The Mind's I
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| Author | Douglas R. Hofstadter Daniel C. Dennett |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject |
Consciousness Intellect Philosophy Mind-body dichotomy Cognitive psychology Theology Self (philosophy) Soul (spirit) |
| Publisher | Bantam Books |
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Publication date
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1982 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 501 |
| ISBN | |
The Mind's I: Fantasies and reflections on self and soul is a 1981 collection of essays and other texts about the nature of the mind and the self, edited with commentary by popular science writers Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett. The texts range from early philosophical and fictional musings on a subject that could seemingly only be examined in the realm of thought, to works from the 20th century where the nature of the self became a viable topic for scientific study.
Jeremy Burman, while calling this "a wonderful book", described it as popularizing a non-metaphorical reading of Richard Dawkins' proposals regarding memes, leading to widespread misunderstanding (in the form of memetics) and the reification of the original idea-as-replicator metaphor.
The book's 27 chapters are each made up of a previously published work by authors such as Jorge Luis Borges, Alan Turing, Richard Dawkins, Raymond Smullyan, John Searle, Stanisław Lem, Thomas Nagel (as well as Hofstadter and Dennett themselves), each followed up by a commentary by Hofstadter and/or Dennett. Dennett and Hofstadter both support the idea that we can learn much about human minds and souls by exploring human mentality in terms of information processing. Dennett and Hofstadter are both proponents of the idea that the wonders of human mentality can be accounted for by mechanical brain processes — which leaves nothing theoretical to prevent us from building human-like mental processes into our mechanical devices. A few views that run counter to this notion, such as John Searle's widely known presentation of the Chinese room argument, are included in this book mainly as targets for refutation.
The book is divided into six sections, each focusing on a particular aspect of the problem of self.
Part I, "A Sense of Self", begins with two works of fiction that challenge the notions of self and identity (including the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges's "Borges and I"), provoking the reader to think more closely about just what is meant by "self". It closes with an essay by Harold J. Morowitz on the reductionist view of the mind.
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