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There is no reality of consciousness independent of the effects of various vehicles of content on subsequent action (and hence, of course, on memory).

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
Action
Various
Reality
Memory
Independent
Effects
Subsequent
Consciousness
Vehicles
Memories
Hence
Courses
Vehicle
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More quotes by Daniel Dennett

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To put it bluntly but fairly, anyone today who doubts that the variety of life on this planet was produced by a process of evolution is simply ignorant — inexcusably ignorant, in a world where three out of four people have learned to read and write.
Daniel Dennett
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Words have a genealogy and it's easier to trace the evolution of a single word than the evolution of a language.
Daniel Dennett
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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
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As every scuba diver knows, panic is your worst enemy: when it hits, your mind starts to thrash and you are likely to do something really stupid and self-destructive.
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We should get used to the idea that we'll probably never be able to find - and confirm - a good explanation of the ultimate origin of the universe, though I see no reason to believe that we can't press much further on this question than we have managed to date.
Daniel Dennett
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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.
Daniel Dennett
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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.
Daniel Dennett
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Life itself is just a thin coat of paint on the planet, and we hold the paintbrush.
Daniel Dennett
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A scholar is just a library's way of making another library.
Daniel Dennett
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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
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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 member to the high standards of moral responsibility that the secular world of science and medicine does!
Daniel Dennett
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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
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Problems in science are sometimes made easier by adding complications.
Daniel Dennett
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I am a philosopher, not a scientist, and we philosophers are better at questions than answers.
Daniel Dennett
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Philosophers are never quite sure what they are talking about - about what the issues really are - and so often it takes them rather a long time to recognize that someone with a somewhat different approach (or destination, or starting point) is making a contribution.
Daniel Dennett
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The only answer to the endless chains of why, why, why is that the alternatives died
Daniel Dennett
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Religions have depended on the relative isolation and ignorance of their flocks, forever and this is all breaking down.
Daniel Dennett
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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
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Love is blind, as they say, and because love is blind, it often leads to tragedy: to conflicts in which one love is pitted against another love, and something has to give, with suffering guaranteed in any resolution.
Daniel Dennett
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I'm the guy who reputedly denies that people experience colors or pains, and thinks that thermostats think — just ask my critics.
Daniel Dennett