daniel dennett

The most basic cognitive construct that comes to mind is the Chinese Room. This idea was created to argue against Strong AI and it was mentioned by Dennett. I think we can get some more utility out of it. The basic notion was that you have a room where pieces of paper with questions are fed...

The statistics suggest that a lot more people say they are Christian than actually are Christian. I didn't have this material at hand when I started the thread about the usefulness of the terms theism and atheism. That thread is now useless. Perhaps this can be discussed here without falling...

Daniel Dennett's seven tools for thinking Very useful stuff, especially #6 IMO. Dennett is indeed a careful thinker with a well-rounded mind.

This is a revelation that resulted from simply exquisite timing. I've wandered into a pool of truthers over at the911forums. The indignation that arises by saying something as benign as "you're wrong about that" is astonishing. A touch of disagreement (plus a few out-&-out "you really screwed...

There are some ideas about consciousness that seem as if they'd be very interesting to discuss, but that other consciousness thread just doesn't seem to be the place for them. Turing tests and algorithms and scary math and computers and -- :covereyes Anyway, can we just take it as a given here...

This book has been touted as the “answer” to the recent spate of popular books by atheists, particularly Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens. Hedges, a journalist with the New York Times, was raised Christian and attended Harvard Divinity School. He has written on religion in the United...

I have not read Hitchens or Dennett's books, yet I hope to get around to the latters' soon (Hitchens has the tendency to either enrage me or enlighten me). I have just finished both of Sam Harris' books, and have to argue that The End Of Faith is a better book than The God Delusion. Dawkins'...

From, "Atheism's Wrong Turn: Mindless argument found in godless books" by Damon Linker, The New Republic, Monday, December 10, 2007: Full article: Atheism's Wrong Turn (subscription required)

The CFI is having its 11th World Congress in Beijing from October 13-15. Speakers include Daniel Dennett and Murray Gell-Mann In an eerie coincidence that is the same time as a five-day long weekend here in Qatar (October 12th to 16th) so I've decided to go to the conference. It's destiny...

...On Memes? What do you guys think? Possible? Unlikely? Misunderstood? I'm sort of at a confliction at the moment about Dennett's work with them. Dawkins doesn't seem to be exposing the same sophistication or depth.

I was catching up on old episodes of The Skeptics Guide to the Universe on my flight back home from TAM 5 and listening to the Tom W. Clark interview in episode #20 raised my philosophical ire. I hate it when naturalists so whole heartedly and easily abandon free will to the spiritualists and...

I've been following this fascinating exchange between Sam Harris (author of The End of Faith) and Andrew Sullivan (author of the Conservative Soul). The gloves come off in the last couple of posts but the dialog nonetheless sets a great example of civility between believers and nonbelievers...

Google Blogs Alert for: James Randi Pray tell By The Bad Astronomer Every week, my buddy and world-renowned cranky guy James Randi writes a newsletter about the latest nonsense being spread by fraudulent or self-deluded psychics, antiscientists, and newagers. This week he wrote about a site...

For anyone interested, this week's edition of The New Yorker carries an intriguing review by evolutionary geneticist H. Allen Orr of Daniel Dennett's new book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. Link is below. http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/

From todays Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1740392,00.html Bang on the mark, IMHO, and this site is full of classic examples of the Dennett-Dawkins syndrome. Darwinism doesn't equal atheism. The fact of evolution does not disprove the existence of God, even if it...

It was one of the best events of the Skeptic society lecture series.

...savaged in a New York Times review. It starts like this: It gets worse from there. He may as well have titled his review "Science Can't Explain Everything (Therefore My Beliefs Are Safe)". Read the rest here...

I just finished the book, interesting read. His main point is that we need to make a stronger effort to study religion, at least what makes it tick. He obviously takes a evolutionary view, talks about objectives to studying and preposes a theories about how relgiion evolved. Durning his...

I know there are a lot of threads dealing with so-called "Intelligent Design," but I wanted to draw attention to this op-ed column in the New York Times (reg. req'd, limited time): Show Me the Science To those who think we should "teach the controversy, author Daniel C. Dennett (professor at...

In this article on beliefnet, Robert Wright claims that Dennett said as much in an interview. He has a video clip.

check it out! "determinism, human "choice machines," and how evolution generates free will" http://www.reason.com/0305/fe.rb.pulling.shtml