Daniel Dennett (placeholder)

Prominent American philosopher. Dennett’s research centers on philosophy of mind and philosophy of science, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science.

Credited as being a philospher “who bothers to read science.”

 

Recent stories by and about Daniel Dennett

Why I admire Daniel Dennett

Because he has advanced the cause of reason and systematic thought and pointed out the failings and irrationality of non-systematic thought.

His work on consciousness and freedom I find especially important

(the conceptions of which still need a lot of formulation and are still being burdened with all sorts of illogical ideas. The first for example by the mind-body distinction and the even more ludicrous soul-body contrast and the latter being besieged by dogma, oversimplifications and illogical ideas based in non-systematic thought)

(The better way of thinking of the latter being to think in tiers of systems and by applying all applicable systemic rules. So the rigidness of the rules and some of the systems allows for the flexibility of other systems; i.e. One can thus see gravity as the positive and essential thing it is in regards to aviation for example)

But more generally I also just think that increased public understanding of and interest in systems, systems dynamics and cybernetics is very important.

How I met Daniel Dennett

At some point in the late 90s, Daniel Dennett was a visiting Scholar in our Philosophy department at the University of Canterbury. A bunch of us were dead keen on Cognitive Science at the time, so it was awesome to have him there for a few months. We held a conference for him – focused on his new book “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea”. A bunch of us turned up wearing T-shirts that quoted him from Consciousness Explained where he said “We’re all Zombies.” but footnoted it “To quote this line out of context would be an act of desperate intellectual dishonesty!” (there was no context whatsoever on our T-shirts)

Why I want to meet Daniel Dennett

I disagree to some extent with much of what he says. I’d love to take a course from him so he could convince me otherwise or be convinced that I’m correct as usual. I will put on my best John Wayne voice and tell him ’I know darn well that the I have a mind, whether others can tell or not’. Then I’ll tell him I had breakfast and now I’m going to have lunch.

A story about Daniel Dennett

I sent him an email, asking for an audio recording of him reading from an essay he did on the evolution of the “musical meme”. I wanted to use it as a sample in a song my band was working on. I didn’t really expect him to reply; it was a shot in the dark.

Not only did he reply…he went to a professional recording studio (owned by a friend of his) and recorded the whole essay, which he mailed to me on a CD.


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