Kinds Of Minds: Toward An Understanding Of Consciousness (Science Masters)

Apologies to Suzuki Roshi for the bad pun on the title of his elegant little book. But Dan Dennett’s Kinds of Minds (1996) is also an elegant little gem—in its own way. The subtitle is “Toward an Understanding of Consciousness,” and the book takes the reader from the beginnings of a basic agency that we detect in lower animals through the mental activities of higher animals and finally to the unique intellectual competence of humans, all without relying upon non-physical explanations or magical thinking. It’s a straightforward read: There is no math and none of the complex philosophical argumentation found in his major works — Consciousness Explained (1991), the seminal Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (1995), and the more recent From Bacteria to Bach and Back (2017) — but it’s directed to the scientifically-minded reader, so Kinds of Minds is a good introductory work to prepare for tackling one of Dennett’s major (and much longer) books.Dennett prefaces his book by saying, “we philosophers are better at questions than answers,” and he does ask a lot of questions throughout the book, such as “What is sentience” and what criteria do we use to detect it in other species? “Can a woman ever know what it is like to be a man?” “Why aren’t vultures nauseated by the rotting carcasses they eat?” “Can a [very] complicated robot feel pain, and worry about its future, the way a person can?” How do we know what another person is feeling?At the lowest level, the self-replicating macromolecules, we can use the ‘intentional stance’ to say that they had reasons for what they did, but they had no inkling of them. Similarly for the cuckoo chicks that instinctively kick out the other eggs in the nest so that they can maximize the food and protection they receive from their adoptive parents. Their ‘reasons’ were there, even if the cuckoo chicks can’t comprehend them. Dennett calls such behavioral rationales ‘free-floating’ because they aren’t represented in the animal, or anywhere else, even though the rationales are shaped and refined over evolutionary time by their environments.But how do such ‘free-floating rationales’ become an agent’s own reasons? How does an agent come to be able to compose and design its own reasons? Or to edit, revise, manipulate, endorse such reasons? Dennett asks, “Can it build this competence out of the sorts of external-world manipulations it has already mastered?” Dennett raises these questions and provides some rough answers in the final chapters, appropriately entitled “The Creation of Thinking” and “Our Minds and Other Minds.” Dennett concludes, “This book began with a host of questions, and—since this is a book by a philosopher—it ends not with the answers, but, I hope, with better versions of the questions themselves.”Dennett’s thought-provoking little book is one in a series of books titled “The Science Masters,” amid books by Steven Pinker, Ernst Mayr, Richard Leakey, Richard Dawkins, Lynn Margulis, Susan Greenfield, W. Daniel Hills, and others.

I got started on Dennett's many books when a friend recommended Consciousness Explained and I haven't been able to put the topic down ever since. Dennett continues his clear, straightforward style in this book which is much more readable than Consciousness Explained, but still provides ample challenge for the reader.Dennett starts with the statement, "I am a philosopher, not a scientist," yet his command of what is going on in the sciences is most impressive. His ability to make incredibly complex ideas of evolution understandable to the lay person is amazing and consistent. Through the use of words and diagrams, we are brought up to date on the latest thinking on what mind is and how it is evolving.Kinds of Minds tackles very emotional and controversial topics such as "are we so sure that all humans have minds? . . . Could it be that all animals and even plants and even bacteria have minds?. . . What kinds of minds are there?" The reader is then lead through a series of logical steps, replete with information on the latest scientific and philosophical thought, and left to finally decide these big questions on his or her own.This is definitely a must read book for those interested in the human mind, consciousness, and ethical treatment of our fellow beings in this interconnected web of all existence.

After being reasonably impressed with Dennett's thoroughly researched treatise supporting evolution in his book Darwin's Dangerous Idea, I was motivated to read Kinds of Minds. Sadly, I am left with the impression Dennett had a book contract to honor and filled 168 pages with off the cuff rhetoric rather than substantive, concrete science. For most, it will be no great surprise that the development of complex language and our use of symbols and tools to help us arrange and "offload" data that might otherwise saturate our brains, gives us humans a great advantage over this planet's other inhabitants. Even here I was disappointed, finding not even speculation as to the evolutionary forces driving such advantage. If Dennett tells us anything, it is that our search to explain consciousness raises far more questions than answers. It is fortunate that Kinds of Minds was not my first exposure to Dennett. Otherwise, I would have had no reason to undertake his considerably longer offering, Darwins Dangerous Idea.

Dennett is such a deep thinker and knows his topics so well but what makes him so readable is his gorgeous way of communicating. Sentences like a sting of pearls. I other get distracted (completely my issue) by how well he brings me in and drops me off the long end of a paragraph with a new appreciation for a point, idea or some angle I'd never considered before.

Dennett, for one thing, takes the social-constructionist approach to defining mental events and makes a compelling case for the existence of unified mental processes in nonhuman animals. His style off writing is enjoyable as well.

Good food for thought, doesn't exactly answer any questions but does indicate that my thinking on the topic has been shared by other great minds! :0

I started the book with unrealistic expectations and found it did not hold my interest as I had hoped. Can't really rate it since I didn't finish it.

One of the most important books I have ever read about understanding consciousness. I love Dennett's humility at the end when he proposes not so much to have the answers but "better questions".

Daniel Dennett ist genial. Habe schon andere Büchern von Ihn gelesen. Nun muss ich wirklich sagen, dass ich begeistert bin! Bin sehr zufrieden, werde diesen Artikel wieder kaufen.