Page 26 - Foundations of Cognitive Psychology : Core Readings

Chapter 2

Where Am I?

Daniel C. Dennett

Now that I’ve won my suit under the Freedom of Information Act, I am at lib-
erty to reveal for the first time a curious episode in my life that may be of in-
terest not only to those engaged in research in the philosophy of mind, artificial
intelligence and neuroscience but also to the general public.
Several years ago I was approached by Pentagon officials who asked me to
volunteer for a highly dangerous and secret mission. In collaboration with
NASA and Howard Hughes, the Department of Defense was spending billions
to develop a Supersonic Tunneling Underground Device, or STUD. It was sup-
posed to tunnel through the earth’s core at great speed and deliver a specially
designed atomic warhead ‘‘right up the Red’s missile silos,’’ as one of the Pen-
tagon brass put it.
The problem was that in an early test they had succeeded in lodging a
warhead about a mile deep under Tulsa, Oklahoma, and they wanted me to
retrieve it for them. ‘‘Why me?’’ I asked. Well, the mission involved some pio-
neering applications of current brain research, and they had heard of my inter-
est in brains and of course my Faustian curiosity and great courage and so
forth.... Well, how could I refuse? The difficulty that brought the Pentagon to
my door was that the device I’d been asked to recover was fiercely radioactive,
in a new way. According to monitoring instruments, something about the na-
ture of the device and its complex interactions with pockets of material deep in
the earth had produced radiation that could cause severe abnormalities in cer-
tain tissues of the brain. No way had been found to shield the brain from these
deadly rays, which were apparently harmless to other tissues and organs of the
body. So it had been decided that the person sent to recover the device should
leave his brain behind. It would be kept in a safe place where it could execute its
normal control functions by elaborate radio links. Would I submit to a surgical
procedure that would completely remove my brain, which would then be
placed in a life-support system at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston?
Each input and output pathway, as it was severed, would be restored by a pair
of microminiaturized radio transceivers, one attached precisely to the brain, the
other to the nerve stumps in the empty cranium. No information would be lost,
all the connectivity would be preserved. At first I was a bit reluctant. Would it
really work? The Houston brain surgeons encouraged me. ‘‘Think of it,’’ they
said, ‘‘as a mere stretching of the nerves. If your brain were just moved over an

From chapter 17 in Brainstorms (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1978), 310–323. Reprinted with per-
mission.