A Commonplace Book

In Freud's day, "consciousness" was explained with relative ease: It was a thought process (the ego) that mediated between social directives (the superego) and biological drives (the id). But in subsequent decades, cognitive theorists scorned this notion for its most unscientific implication that a soul or a little man (a humunculus) is hiding somewhere in our brain. In its place, Dennett offers a synthesis of their currently favored theories, which he dubs a "multiple-drafts model of consciousess." There is no little man, ne ego, no "I" coordinating our thoughts like some benevolent dictator, this theory holds. Rather, consciousness is a fluid process, a Joycean stream wherein one set of neurons, recognizing a particular pattern of shapes, events or other sensations, responds by activating another group of neurons, thus creating the silent narratives we call feelings and ideas.