Where Am I by Daniel C. Dennett - Book Report/Review Example

Mind/Body Relation-Daniel C. Dennett, "Where Am I" Daniel C. Dennett in his story "Where Am I" suggests that the nature of a person depends not onlyupon the mind or the brain but also on the body. There is a common conception that the mind controls the behavior or nature of a person but many times a person reacts to a situation without being controlled by his mind, rather on the basis of how his body is reacting. Hence whether it is one's mind or body, the nature of a person gets programmed as he cultivates certain habits. On the physical front our habits are in the area of diet, personal hygiene, discipline etc. On the mental front, we form a habit of working hard or slow, taking initiative or avoiding certain things, positive or negative attitude, level of commitment etc. Thus by the synchronisation of the traits of our mind and body, our nature gets formed and we start behaving accordingly. On commenting upon the nature of a person, which to a great extent is influenced by his habits, Dennett stated, " I was doomed by sheer force of mental habit to thinking systematically false indexical thoughts or where a person is (and hence where his thoughts are tokened for purposes of semantic analysis) is not necessarily where is, the physical seat of his soul resides." (p.360) Thus a human being's nature is to think much beyond his current surroundings. His thought process becomes so strong that sometimes he forgets where he physically is and asks himself, 'where am I' He gets so engrossed in his world of thoughts that the place to which his body belongs becomes less alluring to him. He starts longing for the world in his mind rather than the world that has embodied his physical existence. As far as relationship between our mind and body is concerned Dennett suggested that our mind and body have the capacity to drift away from each other. In his entire story Dennett's brain and body are at different places. In the initial part, he is confused with this type of setting but in the latter part he gets accustomed to this and starts speaking from the point of view of his body. Through this he indicated that there is possibility of one's mind and body to be in different directions though not literally as far as reality is concerned. But human beings are so accustomed of both of them that people other than those who have philosophical inclinations are not able to understand which one is influencing the other. One more thing that gets indicated about the relationship between mind and body of a person is that though they often drift apart from each other, they cannot be called self sufficient in each other's absence. They can be apart for some time but not always; otherwise the basis of one's existence would get disrupted. Bringing forward this point, Dennett rightly stated, "Just as one is rendered close to speechless by a delayed or echoic hearing of one's speaking voice so, for instance, I am virtually unable to track a moving object with my eyes whenever my brain and my body are more than a few miles apart." (p.363) This indicates that when one's mind and body are apart one is not able to perceive and judge things normally. If one has to control one's senses completely then the mind and body should not be allowed to function separately otherwise one will have to lead a life detached from the world of reality. When seen from the angle of dualism Dennett, seems to agree, "our mind is more than just our brain. This concept entails that our mind has a non-material, spiritual dimension that includes consciousness and possibly an eternal attribute. One way to understand this concept is to consider our self as a container including our physical body and physical brain along with a separate non-physical mind, spirit, or soul." (AllAboutPhilosophy.org, para.1) Throughout Dennett's story we get a glimpse of this idea. Though his brain was lying in the vat, he was constantly communicating to himself through his mind. In his story the brain seemed just an object while the mind seemed the main force behind all his thought process. Materialism is a concept that is just opposite to dualism. It holds the viewpoint that the mind and the brain are interchangeable concept. They are the different names of the same concept. Materialism propagates the viewpoint that the human brain, which is also known as the human mind, is made up of physical materials and no spiritual attributes are attached to it. While narrating the story, Dennett has given a glimpse of materialism. He stated that the scientists and doctors designed his duplicate brain. In fact, he named his two brains, Yorick and Hubert. We get a glimpse of his materialistic viewpoint in the following lines where he mentioned: "I had a spare brain, a prosthetic device which might some day stand me in a very good stead, were some mishap to befall Yorick. Or alternatively, I could keep Yorick as a spare and use Hubert." (p.367) But he also drifts the conversation to a dualistic tone and starts putting forward ideas related to this school of thought. This gets highlighted in the following lines: " It occurred to me then, with one of those rushes of revelation of which we should be suspicious, that I had stumbled upon an impressive demonstration of the immateriality of the soul based upon physicalist principles and premises." (p.365) Thus we can say that throughout the narration of his story Dennett is sailing upon two boats. One is the dualist boat and the other is the materialist boat. If we compare his views to behaviorism, we find that there is a great similarity between this school of thought and Dennett's viewpoint. Behavoirism is a healthy combination of the characteristics of dualism and the characteristics of materialism. It has been rightly called the learning perspective. Dennett is not only putting an impression in our minds that he has learnt a lot from his so called story but also helping us learn many things about the three major perspectives of our existence. Since he seems to sail two boats simultaneously it would not be a wrong notion to suggest that he, in fact is following the behavioristic viewpoint. It has been rightly mentioned in Wikipedia that, ".behaviors as such can be described scientifically without recourse either to internal physiological events or to hypothetical constructs such as the mind. Behaviorism comprises the position that all theories should have observational correlates but that there are no philosophical differences between publicly observable processes (such as actions) and privately observable processes (such as thinking and feeling)." (para.1) Dennett gives equal importance to both mind and body throughout his story. Though mind and body are different there is commonality between them and Dennett has not overlooked this highly evident fact. Thus it can be concluded that he is a believer of behaviorism. Amongst dualism, behaviorism and materialism, I believe in behaviorism the most. This is because both dualism and materiaism are extreme ends of a perspective while behaviorism is a healthy mix of both. Just as our existence and conduct can be attributed to the healthy mix of our mind and body, the theory of behaviorism can be termed as a healthy mix of rationality and sprituality. Just as a computer is a mix of hardware and sofware. We human beings also require hardware which signifies our body and software which signifies our minds in order to deliver maximum results. If we look from the perspective of human nature then too, we find that the behaviorism erupts at each and every action of human beings. As discussed above human beings react according to the habit they have formed. Reaction of human beings or even animals are nothing but a glimpse of his nature or in other words a glimpse of the manner in which he behaves in most circumstances In these modern times we cannot undermine the importance of natural sciences like physics and chemistry. There are enough evidences to prove their strong role in transforming our lives to the better. However, we also cannot undermine the philosophy of our mind which is the guiding force of all our thinking. If we want to thoroughly understnd the mind body relation to a person then behaviorism is the only path that can take us to the right direction. It can be stated that Dennet has been successful in putting forward his belief in behaviorism in our minds through his story, 'Where am I' References All About Plilosophy. (2008). Retrieved Apr.4, 2008 from http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/dualism.htm Wikipedia. (2008). Retrieved Apr.4, 2008 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behaviorism Read More