Editing Consciousness Explained (section)

==Reception==
The New York Times designated ''Consciousness Explained'' as one of the ten best books of the year.<ref name=LB_CE>[https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/daniel-c-dennett/consciousness-explained/9780316439480/ Consciousness Explained], retrieved 24 May 2021.</ref>
In ''New York Times Book Review'', George Johnson called it "nothing short of brilliant".<ref name=LB_CE/>

Critics of Dennett's approach argue that Dennett fails to engage with the [[problem of consciousness]] by [[Equivocation|equivocating]] subjective experience with behaviour or cognition. In his 1996 book ''[[The Conscious Mind]]'', philosopher [[David Chalmers]] argues that Dennett's position is "a denial" of consciousness, and jokingly wonders if Dennett is a [[philosophical zombie]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Chalmers, David J., The Conscious Mind, pp. 190. Oxford University Press, 1996|url=https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/the-conscious-mind-9780195117899?cc=us&lang=en&|access-date=2020-08-27|website=global.oup.com}}</ref> Critics believe that the book's title is misleading as it fails to actually explain consciousness. Detractors have provided the alternative titles of ''Consciousness Ignored'' and ''Consciousness Explained Away.''<ref>{{Harvnb|Barash|2003}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Carruthers|2005}}, p. 32</ref> 

[[John Searle]] argues<ref>Searle, J R: ''The Mystery of Consciousness'' (1997) p. 95–131</ref> that Dennett, who insists that discussing subjectivity is nonsense because it is unscientific and science presupposes objectivity, is making a [[category error]]. Searle argues that the goal of science is to establish and validate statements which are [[Epistemology|epistemically]] objective (i.e., whose truth can be discovered and evaluated by any interested party), but these statements can be about what is [[Ontology|ontologically]] subjective. Searle states that the epistemic objectivity of the scientific method does not preclude the ontological subjectivity of the subject matter. For example, [[pain]] is a subjective experience whose existence is not in doubt. One of the aims of [[Neurology]] is to understand and treat it. Searle calls any value judgment epistemically subjective. Thus, "McKinley is prettier than Everest" is epistemically subjective, whereas "McKinley is higher than Everest" is epistemically objective. In other words, the latter statement is evaluable (in fact, falsifiable) by an understood ("background") criterion for mountain height, like "the summit is so many meters above sea level". No such criteria exist for prettiness. Searle writes that, in Dennett's view, there is no consciousness in addition to the computational features, because that is all that consciousness amounts to for him: mere effects of a von Neumann(esque) virtual machine implemented in a parallel architecture and therefore implies that conscious states are illusory. In contrast, Searle asserts that, "where consciousness is concerned, the existence of the appearance is the reality."

Searle wrote further: <blockquote>To put it as clearly as I can: in his book, ''Consciousness Explained'', Dennett denies the existence of consciousness. He continues to use the word, but he means something different by it. For him, it refers only to third-person phenomena, not to the first-person conscious feelings and experiences we all have. For Dennett there is no difference between us humans and complex zombies who lack any inner feelings, because we are all just complex zombies. ...I regard his view as self-refuting because it denies the existence of the data which a theory of consciousness is supposed to explain...Here is the paradox of this exchange: I am a conscious reviewer consciously answering the objections of an author who gives every indication of being consciously and puzzlingly angry. I do this for a readership that I assume is conscious. How then can I take seriously his claim that consciousness does not really exist?<ref>{{Cite news|last1=Searle|first1=John R.|last2=Dennett|first2=Daniel C.|date=1995-12-21|title='The Mystery of Consciousness': An Exchange|journal=New York Review of Books|language=en|url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/12/21/the-mystery-of-consciousness-an-exchange/|access-date=2020-08-28|issn=0028-7504}}</ref></blockquote>Dennett and his [[Eliminative_materialism#Illusionism|illusionist]] supporters, however, respond that the aforementioned "subjective aspect" of conscious minds is nonexistent, an unscientific remnant of commonsense "[[folk psychology]]", and that his alleged redefinition is the only coherent description of consciousness.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Frankish |first1=Keith |title=Illusionism as a Theory of Consciousness |journal=Journal of Consciousness Studies |date=2016 |volume=23 |pages=11–39}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Graziano |first1=Michael |last2=Guterstam |first2=Arvid |last3=Bio |first3=Branden J. |last4=Wilterson |first4=Andrew I. |title=Toward a standard model of consciousness: Reconciling the attention schema, global workspace, higher-order thought, and illusionist theories |journal=Cognitive Neuropsychology |date=2020 |volume=37 |issue=3–4 |pages=155–172 |doi=10.1080/02643294.2019.1670630 |pmid=31556341|s2cid=203441429 }}</ref>

Neuroscientists such as [[Gerald Edelman]], [[Antonio Damasio]], [[Vilayanur Ramachandran]], [[Giulio Tononi]], [[Christof Koch]] and [[Rodolfo Llinás]] argue that qualia exist and that the desire to eliminate them is based on an erroneous interpretation on the part of some philosophers regarding what constitutes science.<ref>Damasio, A. (1999). ''The feeling of what happens''. Harcourt Brace.</ref><ref>Edelman, G., Gally, J. & Baars, B. (2011). Biology of consciousness. ''Frontiers In Psychology, 2'', 4, 1-6.</ref><ref>Edelman, G. (1992). ''Bright air, brilliant fire''. Basic Books, p. 115.</ref><ref>Edelman, G. (2003). Naturalizing consciousness: A theoretical framework. ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 100'', 9, 5520-5524.</ref><ref>Koch, C. (2019). ''The feeling of life itself''. The MIT Press.</ref><ref>Llinás, R. (2003). ''I of the Vortex.'' MIT Press, pp. 202–207.</ref><ref>Oizumi, M., Albantakis, L., & Tononi, G. (2014). From the phenomenology to the mechanisms of consciousness: Integrated information theory 3.0. ''PLOS Computational Biology, 10'', e1003588.</ref><ref>Overgaard, M., Mogensen, J. & Kirkeby-Hinrup, A. (Eds.) (2021). ''Beyond neural correlates of consciousness.'' Routledge Taylor & Francis.</ref><ref>Ramachandran, V. & Hirstein, W. (1997). “Three laws of qualia. What neurology tells us about the biological functions of consciousness, qualia and the self.” Journal of consciousness studies, 4 (5-6), pp. 429-458.</ref><ref>Tononi, G., Boly, M., Massimini, M., & Koch, C. (2016). Integrated information theory: From consciousness to its physical substrate. ''Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 17'', 450–461.</ref>