Quote

If I know better than you know what I am up to, it is only because I spend more time with myself than you do.

Daniel Dennett

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Daniel Dennett
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 28
Cognitive Scientist
Philosopher
Professor
Writer
Boston
Massachusetts
Daniel Clement Dennett III
Daniel Clement Dennett
Spend
Consciousness
Better
Time

More quotes by Daniel Dennett

Image
There’s simply no polite way to tell people they’ve dedicated their lives to an illusion.
Daniel Dennett
Image
If the history of resistance to Darwinian thinking is a good measure, we can expect that long into the future, long after every triumph of human thought has been matched or surpassed by 'mere machines,' there will still be thinkers who insist that the human mind works in mysterious ways that no science can comprehend.
Daniel Dennett
Image
People are afraid of being more ignorant than their children―especially, apparantly, their daughters.
Daniel Dennett
Image
The way evolution always discovers reasons is by retroactive endorsement.
Daniel Dennett
Image
I think that there are no forces on this planet more dangerous to us all than the fanaticisms of fundamentalism, of all the species: Protestantism, Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, as well as countless smaller infections. Is there a conflict between science and religion here? There most certainly is.
Daniel Dennett
Image
Consciousness is cerebral celebrity--nothing more and nothing less. Those contents are conscious that persevere, that monopolize resources long enough to achieve certain typical and symptomatic effects--on memory, on the control of behavior and so forth.
Daniel Dennett
Image
The haven all memes depend on reaching is the human mind, but a human mind is itself an artifact created when memes restructure a human brain in order to make it a better habitat for memes.
Daniel Dennett
Image
YES we have a soul but it's made of lots of tiny robots
Daniel Dennett
Image
The chief trick to making good mistakes is not to hide them - especially not from yourself. Instead of turning away in denial when you make a mistake, you should become a connoisseur of your own mistakes, turning them over in your mind as if they were works of art, which in a way they are.
Daniel Dennett
Image
Up till now, we can suppose, nervous systems solved the 'Now what do I do?' problem by a relatively simple balancing act between a strictly limited repertoire of actions - if not the famous four F's (fight, flee, feed, or mate), then a modest elaboration of them.
Daniel Dennett
Image
I think many people are terribly afraid of being demoted by the Darwinian scheme from the role of authors and creators in their own right into being just places where things happen in the universe.
Daniel Dennett
Image
The evidence for evolution pours in, not only from geology, paleontology, biogeography, and anatomy, but of course from molecular biology and every other branch of the life sciences.
Daniel Dennett
Image
Religions have depended on the relative isolation and ignorance of their flocks, forever and this is all breaking down.
Daniel Dennett
Image
There is no such thing as philosophy-free science, just science that has been conducted without any consideration of its underlying philosophical assumptions.
Daniel Dennett
Image
I don't myself need that role for God. My view is that creation itself, the universe itself, is the most wonderful thing deserving awe and respect. And that satisfies me as my substitute for God.
Daniel Dennett
Image
Human freedom is not an illusion it is an objective phenomenon, distinct from all other biological conditions and found in only one species - us.
Daniel Dennett
Image
In fact, if you are faced with the prospect of running across an open field in which lightning bolts are going to be a problem, you are much better off if their timing and location are determined by something, since then they may be predictable by you, and hence avoidable. Determinism is the friend, not the foe, of those who dislike inevitability.
Daniel Dennett
Image
In 50 years - or 20 years, or 200 years - our current epistemic horizon (the Big Bang, roughly) may look as parochial as the horizon Newton had to settle for in his day, but no doubt there will still be good questions whose answers elude us.
Daniel Dennett
Image
The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. For this task, it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn't need its brain anymore so it eats it!
Daniel Dennett
Image
What you can imagine depends on what you know. Philosophers who know only philosophy consign themselves to a janitorial role in the great enterprises of exploration that are illuminating the mysteries of our lives.
Daniel Dennett