0057 The preceding blog brings me to an unappreciated, almost subliminal, theme in Dennett’s book.  Dennett strives to defend scientific rationalism as opposed to… well… my blather about specificative extrinsic formal causality.  Phantasm_2band manifest images_2b are the stuff of opinions.  They_2b merely situate content.  Even though they_2b appear to concern reality, they_2b are really user-end illusions, like the meanings of spoken words or the interfaces of mobile-phone applications.  They_2b are the products of both evolutionary paradigms and explicit abstraction.  Evolutionary paradigms contribute to design in one way.  Explicit abstraction contributes to design in another way.

0058 Here is a picture of terms that apply to actualities in a two-level interscope.

0059 It makes me wonder about that word, “design”.

Is “design” an attribute of the manifest image_2b that dwells in the user-end illusion that I call “my mind”?

Or does “design” apply to the neural networks_2b that result from neurons_3b naturally selecting for synapses_1b?

Is my user-end illusion best described as a little homunculus capable of planning and carrying out those plans orcompetence without comprehension?

0060 Or, do these questions pose a false dichotomy?

Are my neurons like selective breeders of synapses?  Do synapses flourish when plugged into a neural network?  Do neurons and synapses serve as the material and instrumental support for an immaterial phantasm?  I suppose so.  Neurons are long-lived compared to synapses.  So, they may support selection through producing and sustaining synapses. Neurons are entrepreneurs who often outlive one particular business (neural network) and end up participating in another.  The pattern of synapses established by a neuron_2b may be regarded as an adaptation_2b.

0061 For classical biological evolution, natural selection operates on individuals within a species.  Each individual is on its own.

For the evolution that Dennett is interested in, synapses are not like individuals.  They are like toolkits, designed for neurons to network with other neurons.

0062 Okay, then let me take that to the next level.

I wonder whether the relation between human culture and our species expressa_2b, have the same evolutionary configuration.  So, human culture reproduces neuronal natural selection_3b and a meme_2a, a species impressa_2a,reproduces the role of the synapse.  After all, humans are long-lived compared to memes.  Memes are not individuals.  They are like toolkits, designed for humans to network with other humans.

Instead of “neural evolution”, Dennett proposes the label “cultural evolution”.

0063 This brings me back to the manifest image, produced mechanically and instrumentally by neuron-driven evolution,and, perhaps, mechanically and instrumentally producing cultural evolution.

Am I like a neuron of cultural evolution?

Think about it.

0064 Thank God that Daisy has not figured out that option.

The logic of this exposition would have Daisy as a short-lived synapse-like being held on a leash by a long-lived neuron-like master.

0065 What an incredible manifest image!   What portraits of neuronal and cultural Darwinian paradigms are on display in Dennett’s book.  Metaphysics-laden manifest images accord with the author’s physics-laden scientific images… er… models of biological and social phenomena.  Yet, Dennett does not clearly envision the accordance.

0066 Why?

Dennett’s work contains a subliminal, or maybe… a sublime, defense of the scientific worldview.

A versatile and productive diagram for the scientific enterprise is developed in Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.