Science at Melbourne
In his talk, Professor Dennett discusses the following:
Before there was life on Earth, there were no purposes, no reasons. Things just happened. How could purposes emerge from such purposeless conditions?
Looking back at the evolution of life on the planet, we can now see — if only dimly — the patterns that led to the exquisite functional organisations of matter that living forms exhibit. We human beings are the only living things that can represent these reasons, and comprehend them, but that does not make them illusory.
Recorded at the Carillo Gantner Theatre, Sidney Myer Asia Centre at the University of Melbourne on 15 November 2011.
Source
Dennett @ 2:13
can anyone help me? i would like to use his differentiation about Why? in the begging of the lecture. the process narrative vs. justification to my thesis, where can i find written reference or source for this? thanks.
8:00 "Darwin shows hows to make honest science of teleology"
"we are the ONLY reason representers" hasn't been proven and is an unreasonable assumption without evidence. it has not yet been proven that animals don't represent reasons and relate them to each others in their languages. it's not fair to rule out the possibility
In the end, all of this is rooted in the FAITH-BASED position that there was no God who created. because people today were not alive back at the origins of the Earth, every account given, whether an evolutionary one or one based on Inteligent Design, is realy rooted in faith. From their faith positions people work. B/c Dennett never gave an account for consciousness, it means that he would have us accept by faith that consciousness began with biological life as opposed to a bodiless Mind/God.
If you're not more qualified than Dennett in this field – shut up! Dualism can't take us any further, but monism is carrying us forward! Some of us find this interesting and no matter how much you want to restrict free speech – you're not going to be allowed to do so.
No.
Having "faith" means to believe something in absence of evidence (in some cases even *contrary* to evidence). It also means one needs to make more assumptions than the *Occam's razor* principle would require.
What Dennett is talking about isn't faith-based, as it actually *is* supported by evidence.
Consciousnesses wasn't the main topic here, but Dennett has wrote about it extensively… And yes, every single one we know of (up to now) has required a body. No evidence to the contrary yet.
i'm from Iran and love this guy….can anybody give me the link to download his videos with eng subtitle? already thanks.
No, idiot. Evolution is NOT based on faith. It is based on evidence. You are just another fool that is offering a false equivalency in a desperate attempt to make it seem like blind, baseless faith in manufactured nonsense is on equal ground with solid, sound, scientific findings.
I was hoping he would speak on the purpose of life; I was mistaken, lol. I did find his lecture VERY enlightening and his Turing Metaphor initiated a cascade of revelations in my mind. I'm not sure that I agree with him on intentionality… I will have to roll that around a bit. One funny thing I noticed was this creepy stare: 11:24,12:31,17:36, 22:22.
The reason for being is to become beings of reason.
One reason science is not faith is it can produce technologies that work. Faith cant. This is as real a difference as youll ever find.
I'm not sure this is correct in the grand scheme of things. I accept Dennets general definition of 'purpose' but I think he's forgetting that its not just living organisms that are subject to the laws of mutability, or even reproduction in rare cases.
[See Complex adaptive systems Murray Gell-Mann 1994]
Given the complexity even of inorganic structures all of the outputs will be subject even to Dennetts definition of purpose.
RFC
Actually, the special feature of a 'do' loop is that it iterates at least once before it tests for the condition otherwise it's the same as a 'for' loop.
I think that line almost brought a tear to my eye lol almost because I'm still watching the vid
Did Dennett just steal a bit from Louis C.K.?
Hmmm, I don't know how humans have a purpose if we are just matter and particles. Purpose really is illusory. It all ends the same as it was determined. By the way, I am an atheist.
Why? Why? Why? Why? Oh, shut up lol
P.S. That part
Fascinating.. I never saw it this way. Dennett keeps blowing my mind.
I came here to watch this, because of reasons.
He looks like Darwin.
'Algorithms'. From Al-Khwarizmi, the Persian astronomer — not from the word 'rhythms'.
46:15 – hey, kid! I'm a computer!
Stop all the downloadin'!
I note that telic reasons pertain to the future, but to part of a cycle which was also a significant past within the real evolutionary process. Eg, we close the house because that's a human habit, BECAUSE this increases our children's safety as it has in the past.