Here are a few more random thoughts that I’ve had from reading Daniel Dennett’s Consciousness Explained:

• Not only are regions of the brain multi-functional, but so are some of our genes. So when one trait or gene is selected and continued on, other aspects affected by that gene are affected as well, this is called collateral evolution. In Olivia Judson’s blog on the New York Times, she mentions a case were hunters bred foxes to be more friendly to humans, but in addition to that the foxes got shaggier ears and wider heads.
• Color was evolved as an imporatant way for us to spot predators and food. Much more than just the frequency of light reflected by something affect what color we see it as and the ability to see these differences evolved so we could spot a red fruit in a forest of green. But Dennett says that not only did we evolve to see that difference but also the apple evolved to be a color that we could spot (so we could spread its seeds). Dennett says “first there were various reflective properties of surfaces, reactive properties of photopigments, and so forth, and Mother Nature devloped out of these raw materials efficient, mutually adjusted “color”-coding/”color”-vision systems, and amont the properties that settled out of the design process are the properties we normal human beings call colors.” It’s interested to note that there are some humans who are red-green colorblind and there are some other species (some types of birds) who can see things in the UV range. Dennett says “Why is the sky blue? Because apples are red and grapes are purple, not the other way around.”
• The Baldwin effect - Dennett describes another aspect of evolution were “good tricks” are learned. Suppose there is some “good trick” that will help a creature in their environment. Creatures that are born with the trick are better off but others are able to re-wire their brains to learn it as well. If you assume that the amount of re-wiring needed depends on their genes, then animals that have genes that put them closer to learning the trick will be better off than animals that have a difficult time re-wiring for the trick (learning it). So genes that are close to the wiring of the brain for the trick continually get selected until eventually the gene that starts with this brain wiring could be selected. In this way the plasticity of the brain helps to speed up the evolution of the genes (this is known as the Baldwin effect).
• Memes - Memes are similar to genes, but they are instead ideas that try to reproduce themselves. Our brains and our cultures are were memes are stored and they are transferred through communication. Similar to the way life is just a vessel for the propagation of genes, our conscious minds may just be a vessel for memes to propagate. It’s interesting that the memes replicative power is based on its “fitness” rather than its contribution to our fitness. So memes or ideas that are harmful to us but spread easily are good replicators. This is a very interesting way to think about ideas, first proposed by Richard Dawkins.
• The concept of self is very abstract. It is important for us to be able to separate ourselves from the outside world so that we do not eat ourselves, etc. But in reality this is not such a clear line. There are lots of bacteria inside us that help us digest but are they really part of us? Dennett says that each normal person “makes a self. Out of its brain it spins a web of words and deeds.” He equates it to a snail building a shell or a spider making a web. Its just something we do. It is important for our self-preservation. And with the parallel thoughts (Multiple Drafts) theory of consciousness it is possible that a person could have multiple selves (multiple personality disorder) or even that one self could be spread across two people (in the case of the twins I mentioned in my last post).
• From what I understand about consciousness and the mind now, I find it hard to believe that we actually do have any free will. Our thoughts and mind are completely a result of physical and electro-chemical reactions in the brain. Do we really have any control over these reactions? Any control we would have would just be other electro-chemical reactions. It may eventually be possible to predict these reactions and fully predict the decisions of the brain. Our idea of free will may just be an illusion that these various electro-chemical reactions create for us.  It may seem that we have free will because the process that creates our decisions and thoughts is so complex.  An analogy would be the weather, surely the weather patterns and tornados and hurricanes and things could be predicted if we better understood the system and all the inputs, but since we don’t it seems quite random whether a tornado or hurricane will be created or not.