Why does consciousness exist? This question lies at the heart of my book, A Philosophy for the Science of Animal ...

Philosopher Daniel Dennett died a few days ago, on April 19. When he argued that we overrate consciousness, he demonstrated, paradoxically, how conscious he was, and he made his audience more ...

From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds, by Daniel C. Dennett. W. W. Norton. 496 pages. $28.95. Consciousness Explained, by Daniel C. Dennett. Back Bay Books. 528 pages. $18. The great ...

Of all the odd notions to emerge from debates over consciousness, the oddest is that it doesn’t exist, at least not in the way we think it does. It is an illusion, like “Santa Claus” or “American ...

The “problem of other minds”—knowing that someone else has a mind like yours, and in the case of consciousness, subjective experiences similar to yours—is not too much of a problem when we are ...