Man. Myth. Morland.: This pun's for hire, even if it's just stance-n' in the dark

We come thus, as it were by two routes, to the third advantage Dennett extracts from his pattern theory, namely an explication of his famous "three stances'' which we adopt to explain and predict (in sound positivist fashion: mostly predict) what something will do. Consider, for instance, a computer running a chess-playing program. To figure out what move it will make next, one could assume that it knows the rules of the game and the configuration of the board, and wants to check-mate you with minimal risk of being mated itself (the intentional stance); or, given the algorithm it's running, work out what it will do if everything works as it should (the design stance); or actually simulate the circuitry at some suitable level of detail (the physical stance). Each of these stances amounts to betting on a certain pattern in the behavior of objects, and each is a safer better than the last: considerations of design trump those of intention, and physical considerations trump both. Now, in the intentional stance we work by attributing to the object of our interest certain beliefs and desires; these are (at the very least) patterns in its behavior. But we've just seen that two (or more) different patterns can both describe the same data equally well, and two different attributions of belief-and-desire may be equally successful in psyching somebody out. One or the other set of beliefs-and-desires, may correspond reasonably directly and concretely with something going on in the little grey cells, as, say, the abstract patterns of Mendelian genes correspond to DNA sequences, but then again none of them might, just as pre-scientific idea of heredity, while they certainly had some predictive power ("Neither the maid nor her husband the butler have red hair; the maid's new baby has red hair; my husband has red hair...'') have only a very complicated and tenuous relationship to the molecular realities of inheritance.

For the Bechtel Phil 311 alums out there, do read on, there's some juicy sentimentality to be found in the nerd-polemic phrases "folk psychology" and "mental contents".

I used to spend a great deal of time studying this in college, as it helped to relieve the weighty pressure of drinking, taking drugs, and being a sexy, sizzling bundle of BMOC hotness. I knew what "heterophenomenology" meant. I attended seminars on error detection in the anterior cingulate cortex and context maintenance in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Sometimes these were accompanied by colorful fMRI printouts. I photocopied journal articles for my post-doc and helped him gather data on the emotional modulation of cognitive control (Weird: we tried to influence subjects' performance on short-term word-remembrance tasks by showing them video footage from truly top-notch shows like "America's Funniest Home Videos". Weirder: it worked).

It was interesting, but a very isolating island unto itself. The politics were always personal and sometimes nasty. To really pursue cognitive neuroscience you have to be a hard-core academic, and a life-long one at that. So along with my other major I cast it aside to see the world. I found: pan-seared cynicism topped with a creamy ennui glaze, garnished with a little disposable income and served with a side order of whorin'-it-up!

Anyway, I came across Dennet's name today and thought of his stances for the first time in a while. They struck me suddenly as impressively applicable, having worked for a software company for almost three years. We do, in fact, tend to adopt an intentional stance - even the programmers - when trying to quickly communicate or understand broadly how systems work. Programs "try" to do this and "expect" that something else will be in place. After the initial construction, it's only necessary to resort to a design stance when trying to elucidate a very fine uncertain point or re-familiarize with some ancient forgotten code.

This isn't unique whatsoever. Stock markets "await" interest rate announcements, metals have "memory", information "wants" to be free. It's more than a simple anthropomorphic fixation. It's a testament to the brain's "love" of efficient metaphor, intentionally speaking.

because of the title, i have now had "Dancing in the Dark" stuck in my head for two days. i am weak. for Bruce.

I'm sorry- this whole entry would have made a lot more sense to me if I could form mental images in my head, but I can't. Please keep this in mind with future additions to your blog.