Quote

Life itself is just a thin coat of paint on the planet, and we hold the paintbrush.

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
Coats
Thin
Planet
Paint
Planets
Hold
Life
Paintbrush
Coat

More quotes by 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
There are no forces on this planet more dangerous to all of us than the fanaticisms of fundamentalism.
Daniel Dennett
Image
You can't get through seminary and come out believing in God!
Daniel Dennett
Image
The secret of happiness is: Find something more important than you are and dedicate your life to it.
Daniel Dennett
Image
Human consciousness is just about the last surviving mystery... a topic that often leaves even the most sophisticated thinkers tongue-tied and confused. And, as with all of the earlier mysteries, there are many who insist - and hope - that there will never be a demystification of consciousness.
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
Human consciousness is just about the last surviving mystery.
Daniel Dennett
Image
In order to make a perfect and beautiful machine, it is not requisite to know how to make it. All the works of human genius can be understood in the end to be products of a cascade of generate-and-test procedures that are, at bottom, algorithmic and mindless.
Daniel Dennett
Image
Keep Darwinian thinking out of cosmology, out of psychology, out of human culture, out of ethics, politics, and religion!
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
People are afraid of being more ignorant than their children―especially, apparantly, their daughters.
Daniel Dennett
Image
Philosophers' Syndrome: mistaking a failure of the imagination for an insight into necessity.
Daniel Dennett
Image
It stands to reason that we love chocolate cake because it is sweet. Guys go for girls like this because they are sexy. We adore babies because they're so cute. And, of course, we are amused by jokes because they are funny. This is all backwards. It is. And Darwin shows us why.
Daniel Dennett
Image
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
Image
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
Image
A child raised on a desert island, alone, without social interaction, without language, and thus lacking empathy, is still a sentient being.
Daniel Dennett
Image
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
Image
The point of asking questions is to find true answers the point of measuring is to measure accurately the point of making maps is to find your way to your destination... In short, the goal of truth goes without saying, in every human culture.
Daniel Dennett
Image
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
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