Analysis Of Where Am I By Daniel Dennett

As an extension to the short story “Where am I?” by Daniel Dennett, Dennett is taking the government to court, claiming that NASA owes him a new body, because he is currently forced to share his body with another person (Hubert). Wanting to make usage of my philosophical expertise, the government called upon me to give my recommendation to the court as to what validity, if any Dennett’s claim has, and whether or not Dennett should be awarded a second body transplant. After careful consideration on various philosophical issues pertaining to this case, I have concluded that there is absolutely some merit to Dennett’s claim, and that Daniel Dennett should be given a new body. I will expand upon the details of each specific issue that I investigated,

They may eventually be willing to admit that Dennett is indeed missing a brain, but how could anyone prove that his brain was sitting in a vat of a lab? Furthermore, how can anyone prove that a second entity, a computer with extremely remarkable artificial intelligence is controlling Dennett’s body? While these questions are certainly valid, it should be noted that the government cannot rule these claims out either. They have no explanation as to how Dennett is functioning without a brain, nor can they explain the radio antenna’s that are implanted in Dennett 's skull. It will be beneficial to Dennett, to list off other details, such as the location of the lab where Yorick is, or the details about the mission he performed in Oklahoma. This added information would clarify the story more and be helpful in Dennett successfully winning his

Computers are well known for their ability to perform computations and follow a list of instructions, but can a computer be a mind? There are varying philosophical theories on what constitutes a mind. Some believe that the mind must be a physical object, and others believe in dualism, or the idea that the mind is separate from the brain. I am a firm believer in dualism, and this is part of the argument that I will use in the favor of Dennett. The materialist view however, would likely not consider Hubert to be a mind. That viewpoint believes that all objects are physical objects, so the mind is a physical part of a human brain, and thus this viewpoint doesn’t consider the mind and body as two separate things, but instead they are both parts of one object. The materialist would likely reject Hubert as a mind, even though circuit boards are a physical object, although even a materialist would likely agree that Yorick being separated from Dennett does not disqualify Yorick as a mind. If one adopts a dualism view and accept the idea that the mind does not have to be connected to a physical object, then one can make sense of Hubert being able to act as the mind of Dennett. The story told to us by Dennett, is that when the switch is flipped on his little box attached to his body, the entity that controls Dennett, changes to the other entity. Since the switches are not labeled, it is never known which entity is