What, Why & How do we Know ?
Recasting the arguments from the previous post, it’s comments – and a twitter thread of disagreements. How this started: Public tweet – FTP – recommending “Brother Hamill’s great blog”. Public response – Me – a two word response “[great, but] wrong, though”. All arguments / debates start with a gap or a point of contention. … Continue reading “Dennett and the “Little People” – Round#2″
I came across a twitter thread of Free Thought Prophet (FTP, otherwise anon) recommending a blog post by John Hamill (Atheist Ireland National Committee) about Dennett’s position on free-will. FTP I know as a knockabout humorous commentator in the space occupied by the four horsemen. As a rationalist, atheist, humanist myself, “free-thought” is the traditional tag … Continue reading “Dennett and the “Little People””
Mentioned bookmarking amid the chaos a couple of posts ago and I still have two three Dennett bookmarks unreviewed. Hell yeah! I thought when I saw the Prospect link with this in the title … “The electronic age has triggered epistemological chaos” … and bookmarked the piece for a longer read later. I needn’t have … Continue reading “Closing Out Recent Dennett Links”
Just had a weird reading-linked-articles (Tennis-Elbow-Foot / Cow-Lake-Bomb / Rock-Paper-Scissors) experience: Ian Stewart is a popular maths writer I’ve enjoyed, but probably barely referenced here other than as the author of “Does God Play Dice? – The Mathematics of Chaos“. I was also aware that the “non-game” Finchley Central was a forerunner to ISIHAC‘s Mornington Crescent, … Continue reading “Mornington Crescent with Ian Stewart, Doug Hofstadter and Dan Dennett”
Is he a scientist or is he a philosopher? He’s a philosopher. His contributions to science (and anything else) are philosophical. He’s learned a great deal from science and is very pro-science. Some, but not so many, scientists appreciate philosophical input or explicitly concern themselves with the philosophical underpinnings of their subject. Is he a “four … Continue reading “Dennett – Does He or Doesn’t He?”
At the time of writing this post, I’m still not quite finished my final thorough read of Dennett’s From Bacteria to Bach and Back (“B2BnB”) and, apart from his focus on “words” in linguistic development, I’d still say the whole is an improvement – a consolidation, clarification and most importantly an evolution – of his … Continue reading “Dennett’s Speculative Bet in “From Bacteria to Bach and Back””
I’m a great fan of Dan Dennett, and have probably read just about everything he’s ever written. Apart from his “Consciousness Explained” which failed to live up to its title – “hardly!” I commented at the time – I’ve pretty much gone along with Dan on his own evolving understanding of evolutionary consciousness. He’s part of … Continue reading “Dennett – An Eternal Golden Braid”
As a fan of Dennett, this is an interesting review of Content and Consciousness Revisited, with Replies by Daniel Dennett. Just baffled that whilst “revisiting” his 1969 and 1991 works it obviously refers to later work by others, but not later works by Dan himself. Dennett does not engage with the details of Mandik’s argument but … Continue reading “Content and Consciousness Revisited, with Replies by Daniel Dennett”
If it looks designed, call it designed … by evolution. At root it’s all about (disembodied) information, and intelligence is evolved too. (Good to have that Q&A on gender cognitive differences [9:39 to 13:23 (*)] captured for posterity too.) Anyway – reported on this talk back in March 2015 – I was there. ==== [(*)Post Note … Continue reading “Dan Dennett on Information (& Evolution of “Intelligent Design”)”
I was fortunate to meet and hear Dan Dennett delivering Convergence: Information, Evolution, and Intelligent Design at The Royal Institution on Wednesday 25th March this week. I say fortunate because, despite being a huge fan of his as these pages will attest, and despite exchanging emails with him back in January when I noticed he … Continue reading “Daniel Dennett at The Royal Institution of Great Britain @Ri_Science”