Your reference to Daniel Dennet caught my attention. Came across his work recently when I was trying to get my mind around the concept of consciousness. Seems, a lot of people are engaged in the same exercise. I think the heart of your piece goes to the idea of consciousness. Recently there has been a movement toward centering consciousness (or what we believe is consciousness) in the midbrain. I think many areas of investigation, including AI and invertebrate awareness, challenge traditional notions of consciousness. Some researchers think that unraveling the mystery of invertebrate intelligence will be key to advancing AI technology. Find it interesting that your blog (which I arrived at courtesy of @effofex) indirectly touched on the subject I've been reading about for the last few days