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Life itself is just a thin coat of paint on the planet, and we hold the paintbrush.

Daniel Dennett

Minds are in limited supply, and each mind has a limited capacity for memes, and hence there is considerable competition among memes for entry in as many minds as possible.
DANIEL DENNETT

Competition Consider Mindset Possible
What you can imagine depends on what you know. Philosophers who know only philosophy consign themselves to a janitorial role in the great enterprises of exploration that are illuminating the mysteries of our lives.
DANIEL DENNETT

Imagination Live Mystery Ourselves Philosophy
A child raised on a desert island, alone, without social interaction, without language, and thus lacking empathy, is still a sentient being.
DANIEL DENNETT

Alone Children Desert Empathy
Now that mobile phones and the internet have altered the epistemic selective landscape in a revolutionary way, every religious organisation must scramble to evolve defences or become extinct.
DANIEL DENNETT

Evolution Internet Organization Phone Revolution Selection
I am a philosopher, not a scientist, and we philosophers are better at questions than answers.
DANIEL DENNETT

Better Philosophy Question Science Way Yourself
True, you don’t have to be religious to be crazy, but it helps. Indeed, if you are religious, you don’t have to be crazy in the medically certifiable sense in order to do massively crazy things.
DANIEL DENNETT

Crazy Medical Religious True Yourself
You don’t get to advertise all the good that your religion does without first scrupulously subtracting all the harm it does and considering seriously the question of whether some other religion, or no religion at all, does better.
DANIEL DENNETT

Advertisement Better Religion Subtract Yourself
There is no such thing as philosophy-free science, just science that has been conducted without any consideration of its underlying philosophical assumptions.
DANIEL DENNETT

Assumption Freedom Lying Philosophy Science
Religions have depended on the relative isolation and ignorance of their flocks, forever and this is all breaking down.
DANIEL DENNETT

Break Down Forever Ignorance Relative Religion
Go ahead and believe in God , if you like, but don’t imagine that you have been given any grounds for such a belief by science.
DANIEL DENNETT

Belief Believe God Ground Imagination Science
Philosophers’ Syndrome: mistaking a failure of the imagination for an insight into necessity.
DANIEL DENNETT

Failure Imagination Mistake Necessary Philosophy
There is a time for politeness and there is a time when you are obliged to be rude.
DANIEL DENNETT

Behavior Polite Rude Time Yourself
We live in a world that is subjectively open. And we are designed by evolution to be “informavores”, epistemically hungry seekers of information, in an endless quest to improve our purchase on the world, the better to make decisions about our subjectively open future.
DANIEL DENNETT

Decision Future Improvement Live Open World
I’m the guy who reputedly denies that people experience colors or pains, and thinks that thermostats think — just ask my critics.
DANIEL DENNETT

Color Criticism Deny Experience Myself Pain People Repeat
There are no good reasons to believe in god.
DANIEL DENNETT

Believe God Goodness Reason
The evidence for evolution pours in, not only from geology, paleontology, biogeography, and anatomy, but of course from molecular biology and every other branch of the life sciences.
DANIEL DENNETT

Evidence Life Science Subject

Life itself is just a thin coat of paint on the planet, and we hold the paintbrush.

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Life itself is just a thin coat of paint on the planet, and we hold the paintbrush.

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