Where Am I By Dennett Analysis

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13 October 2015

Topic 1. Dennett, “Where Am I?”

The narrative by Dennett poses a discussion in the area of identity perception. The story presents an experiment, in which the brain was removed from the body to prevent brain’s destruction, while the body will be operating in the dangerous conditions. Upon the operation took place, a question of where Dennett is located has arisen beyond him. The difficulties emerged in the beginning, when both body and brain were in the laboratory, and the body was looking at the brain in the vat. However, the situation gets even more complicated after the body goes to the field of work. In the process of work, Dennett got dead, blind, and lost control of his body

The perspectives depend on his perspective and all of them have the reasons to be relevant in the certain period of time. It came out to him that where the person is located is not necessarily where his brain is. The identifying of “self” with the brain is reasonable, since the brain preserves the memories, and separating people from his brain looks difficult, if not impossible. Dennett argues that brain transplantation will de facto be a body transplantation, since the personality will remain inherited in the brain, and will change only the physical characteristics. At the same time, the robbery and prison experiment which Dennett mentally organizes suggests that locking up the brain for committing a crime is false, if the body will be allowed to be free, and it seems not as a successful

On the contrary to Descartes’ reflections, from the point of Dennett as physicalist, the only kind of substance is physical. In his paradigm, everything which exists is either physical or supervenes from the physical, which is a materialist view. However, this view presents even more complicated approach to defining the self, since it is not underlining the importance of soul, but instead allows only the material explanations to exist. From this point, as it was mentioned referring to body transplantation, neither the body alone nor the brain do not reflect the “self” of a human, since it generates paradoxes of responsibility and identity. However, the brain has stronger position, since it has more opportunities without body than body without brain: i.e., it can hear the music through direct influence at appropriate nerves. The point of view as the location of self, however, seems relevant occasion, especially after Dennett experiences a shift from dying body back to the brain. This could even inspire him to believe to the immateriality of the soul. Finally, the presence of “self” where the body and the brain are kept at once means that the “self” has various physical aspects. It allows the duplication both of brain and of body, which is clearly demonstrated in the continuation of the experiment, when the brain gets its copy in the form of the