Daniel Dennett: How Does the Brain Store Beliefs? | Big Think
How Does the Brain Store Beliefs?
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What if beliefs could be surgically inserted into a patient’s brain? This is the basis of one of philosopher Daniel Dennett’s thought experiments in exploration of how the brain represents beliefs. Dennett argues that individual beliefs are part of broader idea systems and that they couldn’t possibly be stored like a library of belief sentences.
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DANIEL DENNETT:
Daniel C. Dennett is the author of Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, Breaking the Spell, Freedom Evolves, and Darwin’s Dangerous Idea and is University Professor and Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, and Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. He lives with his wife in North Andover, Massachusetts, and has a daughter, a son, and a grandson. He was born in Boston in 1942, the son of a historian by the same name, and received his B.A. in philosophy from Harvard in 1963. He then went to Oxford to work with Gilbert Ryle, under whose supervision he completed the D.Phil. in philosophy in 1965. He taught at U.C. Irvine from 1965 to 1971, when he moved to Tufts, where he has taught ever since, aside from periods visiting at Harvard, Pittsburgh, Oxford, and the École Normale Supérieure in Paris.
His first book, Content and Consciousness, appeared in 1969, followed by Brainstorms (1978), Elbow Room (1984), The Intentional Stance (1987), Consciousness Explained (1991), Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (1995), Kinds of Minds (1996), and Brainchildren: A Collection of Essays 1984-1996. Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness, was published in 2005. He co-edited The Mind’s I with Douglas Hofstadter in 1981 and he is the author of over three hundred scholarly articles on various aspects on the mind, published in journals ranging from Artificial Intelligence and Behavioral and Brain Sciences to Poetics Today and the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism.
Dennett gave the John Locke Lectures at Oxford in 1983, the Gavin David Young Lectures at Adelaide, Australia, in 1985, and the Tanner Lecture at Michigan in 1986, among many others. He has received two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Science. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1987.
He was the Co-founder (in 1985) and Co-director of the Curricular Software Studio at Tufts, and has helped to design museum exhibits on computers for the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum of Science in Boston, and the Computer Museum in Boston.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Daniel Dennett: One of the problems that’s beset philosophers and cognitive scientists for the last 30, 40 years is how on earth the brain represents information. An eternally appealing idea is something like a language of thought that there’s brain writing or mentalese and we write — the brain writes sentences in mentalese that store the beliefs so that when you learn that giraffes are mammals, there’s someplace in your brain where the word — the mental word giraffe and the word mammal are tied together with a “is a” or something like that. So we have a big library of sentences. Those are our beliefs.
We have a belief box with lots of beliefs. That’s an attractive idea of nice — it has a certain simplicity that — and we think we understand how sentences work to store information. Well now, if that were so, could a clever enough neurosurgeon wire in a false belief just out of the blue. So, let’s imagine that our neurosurgeon decides to wire into our brain the belief that you have an older brother living in Cleveland. So he figures out how to write that in brainish and does all the microsurgery and there it is written in brainish in your brain.
Okay, you wake up from the anesthetic and so he says, “Yeah, do you have any siblings?” Well, if he’s done his work well I guess the first thing you do is you say, “Yes, I have an older brother living in Cleveland.” “Oh, what’s his name?” And now what? Ah, ah, ah — one of several things has to happen. Maybe you’ll start confabulating and you’ll say, umm, his name is Alfonso, and, um um he’s a taxi driver, and he lives with his wife and two kids in the suburbs. That’s one possibility. In other words, you couldn’t just wire in one belief. You’d have to wire in something which generated a whole slew of beliefs. Alternatively, maybe you would say, “Oh my gosh….
To read the transcript, please go to https://bigthink.com/videos/daniel-dennet-on-idea-insertion
@antonchigurh4829
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
SO,Descartes-Trademark was CoRRect.
@limhock604
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
So in short… a notion/meme-network… therefore a system of beliefs.
@limhock604
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
A good journalist producing a well written article based on skewed truths, aka fake news, could beat that neurosurgeon in a race of implanting false beliefs.
@johnSmith-my9yj
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
Thought experiments are just-so-stories.
@user-lw2rn7ez1o
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
He says 'a particulate non-holistic theory of belief is a non-starter'. I could make a joke deriding whoever but all I have to say is that this might well be the case for a lot of people that beliefs are particulate rather than following holistic framework. I think this guy has selective observations when it comes to other people and doesn't see the gaping holes in their fundamental beliefs proving the beliefs are particulate. We're 'designed' to live in small communities rather than in a large civilisation. The collective mind of the small tribe is what is stable not necessarily the individual parts. Just look at what happened when we started living in large civilisations. The worst violence the human race has ever known and we still aren't sure why any of it happens. In small tribes it's more obvious why the violence happens when interacting with rival tribes but in civilisation, killing happens simply because people hold contradictory beliefs in their head. Our beliefs can be held in a particulate way for big portions of the population. In fact all you have to do is to ask someone what the evidence is for god and you get a firmly set smattering of particulate beliefs. I don't mean to say god is or isn't real I'm just saying most people can't rationally assess their own ideas. beliefs can definitely be particulate IMO
It doesn't just go for religion some people genuine reject the belief that they have siblings or they will believe they have siblings that they've never met or they just 'feel in their soul' that they have siblings, it's just that reality hasn't shown it to them yet etc. They just much rather not talk about these things as they know they will be laughed at etc. Delusion isn't uncommon
@asquirrel9758
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
From my experience this is how religious people store their beliefs: 3:07
@isrbillmeyer
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
lol
Code it in Brainish.
@chaniatreides9513
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
Im not here for Bill Nye. Hes kinda a jerk.
@zes3813
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
wrong
@BobEMoto
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
Here's a thought, and it is mine, that we don't store memories at all. We build and rebuild small networks that give an output based on an input. And these are connected (and connected and …) to form the complexity of our beliefs. Surely this makes holism the only answer.
@theprimalpitch190
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
TLDR. Question is how do we know that our word "belief" has any correspondence to actual brain function at all? Seems "belief" is just a conceit of philosopy with zero grounding in science.
@dddmemaybe
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
This guy is above the cut at making his words understandable. Sometimes trying to decipher what someone has just said leaves my brain somewhat hampered.
@EricaKriner1
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
I don't know that I agree with the idea that you cannot hold an isolated belief. And of course, the term "belief" in and of itself is a strange one. Something concrete, such as having an older brother, would be like saying that I believe the sky is blue. This is an isolated belief as far as I'm concerned. Can someone please further explain the logic presented here?
@flamechick6
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
Or you might know someone who says "I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ!" Mhhhmm, right…. Fing robots..
@HolloVVpoint
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
Or alternatively you might say "I have a brother in Cleveland" and when asked what's his name you could just reply "I don't know, I've never met him. I just know I have a brother in Cleveland". Point being you could programme just one belief.
@LordHimajin
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
its Hershel
@apagoogoo
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
well, i AM the youngest child, and i DO have a little brother living in nanaimo. because i volunteered fro Big Brothers.
@winterwarden
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
I think thoughts are too abstract to be written in a language as we typically understand. The language part of thinking comes with the seamlessly neverending monologue some have in their minds, or when formulating it into actual words. But it could also be a "brain language" like a code or something, did I just make my own argument invalid? ;s
@MSHKYT
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
thijsjong,
We do have free will, but I didn't learn that through religion; placing religion at the centre of an inquiry into free will is a waste of time because religion is concerned with self-empowerment (collection of converts) and self-preservation (retention of faithful). At the end of the day, we don't have any evidence for or against many religious claims; it's exacerbated by the fact that religious thinkers are frustratingly circular logicians with one answer: god did it; which to me translates as, 'I don't know, but I have faith in something I haven't seen.' which is basically filling in the gaps in our knowledge with whatever we want the answer to be — based on our social and cultural beliefs. Which takes me back to my point: it's a waste of time.
In my opinion, the sciences provide us with the best methodology for inquiries into whether we have free will or not. Knowledge in biological psychology (evolutionary biology, especially evolution of neurobiology) and its methods of inquiry will give us a better insight into whether we have free will.
So anyway, back to the question at hand: do we have free will? — any time we are conscious we have free will to manipulate our bodies and the environments around us. According to Oxford dictionary, free will is defined as, "the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one’s own discretion." It's basically the power to override determinism. Determinism: "actions are ultimately determined by causes regarded as external to the will:"
And so the answer to whether we have free will is in the brain and the world we inhabit.
I believe we required hundreds of millions of years of evolution (billions if you want to go into the building blocks of life e.g. gravity, the stars and life-birthing elements, oxygen and carbon) to get to a point where we, as a species, have a relatively well-functioning nervous system with the brain sitting on the top. It's taken that long for favourable conditions for consciousness — aka free will — to thrive, beginning with individuals' adaptation to environment followed by evolution. All thanks to adaptation and evolution (those external determiners of brain evolution), we have gradually moved from earth life (is there such a thing?) to plant life to conscious but instinctive animals to the complexities of human thought processes.
Human free will can be suppressed: we know that doctors are able to restrict our consciousness using anesthesia inducing drugs when they are operating on us; when they do we are incapable of free will. The brain is the evidence we are looking for. The search for supernatural entities controlling the brain, the tissues of the body, the cells, the elements, the atoms and the most elementary of particles and so on is a fruitless endeavour at least for the foreseeable future. We don't have to look much farther than our brain as a tangible source, whose evolution and function gave rise to the free will we take for granted.
On the other hand, we are able to suppress the deterministic effects of evolution and genes because our brain has the capacity for growth and change: essentials for free will. By virtue of our free will we can override the warnings we get when our hands are burning on a hot pan. So even though we are a highly intelligent species we could give rise to a stupid species if the conditions are right in the same way other hominid species had the evolutionary plasticity to give rise to a species like us.
I think it's better to ask what percentage determines non-free will and what percentage of our brain is the source of our free will. I've always struggled with absolutes (e.g. 100% deterministic) and know it's not quite right.
Please don't take as fact because I am not a scientist nor claim to be highly intelligent…but I do have small amounts of relevant knowledge that I prefer to make use of.
@OmarAshour
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
great video
@walkertongdee
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
I'm more concerned why this Dudes brother wants to live in Cleavland, he must be white…
@walkertongdee
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
Dudes stach needs a trimmin…
@rogerstar4359
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
Ya cualquier pendejazo lee un libro sobre el cerebro, se deja crecer la barba, se rapa y ya se creen genios iliminados pinche tartamudo
@mountedczarina9205
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
When did Santa become a philosopher?
@DodderingOldMan
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
Kind of reminds me of a couple of the case studies in Oliver Sacks' Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat. There were a couple of cases where people whose memory or cognitive capabilities were seriously disrupted would indeed confabulate in the manner Dennett describes here, inventing realities to support 'beliefs' that would come and go almost at random.
@LeonidasGGG
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
Actually, it has already been done. They have 'programed' lab rats to 'believe' a room of a certain color was bad for them, without the rat ever entering the room, or even seing it's color.
So, yes. In theory, we can now 'control' peoples beliefs. I believe it would work just has he drescribed it (very much like dreams do, and was seen in the movie 'Inception'). We are given the 'seed' and them our subconsciende fill in the blacks. This is proven science.
@Mansouralfaransyy
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
Salam. Good topic, and remains the word "coherent". It works also with language: a coherent language allows a coherent understanding. This works perfectly in physic and mathematics.
@drevilatwork
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
I felt like putting a bullet between the eyes of every Panda that wouldn't screw to save its species. what ever could survive does still exist. natural selection… I know… its easy to say when you're on top but than again if one is not than one can't understand the argument idea and so does not matter
@TheKirger
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
I think its more interesting how words resable our thought. I wonder if you could program someone into living their lives by reading… Lol, a bit paranoid but that would atleast set new scales for my understanding of Masshypnosis
@massive223
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
why does every fuckin comment on this vid have to be about religion… this was the first good vid i seen in a while too bad there's no good discussion in the comments
@PacRimJim
November 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
You build an enormous recursive superstructure of beliefs about the universe.
Then you have children who begin the process yet one more time.
Then you die and lose it all.
What's the point?
A chain of loss.
Comments are closed.