The architecture of the human mind is the topic of chapter nine. The lack of a single way to understand the human mind is the first issue that Dennett discusses at the beginning of the chapter. What modules form the human mind? How hard-wired are they? Jerry Fodor...
“How words do things with us?” is the title of chapter eight. It starts with the idea of how the virtual machines inside us are organised and how they could have a “virtual captain” of the crew, but not elevate the captain to have dictatorial power....
Dennett begins his discussion of the evolution of consciousness by introducing the Baldwin Effect, which explains the impact of learned behaviour on evolution. This adaptation hastens evolution for an organism, giving it an advantage over hard-wired cousins of the...
Evolutionary Puzzle of Suicide: when would you kill yourself? In our world, there is nothing worse than killing. And the most terrible thing is a man killing himself. Some might say enthusiastically: “Why didn’t natural selection eliminate a lot of physical and...
