Excellent book!!!

He is trying to equate science and scientific principles and takes on reality synonymously with the 3rd person concept and then universal reality. This move by Dennett is a sly illusiatory slide of the philosophic hand in this “philosophic” magic trick. He is sneakily trying to reduce universal reality and understanding to the 3rd person concept, then in turn reducing this to within the physicalist paradigm and then further down to scientific parameters. Of course all this trickery seems to be going on below the surface, at the surface level… you have Martian’s because these beings would be presumably very different then us… so to have information that could be shared and attained synonymously between the two species would be non subjective information, this information would then be “objective” information. This objective information we brand as 3rd person perspective or community information, this is the type of information that science is concerned with, the objective. So if the Martians had scientist they then would be concerned with this type of 3rd person perspective information not this qualia stuff. The thing that Dennett’s science presupposes is rationality, so the Martians would be rational too. Consequently the Martians scientists would be acquainted with the “intentional stance” when trying to predict and understand observable phenomena. Again the Intentional stance is a predictive tool or position, where one makes the assumption (or gives ascription to) of rationality to an entity outside of ones consciousness, for the purpose of predictive behavior of that exterior entity (i.e. computers, aliens, humans, mice, and maybe bats)

It is somewhat like a big party, which is coming to an end, many have gone and those that are still there are sitting down. D. C. Dennett is sitting in his armchair and recounts the evening, for those who will listen. As usual he rummages a lot, talks of the recent news, the last youtube meme, but it illustrates his view, and we wonder with him, about the evening, if it was unique (after all, we were all there!), or if it was just a party, a simple mechanical party.

Was a good followup to Consciousness Explained. If you were not convinced by the first book, this book is helpful. It makes some expansions on the original ideas, and covers some of the experiments that have been done since then. It also clarifies some meanings of words that from Dennett's point of view have been confusing since the philosophers were not using the same meanings that the scientists were.

It is much more of a reflection on the past and a defense against critics of the first book than it is groundbreaking (as the first book was).

Sweet Dreams serves as Daniel Dennett's recent follow-up to Consciousness Explained. In both books, he discusses a number of issues currently plaguing the philosophy of mind and primary theories of consciousness. In Sweet Dreams, Dennett revisits many of the same topics not always with the same amount of depth. This text, a compilation of previously published essays and talks given by Dennett after the publication of Consciousness Explained but before 2005, showcases the author's sense of humor and depth of thought when divulging upon the philosophies that constitute his relatively lengthy career.

Starting out on a particularly strong chapter, which lays the groundwork for what the author believes to be traditional myths surrounding the theories of consciousness, like the Cartesian Theater, Dennett also explores approaches to a theory of consciousness, such as first-, second-, or third-person perspectives -- the latter being Dennett's preference, through which he propounds a specific approach through the scientific-method-based heterophenomenology. Additional topics include a holistic discussion of qualia, the "stuff" that "makes life worth living," Chalmers' Hard Problem, the zombie paradox as well as Dennett's defense of the approach of the Multiple Drafts Model of consciousness.

This book does a fine job bringing those who may already be familiar with the philosophy of mind up to date with current discussions and approaches to the controversies permeating the field. Dennett possesses a keen sense for sniffing out unsupported assumptions and thinking outside the box -- a true testament to his old mentor, indeed.

Dennett's latest book on the philosophy of consciousness.

This is such a great book! I read Dennett's book Consciousness Explained (CE) right before I read Sweet Dreams (SD). Sweet Dreams answered many of my questions after reading CE. I highly recommend both books. I don't see why other people find it so hard to not completely buy into their intuitions regarding consciousness when trying to explain it. If we are looking to explain consciousness, why on Earth would we assume that there MUST be "intrinsic" "phenomenal" qualities that are only accessible from a first-person perspective? If you say that it is a possibility that there are such qualities, okay fine. However, I think that old philosophical traditions, the "method" of phenomenology and the framing of the philosophy of mind by newer philosophers has led to utter confusion regarding how to think about the human mind. I used to agree with David Chalmers and John Searle that subjectivity itself just simply could not be explained using third-person methods. However, Dennett is a bright and funny philosopher who helped me see the flaws in my thinking from multiple angles. It was a delight to read both CE and SD. Dennett goes beyond the obsession philosophers have had with mere conceptual analysis, intuition, assumptions based purely on first-person experience, thought experiments that are supposed to prove something on their own and what is "just obvious"for too long. By the way, his use of intuition pumps/thought experiments are just to help you think differently and combat other flawed intuition pumps. They aren't considered arguments on their own! He is ahead of his time. Now, I'm on to read a book by a neuroscientist who was inspired by Dennett's way of thinking: Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts by Stanislas Dehaene!

Dennett debunks theories of consciousness that argue for a "magical residue" in the mind that cannot be explained by cognitive science. He's adept, but anecdotal and comic, too.

I was disappointed with this follow up to Dennett's landmark 'Consciousness Explained' (1991).

Compiled in 2004 from articles and lectures that he gave 8-13 years after this prior work, this is an interesting update. He revisits some of the debates that he has had with philosophers over since 'Consciousness Explained', but adds very little to his original thesis.

The main focus of this book is:
- defense of heterophenomenology as a method for investigating consciousness
- attack of the use of zombies as an intuition pump
- sustained denial of the any subjective point of view in conscious experience

Where Dennett was strongest before was in his solid naturalist, reductionist, materialist account of consciousness. While I never went with him all the way on his thesis, his dissection of the different aspects of subjectivity, his denial of the 'Cartesian Theatre', his creation of the Multiple Drafts model (here simply repackaged as a 'Fame' model) and his hypothesis of a virtual machine running on the neural hardware were all genuinely useful contributions to the understanding of consciousness.

Unfortunately, he has lost his patience with his detractors (e.g. Searle, Chalmers, Nagel, Fodor, Wright, Vorhees.....) in the intervening years and has entrenched his position to a point where consciousness is identical simply to thought. Quote: "consciousness is a physical, biological phenomenon— like metabolism or reproduction or self-repair—that is exquisitely ingenious in its operation, but not miraculous or even, in the end, mysterious". Here I believe that Dennett is being disingenuous and is pulling the wool over his own eyes.

As a book, it is poorly compiled. Some sections are repeated - verbatim - three times over; 30% of the book could have been scrapped.

Dennett makes a compelling case against a number of widespread, non-optimistic philosophical objections to the third-person study of consciousness. It comes off as an advertisement for Dennett's long-standing blend of first and third-person study (heterophenomology) for consciousness research.

The collection comes recommended for those who already are familiar with the common philosophy of mind objections to mixing science and consciousness research. If you're unfamiliar with some of the classical philosophical arguments of consciousness, it's best to get a primer before reading through Dennett's analysis. Most of his material is in response to previously established ideas.

Highlights include his analysis and counterarguments on Philosophy of Mind classics such as uni-chromatic Mary (i.e. limits of knowledge w.r.t experience) and discouraging one's inclination toward buying into the Zombie arguments of Chalmers (the "Zombie Hunch"). I found his eloquent and playful manner of writing refreshing and, surprising for the content, not too heavy. Dennett shines through as a real optimist, convinced that science's approach is the most balanced and informed way to unearthing understanding of consciousness.

One criticism of this collection of essays is that much of the material repeats itself, begging the question why some further editing wasn't done before releasing it.

.

After finishing Consciousness Explained recently and liking it very much, feeling convinced Dennett tackles the issues in the appropriate way, I felt a need to read this one next. Here, Dennett elaborates on his ideas that in order to understand consciousness, we need to take empirical findings seriously and if we do, we realize that there is no room for any center of consciousness in the brain. Rather, we find that activities are spread out over different areas having different functional roles, somehow adding up to conscious experiences. He sketches a theory of how and why certain activities result in conscious awareness, reshaping his earlier attempts through the multiple drafts model and fame models of consciousness, into the fantasy echo theory, according to which our consciousness is explained in terms of our ability to recall experiences which results in episodic memories being possible. As I understand Dennett here, he calls attention to an important difference between lower forms of attention, such as that exhibited by lower forms of life who we agree do not enjoy consciousness, at least not of our kind, and higher forms of attention that requires the ability to form experiences of episodes. It is just this ability to experience not just simple inclinations towards reacting in certain ways in response to perceptions, but complete episodes that can be memorized and recalled that explains our conscious experiences. An important aspect of the theory is that any conscious experience consists simply in a multitude of lower, unconscious states in the mind which come together to form the experience and that there is no one moment in which something enters into consciousness but that there is competition at any moment between different sets of lower brain states to rise in activity.

The different models come together more or less, and can be seen as elaborations on each other. In the multiple drafts model, Dennett made the analogy to academic articles. There are often no one canonical version of the article, it can be in circulation as one or several different drafts, be published in a conference proceedings and then in a slightly different version in a journal and so on. There simply is no answer to the question of when the article is officially published and Dennett suggested, by his multiple drafts model, that there similarly is no answer to the question of when a something first enters into consciousness. It is a gradual process of many lower brain states being activated together yielding conscious experiences that arise as "drafts" that get revised multiple times. The fame model describes the situation in other terms: different conscious experiences have a potential at any moment to arise from the activity of the brain, with these potential experiences competing for the "fame" of attention. In the fantasy echo model, Dennett seems to focus on another aspect of this. With the previous models, he attempted to explain how there is no one moment when something reaches a point of awareness, that there's an ongoing process by which conscious experiences shifts and changes gradually. Now, he lays down a theory of how conscious experiences are explained by focusing on our ability to recall events, to shape memories and experiences into episodes, which supposedly is meant to explain how we get rich experiences and not merely the primitive responses of unconscious life forms (let's take bacteria, for an uncontroversial example of a responsive yet unconscious life form).

The other side of this view of conscious experiences is that they are analyzable, at least potentially, in terms of lower, unconscious brain states and this is where Dennett spends a lot of time, I think rightly, to attack the idea of qualia and to show what goes wrong if some intuitions are left unexamined when considering some classic thought experiments meant to prove the existence of qualia. Philosophical zombies and Mary the color scientist are treated at length and the analysis seems to hold, but I'm not going to try to summarize them here now.

In conclusion, Dennett is to the point, unimpressed by intuitions, and carefully considerate of scientific results. His models are attempts to account for something beyond that which science can currently investigate fully, but he provides suggestions informed by scientific results for where to look for a theory of consciousness rather than, as Chalmers and others seem to be doing, suggest that consciousness is some sort of fundamental building block in our ontology such that no scientific, third-person, investigation can ever explain it. It's a lovely book further explaining Dennett's views of consciousness, perfect reading for anyone who has already read Consciousness Explained. The only reason I'm giving it only four stars (and I would have given it four and a half if that had been possible) is that there are times when Dennett writes tiny dialogues in which he pits his views against those of his opponents. Such passages can be enlightening and interesting (as we know from Plato...) but Dennett does not do a very good job with them. Even though I agree with most of his conclusions and think he does a good job of defending himself against his opponents, I think he does so best when he quotes them and picks apart their arguments one by one. In the dialogues though, he mostly succeeds in creating straw men that are way too easily defeated. I think the qualia people are misguided and confused but, as is shown when Dennett does quote them, their arguments take some time to pick apart and he does not do any of his opponents justice by making them go down so quickly as he does in the dialogues. Thankfully, these passages are few and short so they do not harm the reading experience too much, but it's enough that the rating needs to fall short of the full five stars. Another, tiny, flaw is that there are several passages that are repeated twice (and some, if I remember correctly, thrice). Dennett comments on this in one chapter, attributing it to the text of that chapter being a revised version of a lecture he gave which included material from the papers being the bases of the other chapters. This is understandable, but I'm pretty sure there was another repetition or two in the latter chapters. Perhaps this comment by Dennett was meant to apply to several of the last chapters. In any case, it doesn't matter much but the repetition was a minor annoyance which, in combination with my comment above on the badly written dialogues, necessitated the four out of five stars. I do, nevertheless, consider it a must read for anyone interested in theories of consciousness.