Philosopher Daniel Dennett died a few days ago, on April 19. When he argued that we overrate consciousness, he demonstrated, paradoxically, how conscious he was, and he made his audience more ...

From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds, by Daniel C. Dennett. W. W. Norton. 496 pages. $28.95. Consciousness Explained, by Daniel C. Dennett. Back Bay Books. 528 pages. $18. The great ...

Of all the odd notions to emerge from debates over consciousness, the oddest is that it doesn’t exist, at least not in the way we think it does. It is an illusion, like “Santa Claus” or “American ...

This is part 4 of a series. See part 1 here, part 2 here, and part 3 here. Daniel C. Dennett is an emeritus professor at Tufts University and one of the most influential philosophers and cognitive ...

An influential subset of philosophers has been debating 'zombies' for decades, and not the sort you see in horror movies and television shows. While the common conception of a zombie is of a ravenous, ...

The “problem of other minds”—knowing that someone else has a mind like yours, and in the case of consciousness, subjective experiences similar to yours—is not too much of a problem when we are ...

Consciousness has been called the deepest mystery facing modern science, which is odd if you think you know exactly what your own consciousness is like and what it does. It was this disconnect and ...