Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit the Shop.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

Articles

Dan Dennett and my Quantum Proposition

Stephen Szanto on trying to combine the views of Roger Penrose and Dan Dennett on consciousness by what he calls his own modest proposition.

It all began at the end of March last year, when about fifty philosophers from six countries met in Budapest to discuss seventeen papers on consciousness for two days with the renowned Professor Daniel Dennett. Although I usually grab every opportunity to visit my native Hungary, particularly since our Russian ‘guests’ realised that they had overstretched our ‘hospitality’, this time I left behind the green and pleasant land of my home in Woodford Green with some trepidation.

This was because I wanted to talk about the possibility that consciousness in some way depends upon quantum mechanical effects in the brain. Dennett, however, rejects quantum mind-brain explanations in all shapes and forms, even if they come from famous Nobel laureates like the late David Bohm or internationally acclaimed scientists, like Roger Penrose. He calls all such theories ‘skyhooks’, after the airline pilot who just would not circle any longer on ground control’s order, telling them: “Listen, this machine is not equipped with a skyhook.

…