Editing Consciousness Explained (section)

==Summary==
Dennett puts forward a [[Multiple drafts model|"multiple drafts" model]] of consciousness, suggesting that there is no single central place (a "[[Cartesian theater]]") where conscious experience occurs; instead there are "various events of content-fixation occurring in various places at various times in the brain".<ref>{{harvnb|Dennett|1991}}, p. 365</ref> The brain consists of a "bundle of semi-independent agencies";<ref>{{harvnb|Dennett|1991}}, p. 260</ref> when "content-fixation" takes place in one of these, its effects may propagate so that it leads to the utterance of one of the sentences that make up the story in which the central character is one's "self". Dennett's view of consciousness is that it is the apparently serial account for the brain's underlying process in which multiple calculations are happening at once (that is, ''[[parallel computing|parallelism]]'').

One of Dennett's more controversial claims{{according to|date=November 2021}} is that [[qualia]] do not (and cannot) exist as qualia are described to be. Dennett's main argument is that the various properties attributed to qualia by philosophers—qualia are supposed to be incorrigible, ineffable, private, directly accessible and so on&mdash;are incompatible, so the notion of qualia is incoherent. The non-existence of qualia would mean that there is no [[hard problem of consciousness]], and "[[philosophical zombie]]s", which are supposed to act like a human in every way while somehow lacking qualia, cannot exist. So, as Dennett wryly notes, he is committed to the belief that we are all philosophical zombies (if you define the term "philosophical zombie" as functionally identical to a human being without any additional non-material aspects)—adding that his remark is very much open to misinterpretation.<ref>{{harvnb|Dennett|1991}}, p. 406. "Are zombies possible? They're not just possible, they're actual. We're all zombies. Nobody is conscious — not in the systematically mysterious way that supports such doctrines as epiphenomenalism." In a footnote Dennett states: "It would be an act of desperate intellectual dishonesty to quote this assertion out of context!"</ref>

Dennett claims that our brains hold only a few salient details about the world, and that this is the only reason we are able to function at all. Thus, we do not store elaborate pictures in short-term memory, as this is not necessary and would consume valuable computing power. Rather, we log what has changed and assume the rest has stayed the same, with the result that we miss some details, as demonstrated in various experiments and illusions, some of which Dennett outlines.<ref>{{harvnb|Spinney|2000}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Dennett|1991}}. See e.g. chapter 5 on "Orwellian and Stalinesque Revisions". Memory is central to much of Dennett's book, with reference found throughout.</ref> Research subsequent to Dennett's book indicates that some of his postulations were more conservative than expected. A year after ''Consciousness Explained'' was published, Dennett noted "I wish in retrospect that I'd been more daring, since the effects are stronger than I claimed". Since then, examples continue to accumulate of the illusory nature of our visual world.<ref>{{harvnb|Spinney|2000}}, p.30</ref>

A key philosophical method is [[heterophenomenology]], in which the verbal or written reports of subjects are treated as akin to a theorist's fiction—the subject's report is not questioned, but it is not assumed to be an incorrigible report about that subject's inner state. This approach allows the reports of the subject to be a datum in psychological research, thus circumventing the limits of classical [[behaviorism]].

Dennett says that only a theory that explained conscious events in terms of unconscious events could explain consciousness at all: "To explain is to explain ''away''".{{pn|date=November 2021}}