What would be the use of our "Cartesian theatre", if any?

[Speakpigeon]

We seem to experience reality through what has been called by Dennett the "Cartesian theatre", the idea that "objects experienced are represented within the mind of the observer".

Cartesian theater
https://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Cartesian+theater

"Cartesian theater" is a derisive term coined by philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett to refer pointedly to a defining aspect of what he calls Cartesian materialism, which he considers to be the often unacknowledged remnants of Cartesian dualism in modern materialistic theories of the mind.
Descartes originally claimed that consciousness requires an immaterial soul, which interacts with the body via the pineal gland of the brain. Dennett says that, when the dualism is removed, what remains of Descartes' original model amounts to imagining a tiny theater in the brain where a homunculus (small person), now physical, performs the task of observing all the sensory data projected on a screen at a particular instant, making the decisions and sending out commands.
The term "Cartesian theater" was brought up in the context of the multiple drafts model that Dennett posits in Consciousness Explained (1991):

Cartesian materialism is the view that there is a crucial finish line or boundary somewhere in the brain, marking a place where the order of arrival equals the order of "presentation" in experience because what happens there is what you are conscious of. [...] Many theorists would insist that they have explicitly rejected such an obviously bad idea. But [...] the persuasive imagery of the Cartesian Theater keeps coming back to haunt us—laypeople and scientists alike—even after its ghostly dualism has been denounced and exorcized.
— Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained

Dennett, of course, was saying there's no such thing. Still, it certainly is what it feels like to me, and I will assume that it is also how it feels like for each normally functioning human being, including people like Dennett.

So, here, I will assume at least that we all have the impression of a Cartesian theatre.

So, here is a good opportunity for you to articulate what you think would be a good reason for the existence of our impression that there is such a Cartesian theatre.

Or is this impression somehow just a completely useless illusion? And if so, how could that possibly be?
EB

 

[untermensche]

I remember an exchange between Dennett and the great physicist Freeman Dyson years ago.

Dennett pontificates on and on as he does talking about reducing the functional components of the brain to smaller and smaller units. Then he proclaims dogmatically, and nowhere will you find any "wonder tissue" looking smug and self-satisfied.

Dyson pipes in and says that physicists deal with "wonder tissue" all the time, that ordinary matter behaves in very unintuitive ways.

Dennet had no response but at least his stupid grin had disappeared.

 

[PyramidHead]

Good question.

We can talk about reasons for the existence of any biological trait, but the ineffability of the thing you are talking about makes me hesitate to even call it that. My current thinking on the matter is that the Cartesian theatre is just the perspective from inside a brain (or anything with similar functional complexity) looking out. The inverse would be a brain surgeon's perspective from the outside looking in, although the surgeon would still be looking out from her own brain. We don't understand why, but the inside-looking-out perspective and the outside-looking-in perspective are apparently not reducible to each other. It could be that everything that exists has both perspectives, but only complicated recursive systems like brains have any appreciable substance to their internal perspective. I have no evidence for this idea one way or another, but I like it because it doesn't say anything about substances or properties. Everything is made of stuff, but depending on the observer's angle the stuff reveals different aspects of itself.

If this is true, then speculating about the purpose of the Cartesian theater is like speculating about the purpose of the view from the top of Mount Everest. The view itself doesn't have a purpose, it's just what it looks like from up there.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Good question.

We can talk about reasons for the existence of any biological trait, but the ineffability of the thing you are talking about makes me hesitate to even call it that.

Sure, but it's still a biological brain that supports this Cartesian theatre. Scientists are already investigating how the presumably necessary biological machinery works. This is a complex machinery but we've started to understand how its structure is a product of the evolution of life on this planet. Aside from the subjective quality of the Cartesian theatre, we can think in terms of any good reasons that evolution must have produced it.

In short, what's the use of having a homunculus, and apparently a somewhat deluded homunculus pretending, and convinced, to be the person itself, the whole person, when it's clear it's just a small part of it, one that may even be causally ineffective, to believe many around here. What would be the use of that?

My current thinking on the matter is that the Cartesian theatre is just the perspective from inside a brain (or anything with similar functional complexity) looking out. The inverse would be a brain surgeon's perspective from the outside looking in, although the surgeon would still be looking out from her own brain. We don't understand why, but the inside-looking-out perspective and the outside-looking-in perspective are apparently not reducible to each other. It could be that everything that exists has both perspectives, but only complicated recursive systems like brains have any appreciable substance to their internal perspective. I have no evidence for this idea one way or another, but I like it because it doesn't say anything about substances or properties. Everything is made of stuff, but depending on the observer's angle the stuff reveals different aspects of itself.

If this is true, then speculating about the purpose of the Cartesian theater is like speculating about the purpose of the view from the top of Mount Everest. The view itself doesn't have a purpose, it's just what it looks like from up there.

That would only explain, sort of, the subjective perspective of the show. OK, let's say there's a view from everywhere, so, yes, there has to be a view from the inside of our brain, somehow. But, clearly, it's a very partial view. Most of our brain seems unconscious. You won't explain that, I don't think, with the kind of rationale you're trying here.
EB

 

[rousseau]

I believe what is being called 'Cartesian Theatre' here is just another term for our conscious attention. The purpose of our attention is to allow us to react to our environment over time.

If you do some studying of sensory physiology you'll come across some axioms that guide attention. For instance, we're geared to notice things like biological movement, contrasting colours, and breaks in patterns. The purpose of this is to allow us to evade threats and find a mate.

 

[Speakpigeon]

I believe what is being called 'Cartesian Theatre' here is just another term for our conscious attention.

Personally, I don't know of any good expression to refer to what I'm talking about here. 'Cartesian Theatre' suggests it's just a show, an ineffective, causally ineffective show. A show to entertain a 'subject'? Is it, really?

Still, it's nonetheless a recognition by people like Dennett that there's at least the impression of it, which in itself requires some explaining.

'Conscious attention' is not entirely bad, there's indeed conscious attention involved here. Yet, is it just that? Just being conscious with an ability to be selective about what to be conscious of? What would be the use of that in a physical world? Entertain the subject while the world is moving on?

'Conscious attention', like 'Cartesian Theatre', suggests it's just a show. But a show suggests an audience, i.e. the subject, and we're left without any explanation as to why such a subject would need to exist at all, and what would be its role if not its function.

The purpose of our attention is to allow us to react to our environment over time.

Yes, that has to be a lot better.

Still, just about everything any organism is made of is to allow it to react to its environment. So, This is too short an explanation not to be trivial.

So, what exactly is this "us" here? It has to be something causally effective if "reacting to our environment" means anything. So, what exactly is this "us" here?

If you do some studying of sensory physiology you'll come across some axioms that guide attention. For instance, we're geared to notice things like biological movement, contrasting colours, and breaks in patterns. The purpose of this is to allow us to evade threats and find a mate.

Ah, good! We seem to be getting somewhere.

So, are you saying that the essential characteristic, the raison d'être, of what we can take to be something like a 'causally effective conscious attention' is just to spot within our perception tableau whatever would stand out as 'unusual' or something? "Breaks in patterns"? Is that all?! You think human beings were able to produce technological and scientific civilisations because they had essentially a cognitive function that can spot "breaks in patterns"?

Sounds like a bit short to me. Can you do better?
EB

 

[rousseau]

So, are you saying that the essential characteristic, the raison d'être, of what we can take to be something like a 'causally effective conscious attention' is just to spot within our perception tableau whatever would stand out as 'unusual' or something? "Breaks in patterns"? Is that all?! You think human beings were able to produce technological and scientific civilisations because they had essentially a cognitive function that can spot "breaks in patterns"?

Sounds like a bit short to me. Can you do better?
EB

I was trying to explain some of the basic elements of conscious attention, but sure. Add language, short-term and long-term memory, the ability to abstract, and eventually you get civilization. I'd say the main distinction between humans and another animals is that our mental make-up allows us to adapt in real time, or at least we can do this better than other mammals. Because of a strong capacity to learn, speak, and abstract, we can conceive more possibilities and make them happen.. (civilization appears, but still toward the end of reproduction/survival)

In terms of the 'cartesian theater' I'd guess this is just a normalized part of our experience. The only thing we can experience is existing as human, and having conscious attention, so usually it exists without question. Most people aren't aware of the properties of their own attention, only their subjective experience of it, which makes the experience unique to them and not just reduced to some collection of neurophysiological phenomena.

In other words, most people aren't conscious of their own consciousness, being alive just is the way it is.

 

[Subsymbolic]

I remember an exchange between Dennett and the great physicist Freeman Dyson years ago.

Dennett pontificates on and on as he does talking about reducing the functional components of the brain to smaller and smaller units. Then he proclaims dogmatically, and nowhere will you find any "wonder tissue" looking smug and self-satisfied.

Dyson pipes in and says that physicists deal with "wonder tissue" all the time, that ordinary matter behaves in very unintuitive ways.

Dennet had no response but at least his stupid grin had disappeared.

Given how this went last time, how about a link to Dennett being humiliated? Because Dennett answers precisely that sort of objection quite thoroughly elsewhere. The argument you are describing is precisely Gilbert Ryle's. Dennett would never run that argument as described and, in fact, in Content and Consciousness (the book that came out of his doctoral thesis - supervised by Ryle) he argues against that precise view from an emergent instrumentalist perspective. In short, I doubt that what you claim happened happened, because people who believe in emergent properties just don't run that argument. They run arguments like 'The Wandering Two Bitser' to show that it isn't all in the head.

Perhaps you could provide some objective evidence beyond your imagination of how it went. Because I think that, at best, you misunderstood.

The Dennett that I know would have smiled wryly and asked if the sort of wonder tissue that physicists dealt with actually violated the laws of physics.

 

[untermensche]

Your incredulity is not any kind of argument.

Dennett said it and Dyson shut his nonsense down. It was beautiful. Dennett is not an expert on any of this. His book about consciousness was worthless if you wanted to know what consciousness is.

It was part of a long round table discussion. Called something. like "A glorious accident". The video is on YouTube.

 

[Speakpigeon]

So, are you saying that the essential characteristic, the raison d'être, of what we can take to be something like a 'causally effective conscious attention' is just to spot within our perception tableau whatever would stand out as 'unusual' or something? "Breaks in patterns"? Is that all?! You think human beings were able to produce technological and scientific civilisations because they had essentially a cognitive function that can spot "breaks in patterns"?

Sounds like a bit short to me. Can you do better?
EB

I was trying to explain some of the basic elements of conscious attention, but sure. Add language, short-term and long-term memory, the ability to abstract, and eventually you get civilization. I'd say the main distinction between humans and another animals is that our mental make-up allows us to adapt in real time, or at least we can do this better than other mammals. Because of a strong capacity to learn, speak, and abstract, we can conceive more possibilities and make them happen.. (civilization appears, but still toward the end of reproduction/survival)

Yeah, I would agree human beings are quite 'intelligent'.

In terms of the 'cartesian theater' I'd guess this is just a normalized part of our experience. The only thing we can experience is existing as human, and having conscious attention, so usually it exists without question. Most people aren't aware of the properties of their own attention, only their subjective experience of it, which makes the experience unique to them and not just reduced to some collection of neurophysiological phenomena.

In other words, most people aren't conscious of their own consciousness, being alive just is the way it is.

And... so... what would be the use of our "Cartesian theatre", if any?

Whenever you have the time.
EB

 

[Testy Calibrate]

Your incredulity is not any kind of argument.

Dennett said it and Dyson shut his nonsense down. It was beautiful. Dennett is not an expert on any of this. His book about consciousness was worthless if you wanted to know what consciousness is.

It was part of a long round table discussion. Called something. like "A glorious accident". The video is on YouTube.

I couldn't find it. Also, knowing a little bit about Dennett's position on the matter, I have to agree to some extent with Subsymbolic. It sounds very unlikely that you correctly interpreted his response. Can you find it and post a link?

ETA: I do not agree with many of Dennett's conclusions, however, it is a bit silly to say he is not an expert on the topic. An expert is a person who is aware of the existing hypotheses and has made contributions to them. Dennett certainly fits that bill.

 

[fast]

There are things external to the body that exist and await sensory detection. There are things internal to the body that exist and senses what which awaits sensory detection.

There is stupendous confusion abound. So much so, it might be fun to pretend that there are two of everyone: 1) something in the brain that plays the part of a theatre audience member (the little me) and 2) the physical person that drives a real car on a real road to a real movie theater (the big me).

The little me senses only what's on the screen. Remember I said, "There are things external to the body that exist and await sensory detection." Little me never sees those things. Like a big me viewing a monitor hooked to a camera; I never see that which is just out of view of the camera. Little me's world is limited to the Cartesian theatre. That might explain why some people insist they cannot know things external to the mind exist.

Science teaches us well how things work. Then, interpretations run afoul causing all sorts of counterintuitive notions that people THINK science has taught us.

 

[untermensche]

Your incredulity is not any kind of argument.

Dennett said it and Dyson shut his nonsense down. It was beautiful. Dennett is not an expert on any of this. His book about consciousness was worthless if you wanted to know what consciousness is.

It was part of a long round table discussion. Called something. like "A glorious accident". The video is on YouTube.

I couldn't find it. Also, knowing a little bit about Dennett's position on the matter, I have to agree to some extent with Subsymbolic. It sounds very unlikely that you correctly interpreted his response. Can you find it and post a link?

ETA: I do not agree with many of Dennett's conclusions, however, it is a bit silly to say he is not an expert on the topic. An expert is a person who is aware of the existing hypotheses and has made contributions to them. Dennett certainly fits that bill.

I just searched "glorious accident" at YouTube and it was the first video.

I have a hard time believing you even looked.

 

[untermensche]

duplicate

 

[Testy Calibrate]

Thanks. I searched dennett Dyson panel discussion. Somehow I missed your naming the discussion part.
Eta: damn. It's 3 hrs. Any idea where in there that interchange might be?

 

[Testy Calibrate]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RVrnn7QW6Jg

 

[untermensche]

Thanks. I searched dennett Dyson panel discussion. Somehow I missed your naming the discussion part.
Eta: damn. It's 3 hrs. Any idea where in there that interchange might be?

It's a fascinating discussion. The whole thing is worth watching. Dennett actually makes several good philosophical points elsewhere. I will try to look at it later to find the exact time of the exchange I'm talking about.

 

[4321lynx]

Yeah, I would agree human beings are quite 'intelligent'.

In terms of the 'cartesian theater' I'd guess this is just a normalized part of our experience. The only thing we can experience is existing as human, and having conscious attention, so usually it exists without question. Most people aren't aware of the properties of their own attention, only their subjective experience of it, which makes the experience unique to them and not just reduced to some collection of neurophysiological phenomena.

In other words, most people aren't conscious of their own consciousness, being alive just is the way it is.

And... so... what would be the use of our "Cartesian theatre", if any?

Whenever you have the time.
EB

I think he is saying that it allows us, or helps us, to stay alive and so to multiply and so on and so on...

Or are you asking why do we exist?

 

[rousseau]

Yeah, I would agree human beings are quite 'intelligent'.

You mentioned civilizations, and I expanded on that. Cognitively there isn't a lot of difference between us and other primates, but there is enough of a difference to give rise to modern society.

In terms of the 'cartesian theater' I'd guess this is just a normalized part of our experience. The only thing we can experience is existing as human, and having conscious attention, so usually it exists without question. Most people aren't aware of the properties of their own attention, only their subjective experience of it, which makes the experience unique to them and not just reduced to some collection of neurophysiological phenomena.

In other words, most people aren't conscious of their own consciousness, being alive just is the way it is.

And... so... what would be the use of our "Cartesian theatre", if any?

Whenever you have the time.
EB

Let me leave you with a couple ideas:

1) How can a person experience the world in any way other than with their basic cognitive functions? They can't, which means that the cognitive function of a human being is, a, all a person knows, and, b, normalized as what it means and feels to be human. This means that it's quite plausible that our 'cartesian theatre' has mechanics and methods with very specific purposes, but because it's our only peep-hole, and our understanding of it is not a necessity to survive, we can label it and understand it in less reductive ways that don't necessarily reflect what it actually is.

2) Think of how long you've been alive and the fact that you're not dead yet. Consider how many ways you could have died at this point: eating bad food, hit by a car, and so on. Your ability to sense and experience the world is the driver of that.

In other words, our experience and understanding of our own consciousness doesn't necessarily reflect the actual function of our consciousness.

 

[untermensche]

Thanks. I searched dennett Dyson panel discussion. Somehow I missed your naming the discussion part.
Eta: damn. It's 3 hrs. Any idea where in there that interchange might be?

It begins around 1:50:50.

Dennett was asked about whether consciousness could become immortal. He began his talk about reducing the parts of the brain and not finding any "wonder tissue".