Is anyone home?
Drawing from the three pieces that we have read by Daniel Dennett an interesting idea of what the self is starts to emerge. In the first of three papers read, Dennett tackles the problem of where the self is and can lead a reader to believe he is implying that it is located in your brain. In the second paper, Dennett talks about viewing people from a third person perspective to predict a person's behavior based on intentional grounds. In addition, the final paper read by Dennett, tries to point out our natural but incorrect mistake of thinking the self as something non-fictitious. In totality, the picture drawn from these three papers of what the self is seems to become something of a fictitious thing that does have "purpose" in an intentional kind of way, and it is something that is constructed and located in the brain.
In the first paper, "Where am I", Dennett formulates a somewhat improbable yet surprisingly helpful thought experiment to show where the self is located. During this adventure, Dennett is to go down a tunnel and disarm a nuclear warhead ( Dennett 1981). The catch is that not all of him can go down and get the job done; he will have to leave his brain behind (Dennett1981). Though he is not to worry because the science team working for the Pentagon and NASA got it covered or at very least convinced him they do (Dennett 1981). Dennett goes along with this and they wire his body and brain up with the appropriate technology and put his brain in a containment vat (Dennett 1981). Through the miracle of this new technology his brain and body still seem to function the same way they used to and Dennett is able to control his body with his brain from it's location in the vat (Dennett 1981). After this, ...