I don't agree. Why would you say that? Do you really believe Dennett would deny that being awake and being asleep are different states? He's not so stupid. — Janus
Before one studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters. — Dōgen
Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. — Zhuangzi
Dennett does not see consciousness as an illusion; he sees the common notion of consciousness, the "folk" conception of consciousness, as being an illusion. — Janus
The elusive subjective conscious experience — the redness of red, the painfulness of pain — that philosophers call qualia? Sheer illusion.
Human beings, Mr. Dennett said, quoting a favorite pop philosopher, Dilbert, are “moist robots.”
“I’m a robot, and you’re a robot, but that doesn’t make us any less dignified or wonderful or lovable or responsible for our actions,” he said. “Why does our dignity depend on our being scientifically inexplicable?” — NY Times
Dennett does not see consciousness as an illusion; he sees the common notion of consciousness, the "folk" conception of consciousness, as being an illusion. — Janus
I know I keep saying this, but it’s exasperating that a well-read intelligent thoughtful philosophical person can’t see it. — Wayfarer
Before one studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters. — Dōgen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QualiaC.S. Peirce introduced the term quale in philosophy in 1866.
There are recognizable qualitative characters of the given, which may be repeated in different experiences, and are thus a sort of universals; I call these "qualia." But although such qualia are universals, in the sense of being recognized from one to another experience, they must be distinguished from the properties of objects. Confusion of these two is characteristic of many historical conceptions, as well as of current essence-theories. The quale is directly intuited, given, and is not the subject of any possible error because it is purely subjective. — CS Peirce
The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an “objective correlative”; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked. — TS Eliot
Walking is not as real as legs that do the walking.
Consciousness/mind, just like walking, is an activity. To think that consciousness/mind is an object, like legs are, is a mistake; this error gives warrant to Dennett's claim that consciousness is an illusion. — Agent Smith
Do you really believe Dennett doesn't enjoy his life, doesn't enjoy music, nature, poetry and whatever? If he does enjoy life, then what is he missing? — Janus
Dennett also likes to argue against philosophers of mind who still believe that human consciousness arises from an immaterial substance like a rational soul or in an irreducible free will which gives human beings the power to choose independently of material causation. Nonsense, says Dennett, we are complex machines, and the mind is just the motion of brain cells and neurological processes that will one day be replicated by the fancy robots of Artificial Intelligence. We may still speak of human "souls," Dennett argues mischievously, as long as we understand them to be made up of tiny robots. And we may still speak of "free will" as long as we mean the way our genetically programmed selves react to the environment rather than the rational choice of ultimate ends.
None of this would be very surprising if Dennett followed his Darwinian materialism to its logical conclusions in ethics and politics. After all, scientific materialists have been around for a long time, attacking religion, miracles, immaterial causes, and essential natures. Think of Lucretius and his poem about the natural world consisting of atoms in the void, or Hobbes's mechanistic universe of "bodies in motion," or B. F. Skinner's "behaviorism," Ayn Rand's "objectivism," E. O. Wilson's "sociobiology," Darwin's Darwinism, and even Nietzsche's "will to power." But all of these materialist debunkers of higher purposes and soul-doctrines drew conclusions about morality that were harsh and pessimistic, if not cynical and amoral. Lucretius saw that a universe made up of atoms in the void was indifferent to man, and he counseled withdrawal from the world for the sake of philosophical "peace of mind"-letting the suffering and injustices of the world go by, like a detached bystander on the seashore watching a sinking ship, and treating the spectacle of people dying with equanimity as impersonal bundles of atoms in the void. Hobbes, Skinner, Rand, and Nietzsche saw humans as essentially selfish creatures of pleasure, power, and domination who in some cases can be induced by fear and greed to lay off killing each other. Darwin never spelled out the moral implications of his doctrine, but presumably he could not have objected to the strong dominating the weak or to nature's plagues and disasters as ways of strengthening the species. Herbert Spencer's Social Darwinism-the survival of the fittest in a competitive world-is a logical conclusion of Darwinian natural science.
But such conclusions are alien to Daniel Dennett. He is a Darwinian materialist in his cosmology and metaphysics while also strongly affirming human dignity as well as a progressive brand of liberalism in his ethics and politics. Herein lies the massive contradiction of his system of thought.
Daniel Dennett [takes] a different view. While it is true that materialism tells us a human being is nothing more than a “moist robot”—a phrase Dennett took from a Dilbert comic—we run a risk when we let this cat, or robot, out of the bag. If we repeatedly tell folks that their sense of free will or belief in objective morality is essentially an illusion, such knowledge has the potential to undermine civilization itself, Dennett believes. Civil order requires the general acceptance of personal responsibility, which is closely linked to the notion of free will. Better, said Dennett, if the public were told that “for general purposes” the self and free will and objective morality do indeed exist—that colors and sounds exist, too—“just not in the way they think.” They “exist in a special way,” which is to say, ultimately, not at all.
the issue is not one of 'the good guys on one side and the bad guys on the other' as you seem to be framing it. — Janus
If he really lived out of what he believes is the case, he would be nothing like the genial bearded fellow of his persona. And he even acknowledges that!
Daniel Dennett [takes] a different view. While it is true that materialism tells us a human being is nothing more than a “moist robot”—a phrase Dennett took from a Dilbert comic—we run a risk when we let this cat, or robot, out of the bag. If we repeatedly tell folks that their sense of free will or belief in objective morality is essentially an illusion, such knowledge has the potential to undermine civilization itself, Dennett believes. Civil order requires the general acceptance of personal responsibility, which is closely linked to the notion of free will. Better, said Dennett, if the public were told that “for general purposes” the self and free will and objective morality do indeed exist—that colors and sounds exist, too—“just not in the way they think.” They “exist in a special way,” which is to say, ultimately, not at all. — Wayfarer
How is Dennett's philosophy "corrosive" — Janus
point by point. — Janus
You are making yourself look like a joke, Wayfarer. — Janus
Exactly as he explains in Darwin's Dangerous Idea. — Wayfarer
There's only one point at issue - the insistence that matter has intrinsic reality. When that's seen through, the rest collapses. — Wayfarer
You're talking to yourself man. — Wayfarer
Can you cite some text from [Darwin's Dangerous Idea] to support your contention? — Janus
Love it or hate it, phenomena like this [organic molecules] exhibit the heart of the power of the Darwinian idea. An impersonal, unreflective, robotic, mindless little scrap of molecular machinery is the ultimate basis of all the agency, and hence meaning, and hence consciousness, in the universe. — Daniel Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 202-3.
What does "intrinsic" mean there? — Janus
The question is whether you will take heed or not. Past experience tells me you will not. — Janus
So I think your attitude is divisive in that you don't believe a rational person could hold an opinion different to yours; if so, does it not then follow that it is (socially) corrosive in that would seek not to allow for diversity of opinion? — Janus
The disagreement is over possible ways of interpreting the human situation, ways none of which can be definitively tested; so it comes down to being more of a matter of taste than anything else in my view. — Janus
If minds are brains, then minds are nouns. — RogueAI
Everything Dennett writes is an elaboration of that theme. — Wayfarer
Materialism claims that matter is intrinsically real — Wayfarer
Only in respect of whether Dennett's philosophy is valid. — Wayfarer
Subjective opinion, once again. — Wayfarer
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