Daniel Dennett
American philosopher of mind and cognitive scientist (1942 to 2024), co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University; author of Consciousness Explained, Darwin's Dangerous Idea and Breaking the Spell.
Everything they publish, on ppll ↗
Daniel Dennett did not write this page.
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Their wordsWe're beginning to come to grips with the idea that your brain is not this well-organized hierarchical control system where everything is in order, a very dramatic vision of bureaucracy. In fact, it's much more like anarchy with some elements of democracy.
↗The Normal Well-Tempered Mind (Edge)edge.org 1st of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsAs soon as that happens, you have room for cooperation to create alliances, and I suspect that a more free-wheeling, anarchic organization is the secret of our greater capacities of creativity, imagination, thinking outside the box and all that, and the price we pay for it is our susceptibility to obsessions, mental illnesses, delusions and smaller problems.
↗The Normal Well-Tempered Mind (Edge)edge.org 2nd of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsI am quite concerned that we're becoming hyper-fragile as a civilization, and we're becoming so dependent on technologies that are not as reliable as they should be, that have so many conditions that have to be met for them to work, that we may specialize ourselves into some very serious jams.
↗The Normal Well-Tempered Mind (Edge)edge.org 3rd of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsMost of the regularities in culture are not treasures. It's not all opera and science and fortifications and buildings and ships.
↗The Normal Well-Tempered Mind (Edge)edge.org 4th of 4 in this piece
- 6 years earlier
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Their wordsMoreover, this open-ended rational criticism, imperfect as it is, is the secret of the astounding success of these human enterprises.
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Their wordsIn other words, whereas religions may serve a benign purpose by letting many people feel comfortable with the level of morality they themselves can attain, no religion holds its members to the high standards of moral responsibility that the secular world of science and medicine does!
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Their wordsFor another, we now have quite solid grounds (e.g., the recently released Benson study at Harvard) for believing that intercessory prayer simply doesn't work.
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Their wordsIn the long run, I think religious people can be asked to live up to the same moral standards as secular people in science and medicine.
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