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The Normal Well-Tempered Mind (Edge)

Daniel Dennett · 8 Jan 2013

The piece opens with

The brain is not a well-organized hierarchical control system but much more like anarchy with some elements of democracy

Their wordsWe're beginning to come to grips with the idea that your brain is not this well-organized hierarchical control system where everything is in order, a very dramatic vision of bureaucracy. In fact, it's much more like anarchy with some elements of democracy.

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Daniel Dennett did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

  1. Our reading

    The brain is not a well-organized hierarchical control system but much more like anarchy with some elements of democracy

    Their wordsWe're beginning to come to grips with the idea that your brain is not this well-organized hierarchical control system where everything is in order, a very dramatic vision of bureaucracy. In fact, it's much more like anarchy with some elements of democracy.

  2. Our reading

    A free-wheeling, anarchic neural organization may be the secret of human creativity, at the price of susceptibility to mental illness

    Their wordsAs soon as that happens, you have room for cooperation to create alliances, and I suspect that a more free-wheeling, anarchic organization is the secret of our greater capacities of creativity, imagination, thinking outside the box and all that, and the price we pay for it is our susceptibility to obsessions, mental illnesses, delusions and smaller problems.

  3. Our reading

    Civilization may be becoming hyper-fragile through dependence on technologies that are not as reliable as they should be

    Their wordsI am quite concerned that we're becoming hyper-fragile as a civilization, and we're becoming so dependent on technologies that are not as reliable as they should be, that have so many conditions that have to be met for them to work, that we may specialize ourselves into some very serious jams.

  4. Our reading

    Most of the regularities in culture are not treasures

    Their wordsMost of the regularities in culture are not treasures. It's not all opera and science and fortifications and buildings and ships.

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