by Alan Saunders
November 26th, 2011
via ABC Radio National
This week on The Philosopher’s Zone we meet one of the foremost thinkers of our time. Daniel Dennett is Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University. Described as the great de-mystifier of consciousness, Dennett has been quoted as saying he developed a deep distrust of the methods he saw other philosophers employing and decided that before he could trust his intuitions about the mind, he had to figure out how the brain could possibly accomplish the mind’s work.
Unfortunately Dennett’s belief system is rooted to the material/physical environment and is therefore limited to what can be observed using conventional methods. He doesn’t have the required personal experience to have a strong understanding of consciousness. He is a commentator masquerading as a player. Unless/until he can produce an reasonable explanation of the things that really matter like meaning, information, language, complexity, creativity and the sense of self his words are meaningless.
“Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.”
- Immanuel Kant
You say that Dennett’s “belief system is rooted to the material/physical environment”. The material/physical environment is all we have; it’s what we inhabit. We do not exist without it. We cannot rely on fuzzy feelings, hunches, or fairy tales to understand our world and the universe which, through observation, is unfolding in front of us.
“The death of dogma is the birth of morality”
Immanuel Kant