Question 1: Daniel Dennett

Daniel Dennett was hired to recover a STUD device that emitted neurologically hazardous radiation. In order to decrease the risk to his nerves, scientists removed Dennett’s brain, suspended it in a vat and fitted his nerve endings with radio transmitters. Initially, Dennett was unable to picture himself as residing in his mind. He saw himself—his body—as Hamlet, looking upon a mere biological housing of self—something that did not physically represent all that ‘Dennett’ was—his brain, dubbed Yorick.

After an unfortunate accident, Dennett lost contact with his body. He was whisked back to his brain. Unfortunately, after he became fully aware of his situation, his brain could not cope with the phantom sensations that came from a body that he knew did not exist. He was therefore ‘shut-off’ until a suitable host body was found. Once ‘Dennett’ was reinstated in a body, he found that again, his perception of self was a brainless body. He could not think of himself as Dennett’s bodiless brain despite the fact that the mirror did not reflect Dennett’s face. These observations prompted Dennett’s decision that he was wherever he perceived himself to be.

After some time living in his new body, Dennett wanted to visit Yorick. He discovered, as he looked on his brain and flipped a switch that normally turned his body off, that he had also been wired to a massive computer-brain programmed with all the necessary Dennett-identity data needed to ‘run’ him. Thus, with his brain switched off, he was transmitting to the machine, without any sense of difference.

Intrigued by this situation, but afraid that some Dr. Frankenstein might construct a second ‘Dennett’, he was given the only set of controls to both brains and wore them on a belt, switching back and forth periodically, unable to tell the difference, until the end of the story. With a final flip of the switch, the reader is surprised to discover that the two brains have fallen out of phase and are conscious of each other. They have developed different ways of thinking and one, the one that has been subdued most recently—the reader doesn’t know whether it is the computer, Hubert, or Yorick the brain—wants freedom.

Question 2: Rene Descartes.

If I were to cut off a hand, I would still be myself. Not so, if I removed my brain. The removal of the hand changes the body, but the mind is still intact, for the brain is an independent whole that exists within the body. Even the parts of the brain are not proper parts, for though I can sense that I am touching something with either a hand or a foot, I cannot perceive myself to be thinking with a certain part of the brain. As long as I am resident in my body, I am conscious only of the sensations from my various appendages that pervade my brain. Similarly, during the thought experiment that Dennett proposes, he is completely unable to visualize himself as his brain. He is only in his body, though he can see his brain floating before him, since all of his perceptions tell him that he is in his body.

However, rather than being a mere pilot in a vessel, the brain is intricately linked to the body through these perceptions. I can receive perceptions and collect knowledge with my body, but there is no use to this activity without a reciprocal portion of myself that can produce similar ideas—imagine them. These ideas are produced in the mind, but stem from the body. Without a vessel providing input, however, the brain is hard-put to imagine. Clarity stems from perception of reality and without this, Dennett’s brain is discomforted, perhaps lacking the ability to imagine itself without a body, as it could not perceive that it had no body. Once Dennett’s brain was given a new body, he once again had sensations to lend clarity and reality to his imagination.

Receiving these new perceptions, Dennett was aware that he was physically different but remained mentally unchanged. By the mere fact that he was looking out through the stranger’s eyes, that stranger, named Fortinbras, became ‘Dennett’ and carried on his legacy. His perception was that he was still, in fact, Dennett, and by perceiving such, he was. As I put forth in my Meditation VI, "merely because I know with certitude that I exist, … I rightly conclude that my essence consists only in my being a thinking thing". My body is necessary only to lend to my bank of perceptions which I draw on in order to formulate ideas. However, because of these perceptions, my point of view is from that of my body. Whatever body that may be is irrelevant.

Question 3: David Hume

Descartes may imagine that he perceives some concept of self during his reflections, and may ascribe similar meaning to Dennett’s work, but in fact, what Descartes observed in himself was a collection of perceptions from his body—he says as much—enough so that he can not distinguish himself from his body. What Daniel Dennett perceived was a succession of different people, each believing himself to be Dennett. Each person—Hamlet, Yorick, Fortinbras, Hubert—had a concept of who Dennett was to others, his "bundle of different perceptions", but these do not make ‘self’.

Descartes based his theory of ‘self’ on perceptions, which are singular entities and can exist on their own. ‘Self’ is an illusory concept, for there is no one concept or entity that lends itself to the simple description or label of ‘self’. There is no one lasting impression that continues invariably to be labeled as a self. If our perceptions make our ‘self’ then which of the drifting, instantaneously there-and-gone sensations should we pin down as ours? There is no perception that is unique to a self, for any thing that we may perceive to be can be interpreted by another in a similar way. Thus, to perceive self as something or someone existing somewhere for any length of time is a fallacy.

After death and dissolution of the body, the mind is lost, as when the body is sleeping. Without perceptions, nothing remains of ‘self’ to think, feel, see, or act. What succeeded Dennett’s Hamlet was merely a conception of what Dennett was. It was not Dennett who was transferred to Fortinbras, but a perception of Dennett. All Yorick had was a memory—a collection of perceptions—of what Dennett had been. What Fortinbras had was an interpretation of Dennett from Yorick’s perception, and in no way could they be resolved into Dennett’s self. Dennett may claim that what he experienced after Hamlet’s death was indeed a continuation of self, but it was, rather, a collection of Yorick’s fleeting thoughts and feelings that mirrored those that passed through Dennett’s mind. Fortinbras was similarly removed from Dennett, as he felt with different hands, heard with different ears and perceived with different eyes.

Question 4: Questions

1. Which of the ‘Dennetts’ was the one to fall out of phase? In other words, would the computer have been the entity to remain stagnantly Dennett as Yorick evolved, or did Hubert malfunction?
2. Did Dennett change as a person when he was put in a new body—from an outsider’s perspective—more than a person’s character usually evolves?
3. Yorick was "bitter, lonely and filled with dread and uncertainty" without his body. Before his mood could become too chaotic, he was sedated. If left alone, could Dennett’s brain have survived without a body?