In his article “Where Am I?” American thinker Daniel Dennett presents a philosophical theory of individual identity. He illustrates a thought experiment in which his brain is detached from his body and placed in a vat in Houston, Texas. Next, his body is sent on a mission to retrieve a warhead from below the earth’s surface (Dennett). His brain is still connected to his body and can handle his tasks over the air; the philosopher asks, “Where am I?” (Dennett 2). If his brain is in a completely different place, then where is his personality: that is what the author questions. Dennett offers three possible answers to the question directly asked in the work’s title.
The philosopher’s first response is to offer the idea that wherever the brain goes, Dennett goes there. However, the author himself refutes this principle by using a thought experiment with brain transplantation. If two people switch bodies but retain the same brain in an investigation, each of them will claim to be the same person with the same memories (Dennett). I find this idea significant enough to prove that a person can perhaps be separated from their body but not from their brain.
Dennett’s second answer is that where his brain, the body, goes, so does Dennett. Nevertheless, the philosopher refutes this idea by conducting another thought experiment in which he robs a bank in California and is caught at the scene of the crime. The author wonders if he will be tried in the same state in which he committed the crime or in the state where his brain is located (Dennett). I cannot entirely agree with Dennett’s position that it would be better for the brain to go to prison than the body, but his view on this seems to be interesting.
The third answer to the “where am I” question, which gives Dennett what seems to satisfy him the most, is that Dennett is where he thinks he is. In other words, at any moment in time, a person has a point of view, and the location of the point of view, which is determined by the internal content of the point of view, is also the person’s location. However, this statement has little effect on my perception of consciousness. Dennett’s last concept is exciting and profound in terms of consciousness, but these ideas existed in philosophy in early antiquity and later times only received their development.
Work Cited
Dennett, Daniel C. “Where Am I?” Lehigh University. Web.