Quotes by Daniel Dennett

“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 ...”

“When a portion of the world comes in this way to compose a skein of narratives, that portion of the world is an observer. That is what it is for there to be an observer in the world, a something it...”

“I find it breathtaking […] that when musical composition competitions are held, the contestants often do not submit tapes or records (or live performances) of their works they submit written scored...”

“A neurosurgeon once told me about operating on the brain of a young man with epilepsy. As is customary in this kind of operation, the patient was wide awake, under only local anesthesia, while the ...”

“Philosophers' Syndrome: mistaking a failure of the imagination for an insight into necessity.”

“Up till now [the development of proto-consciousness], we can suppose, nervous systems solved the Now what do I do? problem by a relatively simple balancing act between a strictly limited repertoire...”

“Are zombies possible? They're not just possible, they're actual. We're all zombies.* Nobody is conscious – not in the systematically mysterious way that supports such doctrines as epiphenomenalism....”

“Minds are in limited supply, and each mind has a limited capacity for memes, and hence there is considerable competition among memes for entry in as many minds as possible. This competition is the ...”

“As Akins observes, it is not the point of our sensory systems that they should detect basic or natural properties of the environment, but that they should serve our narcissistic purposes in staying...”

“In a Thumbnail Sketch here is [the Multiple Drafts theory of consciousness] so far:There is no single, definitive stream of consciousness, because there is no central Headquarters, no Cartesian The...”

“I have grown accustomed to the disrespect expressed by some of the participants for their colleagues in the other disciplines. Why, Dan, ask the people in artificial intelligence, do you waste your...”

“Wherever there is a conscious mind, there is a point of view. A conscious mind is an observer, who takes in the information that is available at a particular (roughly) continuous sequence of times ...”

“But if we ask where precisely in the brain that point of view is located, the simple assumptions that work so well on larger scales of space and time break down. It is now quite clear that there is...”

“Biology is Engineering”

“The fundamental core of contemporary Darwinism, the theory of DNA-based reproduction and evolution, is now beyond dispute among scientists. It demonstrates its power every day, contributing crucial...”

“The evidence of evolution pours in, not only from geology, paleontology, biogeography, and anatomy (Darwin's chief sources), but from molecular biology and every other branch of the life sciences. ...”

“Much of the controversy and anxiety that has enveloped Darwin's idea … can be understood as a series of failed campaigns to contain Darwin;s idea within some acceptably safe and merely partial revo...”