The Brain on Trial

In his most recent book, Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, the philosopher Daniel Dennett has revisited his 1991 observation that consciousness arises out of a selection process in the brain akin to what makes someone or something famous. Consciousness, he writes, can be seen as “fame in the brain, cerebral celebrity, a way in which some contents come to be more influential and memorable than the competition.”

Though initially controversial, Dennett’s idea of “fame in the brain” is a logical and inevitable outgrowth of the dramatic shift in how we presently think about thinking. A hundred years ago, Sigmund Freud and James Joyce were considered groundbreakers for their emphasis on the role of the unconscious in thought and action. Now we are regularly bombarded with new insights into how the unconscious guides our behavior. At the same time, neuroscience has largely debunked the idea of an autonomous self that has the final say in decisions; few science-savvy folks still believe there is a “ghost in the machine,” a little homunculus in the brain who is watching our perceptions or thinking our thoughts. Some philosophers even question whether the conscious mind plays any role in our thoughts. In short, present-day neuroscience has pulled the rug out from under the concept of “the rational man.”

Nevertheless, most if not all of us persist with the visceral sense that our thoughts arise out of reason and rational deliberation. Dennett’s “fame in the brain” metaphor is a wonderful antidote to this wishful thinking. It captures the neurophysiological reality that thoughts emerge from the unpredictable interaction of mindless neurons and synapses in what might be best described as a winner-take-all popularity contest.

Thoughts emerge from