Daniel Dennett: "From Bacteria to Bach ..." 에서

 

Daniel Dennett, From Bacteria to Bach and Back :

The Evolution of Minds (2017)

Human consciousness is unlike all other varieties of animal consciousness in that it is a product in large part of cultural evolution, which installs a bounty of words and many other thinking tools in our brains, creating thereby a cognitive architecture unlike the "bottom-up" minds of animals. By supplying our minds with systems of representations, this architecture furnishes each of us with a perspective -- a user-illusion -- from which we have limited, biased access to the workings of our brains, which we involuntarily misinterpret as a rendering (spread on the external world or on a private screen or stage) of both the world's external properties (colors, aromas, sounds, ...) and many of our own internal responses (expectations satisfied, desires identified, etc.). The incessant torrent of self-probing and reflection that we engage in during  waking life is what permits us, alone, to comprehend our competences and many of the reasons for the way the world is. (p 370)

Review of the book by Steven Rose