth as many questions as it answers. The book starts with a good few questions regarding human thinking, human mind and other cognitive processes, making the book highly captivating and thought provoking at the first glance only (2think: Kinds of Minds). Thus from the very first page to the end, where again the author leaves behind many engaging yet disturbing questions in his reader's mind, the book moves from one notion to the other making swift changes and transmitting chunks of information (2thin: Kinds of Minds). The paragraph on page 48 explains the author's claim that most of the biological processes that place inside the living creature's body are robotic in nature.

The following paragraph is what I found very rational in thinking and organized in arrangement of the content: (2think: Kinds of Minds)

The original self-replicating macromolecules had reasons for what they did, but had no inkling of them. We, in contrast, not only know -- or think we know -- our reasons; we articulate them, discuss them, criticize them, share them. They are not just the reasons we act; they are reasons for us. In between the macromolecules and us there is quite a story to be told."

However, on one hand the author presents the notion that distributed wisdom allows all body parts to function independently and more so, automatically but on the other hand he states that this distributed wisdom leads to obstructed working of the brain. This is where the loopholes in Dennett's work are evident for if the brain is not responsible for commanding and controlling the rest of the body than how come it can hamper its performance?

Moreover, the author uses the word language as the appropriate tool that distinguishes human beings from animals, stating that animals are in capable of speaking a language. As he explains his concept on page 159 of his book and supports his claim in the following words: "no languageless mammal can have the concept of snow in the way we can, because a languageless mammal has no way of considering snow 'in general' or 'in itself'" (2think: Kinds of Minds). This statement and speculation by Dennett is in contrast with the theories and concepts proposed by philosophers as celebrated as Gardner and Fouts (2think: Kinds of Minds). These eminent figures were of the view that animals like humans, especially chimpanzees are capable of speaking a distinct language with only one difference. Chimpanzees speak and express themselves in sounds and words that are inaudible to human ears. This is where Dennett work reflects lack of consideration of other works related to the same notion (2think: Kinds of Minds). The author cited the example of dog, which unlike chimps is an animal that least resembles human beings. Moreover, the lexical meaning of the word presents those perspectives and meanings of the word language that the author seems to neglect. One meaning of the word is "A system of signs, symbols, gestures, or rules used in communicating" or more explicitly language is also defined as "The manner or means of communication between living creatures other than humans: the language of dolphins" (The American Heritage Dictionary). The aforementioned meanings reveal that all those creatures that makes use of gestures and create sounds speak some of language and thereby are capable of developing concepts and of thinking.