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Loading... Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (1995)by Daniel C. Dennett
   No current Talk conversations about this book. A lucid explanation and critique of the main ideas of Charles Darwin. The topics considered are wide-ranging from the origin of species to biology, the nature of mind, mathematics, meaning, and more. I found this exploration of ideas both invigorating and challenging to my understanding of evolution and the meaning of life. (  )1   jwhenderson | Apr 6, 2022 |  It has taken me two years and five months to read this. Philosophy and I have never quite meshed. There's something about it, most of the time, that just utterly evades me. I find myself lost and wondering what the practical application of it is. Regardless, I like to exercise my mind, and this was certainly a workout for me. It seems unhelpfully verbose and obscure at times. I'm not entirely certain who Dennett is trying to convince, but most folks are going to struggle to understand this. I did on numerous occasions, and I'm pretty sure I agree with him. At least, I agree with the bits I understood. Also, did Gould fuck his wife or something? Such hostility seems well beyond that which would manifest as a result of philosophical or scientific disagreement. (  ) Zoes_Human | Oct 24, 2021 | Listen, this is a review tied to time and place and current feeling and what am I supposed to do about that? But, come on, you can only blanche at the Epstein-iness of the citations (Pinker, Minsky, oh my) and the cringey-ness of that late-Clinton, early-Bush anti-Theist Brights high-horsedness. Truly a testament of it times, as well as in the emphasis in AI. Oh well, interesting shit on the Baldwin Effect and determining the correct level of Darwinian reductionist to be (not Skinner, mind you!). ( ) Ebenmaessiger | Oct 5, 2019 | DD completes the work begun in Consciousness Explained (1991), rendering a materialist account of natural design--generally, and as to the human mind in particular. We do not need a soul (it does not account for anything or add to human behavior), nor a creator to explain an artifact. And in the Preface, he declares his abandonment of "argument" --which is ignorable--and adoption of "story". Shocked? Just such an argument was made by Baha'u'llah a century ago. keylawk | Apr 19, 2017 | A very dense book that delves into physics as well as biology, mathematical theory, artificial intelligence and neuroscience. The author begins with Locke's assumption that mind cannot emerge from matter, that mind therefore must come before matter in epistemology. He then proceeds to explain that, using algorithmic process the emergence of life, the evolution of species, the evolution of mind and of morals can proceed without any need for what he terms 'skyhooks' interventions from outside the process. I think I need to reread it to get a better grasp of his arguments. ritaer | Aug 4, 2016 |
 Daniel Dennett's fertile imagination is captivated by the very dangerous idea that the neo-Darwinian theory of biological evolution should become the basis for what amounts to an established state religion of scientific materialism. Dennett takes the scientific part of his thesis from the inner circle of contemporary Darwinian theorists: William Hamilton, John Maynard Smith, George C. Williams, and the brilliant popularizer Richard Dawkins. Is abridged in
In this groundbreaking and very accessible book, Daniel C. Dennett, the acclaimed author of Consciousness Explained, demonstrates the power of the theory of natural selection and shows how Darwin's great idea transforms and illuminates our traditional view of our place in the universe. Following Darwinian thinking to its logical conclusions is a risky business, with pitfalls for everybody. Creationists and others who reject evolution are not the only ones to fall into the traps. Many who accept the validity of Darwin's conclusions hesitate before their implications and distort his theory, fearful that it is politically incorrect or antireligious, or that it robs life of all spirituality. Dennett explains the scientific theory of natural selection in vivid terms, and shows how it extends far beyond biology. No library descriptions found. 
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)146.7 — Philosophy and Psychology Philosophical Systems Scientific Philosophy Evolution, Process PhilosophyLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (4.08)
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