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Descartes originally claimed that Consciousness involves an immaterial soul, which observes a representation of the world in the pineal gland of the brain. Under this notion, the soul plays the role of a Homunculus , a creature with self-directed will power. Dennett says that, when the dualism is removed, what remains of Descartes' original model amounts to imagining a tiny theater in the brain where the homunculus, now physical, performs the task of observing all the sensory data projected on a screen at a particular instant, making the decisions and sending out commands. According to Dennett (1991): :"Cartesian materialism is the view that there is a crucial finish line or boundary somewhere in the brain, marking a place where the order of arrival equals the order of "presentation" in experience because ''what happens there'' is what you are conscious of. Many theorists would insist that they have explicitly rejected such an obviously bad idea. But [... the persuasive imagery of the Cartesian Theater keeps coming back to haunt us — laypeople and scientists alike — even after its ghostly dualism has been denounced and exorcized. original emphasis. This term was brought up in the context of the Multiple Drafts Model that Dennett posits in ''Consciousness Explained''. SEE ALSO REFERENCES
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