Reading Consciousness Explained Part 1: The Cartesian Theater

I've been immensely enjoying "Consciousness Explained", but now it's getting frustrating. Dennet is attacking what he calls "the Cartesian Theater" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_theater) or "Catesian materialism". He says: "Many theorists would insist that they have rejected such an obviously bad idea. But as we shall see, the persuasive imagery of the Cartesian Theater keeps coming back to haunt us...even after its ghostly dualism has been denounced and exorcised."

But the Cartesian Theater is simply the proposition that the brain has a processor. Why is that an "obviously bad idea"? It's possible that the brain doesn't have a processor, but questions like that should be decided empirically.

Dennet says, "The brain is Headquarters, the place where the ultimate observer is, but there is no reason to believe that the brain itself has any deeper headquarters...in short, there is no observer inside the brain." Well, the fact that computers have a "deep headquarters" is a reason to suspect, if not to believe, that brains have one too. It has nothing to do with dualism.

Don't get me wrong, I love Daniel Dennet. I just wish he'd consulted with me before publishing this.