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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

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Daniel Dennett
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 28
Cognitive Scientist
Philosopher
Professor
Writer
Boston
Massachusetts
Daniel Clement Dennett III
Daniel Clement Dennett
Science
Consideration
Without
Caring
Thing
Philosophical
Honesty
Integrity
Conducted
Humility
Assumptions
Philosophy
Underlying
Free
Assumption

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The chief trick to making good mistakes is not to hide them-especially not from yourself.
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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.
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The kindly God who lovingly fashioned each and every one of us and sprinkled the sky with shining stars for our delight - that God is, like Santa Claus, a myth of childhood, not anything [that] a sane, undeluded adult could literally believe in. That God must either be turned into a symbol for something less concrete or abandoned altogether.
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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.
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Life itself is just a thin coat of paint on the planet, and we hold the paintbrush.
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...but I also can't prove that mushrooms could not be intergalactic spaceships spying on us.
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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.
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The way evolution always discovers reasons is by retroactive endorsement.
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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.
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I even agree that the concept of god helps some people lead better lives. That does happen. Don't ever forget it. I just think there are better ways to help people lead better lives.
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A scholar is just a library's way of making another library.
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It is not so much that we, using our brains, spin our yarns, as that our brains, using yarns, spin us.
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You can't get through seminary and come out believing in God!
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The secret of happiness is: Find something more important than you are and dedicate your life to it.
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Sometimes you don’t just want to risk making mistakes you actually want to make them - if only to give you something clear and detailed to fix.
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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.
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I am a philosopher, not a scientist, and we philosophers are better at questions than answers.
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People ache to believe that we human beings are vastly different from all other species - and they are right! We are different. We are the only species that has an extra medium of design preservation and design communication: culture.
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The only answer to the endless chains of why, why, why is that the alternatives died
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There’s simply no polite way to tell people they’ve dedicated their lives to an illusion.
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