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Daniel Dennett
Daniel Dennett is an American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist who specializes in evolutionary biology and cognitive science. He currently is the Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies and the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University located in Boston, Massachusetts. He is best known for his drafts of human consciousness and is considered one of the “Four Horsemen of Counter Apocalypse”. -
Early Life
Mr. Dennett received his B.A. in philosophy from Harvard University in 1963. Afterwards he would earn his graduate from the University of Oxford. During this time would become fond of the nature of consciousness and wrote his doctoral thesis which later turned into his first book Content and Consciousness. Awarded his D.Phil. in philosophy in 1965 he would go on to teach at the University of California till 1971 where he would teach to this day at the Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. -
Dennett's Beliefs
Dennett’s beliefs are molded by his studies in the fields of artificial intelligence, neuroscience and religion. He believes that religion is a “supernatural” result of evolution and biology. His “heterophenomenology” is his theory of consciousness meaning that a person is not in control of what is happening in them but only what seems to be happening in them. -
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Atheism Discussion
In this video Mr Dennett discusses his disbelief of God and the lack of existence of proof there is a higher spirit.
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Views on A.I.
In Mr. Dennett’s most recent publication From Bacteria to Bach and Back he critiques creating human-like artificial intelligence by discussing the danger of machines being responsible for memory, perception, and computation and not improving the humans as a whole. He also believes the cognitive performance of humans will not be exceeded by A.I. within the next 50 years. -
Public Criticism
Mr. Dennett's ideas from free will, religion, A.I., and conciousness are all met with strong criticisim but his free thinking and his against the grain proposals have also found him a strong backing. Researching Mr. Dennett i've learned their is no middle ground with him. Their is no compromises made, it's either black or white, left or right, yes or no.
