What, Why & How do we Know ?
I almost said great loss to the intellectual world – but his intellect is indeed a loss to the whole world. I met him only once and last communicated with Dan only three weeks ago, about the fact he was planning to be attending this year’s “How The Light Gets In” only by telepresence. For … Continue reading “A Great Loss to the World – #RIPDanDennett”
That damn meme again. “Dennett denies consciousness”. No he doesn’t. (I already part reviewed Dennett’s memoir recently and added links to a few other sympathetic reviews which all naturally included summaries of his important works. Apart from one footnote of my own on a reconciliation of his physicalist determinist compatibilism with informational subjective pan-proto-psychism (*), … Continue reading “The Illusion of Dennett’s Illusion – Again.”
I’m reading Dennett’s memoir “I’ve Been Thinking” – not really intending to read the whole right now, as I mentioned before, but it’s a pretty good read, so I am close to a third through. The reason to pause and make some notes was a striking parallel to Pirsig that jumped out at me. Like … Continue reading “Dennett & Pirsig”
No, he’s not. He does not say that “Consciousness is an Illusion”. End of. In short: Dennett’s position is that: Consciousness and conscious will are as real and evolved as anything else in the world. The powerful (useful, but misleading) ILLUSION is the Cartesian theatre / video screen with the homunculus viewer / user as … Continue reading “Is Dennett an Illusionist?”
Had an interesting thread on Twitter to day with Simon Jacobson. which ended with this exchange: Thanks. Here’s Chomsky’s metaphysics (not his criticism of Dennett as such): https://t.co/d8uUMbxk4G — Lyrical Labour (@simonjjacobson) October 14, 2021 Don’t often read Chomsky since I’m never quite sure of his agenda anymore, but given the good-faith recommendation I dived … Continue reading “Chomsky meets Dennett”
Since Dan Dennett’s (Jan 2018) “From Bacteria to Bach and Back” (B2BnB) which I wrote about here, I’m not aware of other general publication work from Dan. When it comes to human consciousness and free-will Dan is a hero of mine I’ve written about in many contexts. I’ve seen a few articles and talks since, … Continue reading “Dennett & Conscious Will – Having the Right Conversation”
I’m reading Philip Goff’s “Galileo’s Error” as mentioned previously. As usual before reading the main content, I read all the intros and the end notes / bibliography / index / refs to see who’s work is mentioned, though I can never know whether positively or negatively at this point. My favourite check is whether the … Continue reading “Goff’s Radical Dennett?”
[I’ve now reviewed this thread in reasonable detail and have some additional conclusions:] The Consciousness Deniers 13 March 2018 – Galen Strawson Magic, Illusions, and Zombies Rebuttal – Undated – Dan Dennett With Reply 3 April 2018 – Galen Strawson I recall seeing the original consciousness deniers piece by Strawson, but not really taking it … Continue reading “The Denial of Dennett’s Consciousness”
Recent (26 Jan 2018) talk by Dan Dennett recorded in Warsaw and published by Polish Rationalists on the topic of his most recent “From Bacteria to Bach and Back” (B2BnB) book on the evolution of intelligent consciousness. I’ve written and talked much about B2BnB so not a great deal “new” in the presentation – and … Continue reading “Dennett – Don’t Mention the Memes”
Here (#3) below is the David Hamill piece from the Free Thought Prophet blog that triggered the two … previous (#1) … posts (#2) as well as a lot of comments and tweets. Most of my earlier thoughts concerned the Jerry Coyne post given as a reference and the linked Dan Dennett Big Think video. … Continue reading “Dennett and the “Little People” #3″