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Daniel Dennett

Daniel Dennett Quotes

Philosopher

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Famous Daniel Dennett Quotes

“If you can approach the world's complexities, both its glories and its horrors, with an attitude of humble curiosity, acknowledging that however deeply you have seen, you have only scratched the surface, you will find worlds within worlds, beauties you could not heretofore imagine, and your own mundane preoccupations will shrink to proper size, not all that important in the greater scheme of things.”

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Author:Daniel Dennett
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“I should emphasize this, to keep well-meaning but misguided multiculturalists at bay: the theoretical entities in which these tribal people frankly believe — the gods and other spirits — don't exist. These people are mistaken, and you know it as well as I do. It is possible for highly intelligent people to have a very useful but mistaken theory, and we don't have to pretend otherwise in order to show respect for these people and their ways.”

PeopleKnowsWayShouldBelieveWellsShowsSpiritOrderTheoryIntelligentEntityMistakenTheoreticalMisguidedShow RespectHighly Intelligent
Book:Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
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“My faith in the expertise of physicists like Richard Feynman, for instance, permits me to endorse—and, if it comes to it, bet heavily on the truth of—a proposition that I don't understand. So far, my faith is not unlike religious faith, but I am not in the slightest bit motivated to go to my death rather than recant the formulas of physics. Watch: E doesn't equal mc2, it doesn't, it doesn't! I was lying, so there!”

IfsLyingBitsReligiousWatchesEqualPhysicsInstanceMotivatedFormulasPermitPropositionsPhysicistReligious FaithExpertiseRichard Feynman
Author:Daniel Dennett
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“Those who feel guilty contemplating "betraying" the tradition they love by acknowledging their disapproval of elements within it should reflect on the fact that the very tradition to which they are so loyal—the "eternal" tradition introduced to them in their youth—is in fact the evolved product of many adjustments firmly but delicately made by earlier lovers of the same tradition.”

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Book:Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
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“Isn't it true that whatever isn't determined by our genes must be determined by our environment? What else is there? There's Nature and there's Nurture. Is there also some X, some further contributor to what we are? There's Chance. Luck. This extra ingredient is important but doesn't have to come from the quantum bowels of our atoms or from some distant star. It is all around us in the causeless coin-flipping of our noisy world, automatically filling in the gaps of specification left unfixed by our genes, and unfixed by salient causes in our environment.”

WorldImportantLeftStarsCausesChanceEnvironmentLuckDeterminedExtrasGapsIngredientsAtomsGenesQuantumNurtureCoinsFillingOur EnvironmentNoisyContributorsBowelsSpecificationsFilling In
Author:Daniel Dennett
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“Is he a dread genetic determinist, or a dread environmental determinist? He is neither, of course, for both these species of bogeyman are as mythical as werewolves. By increasing the information we have about the various causes of the constraints that limit our current opportunities, he has increased our powers to avoid what we want to avoid, prevent what we want to prevent. Knowledge of the roles of our genes, and the genes of the other species around us, is not the enemy of human freedom, but one of its best friends.”

WantHumansCoursesOpportunityCausesEnemyRolesInformationLimitsSpeciesEnvironmentalCurrentsVariousGenesDreadConstraintsWerewolfHuman Freedom
Book:Freedom Evolves
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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.”

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Book:Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life
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“Some philosophers can't bear to say simple things, like "Suppose a dog bites a man." They feel obliged instead to say, "Suppose a dog d bites a man m at time t," thereby demonstrating their unshakable commitment to logical rigor, even though they don't go on to manipulate any formulae involving d, m, and t.”

MenFeelsSimpleDogGoes OnBearsCommitmentPhilosopherLogicalBitesManipulateObligedInvolvingSimple ThingsDemonstratingRigorUnshakableDog Bite
Author:Daniel Dennett
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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.”

BelieveReligionStarsSkyAtheismChildhoodAdultsShiningDelightMythSymbolsAbandonedConcreteSaneSantaSanta ClausShining Star
Book:Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meaning of Life
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“Let me lay my cards on the table. If I were to give an award for the single best idea anyone ever had, I'd give it to Darwin, ahead of even Newton or Einstein and everyone else. In a single stroke, the idea of evolution by natural selection unifies the realm of life, meaning, and purpose with the realm of space and time, cause and effect, mechanism and physical law. It is not just a wonderful idea. It is a dangerous idea.”

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Author:Daniel Dennett
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“Cults and prophets proclaiming the imminent end of the world have been with us for several millennia, and it has been another sour sort of fun to ridicule them the morning after, when they discover that their calculations were a little off. But, just as with Marxists, there are some among them who are working hard to "hasten the inevitable," not merely anticipating the End Days with joy in their hearts, but taking political action to bring about the conditions they think are the prerequisites for that occasion.”

ThinkingWorldHeartLittlesHas BeensEndsHardActionPoliticalJoyFunMorningAtheismConditionsOccasionsInevitableProphetCultRidiculeEnd Of The WorldCalculationsSourMarxistPrerequisitesProclaimingPolitical ActionMorning After
Book:Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
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