I am inclined to think that nothing could matter more than what people love. At any rate, I can think of no value that I would place higher. I would not want to live in a world without love.
DANIEL DENNETTI am inclined to think that nothing could matter more than what people love. At any rate, I can think of no value that I would place higher. I would not want to live in a world without love.
DANIEL DENNETTCost is always an object – the second law of thermodynamics sees to that.
DANIEL DENNETTWe 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 DENNETTIn the long run I certainly hope information is the cure for fanaticism, but I am afraid information is more the cause than the cure.
DANIEL DENNETTTrue, 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 DENNETTSometimes you don’t just want to risk making mistakes; you actually want to make them – if only to give you something clear and detailed to fix.
DANIEL DENNETTThe secret of happiness is: Find something more important than you are and dedicate your life to it.
DANIEL DENNETTMinds 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 DENNETTThe chief trick to making good mistakes is not to hide them-especially not from yourself.
DANIEL DENNETTPhilosophers’ Syndrome: mistaking a failure of the imagination for an insight into necessity.
DANIEL DENNETTAI makes philosophy honest.
DANIEL DENNETTThere’s simply no polite way to tell people they’ve dedicated their lives to an illusion.
DANIEL DENNETTThere is no such thing as philosophy-free science, just science that has been conducted without any consideration of its underlying philosophical assumptions.
DANIEL DENNETTWhat you can imagine depends on what you know.
DANIEL DENNETTI’m the guy who reputedly denies that people experience colors or pains, and thinks that thermostats think — just ask my critics.
DANIEL DENNETTNo matter how smart you are, you’re smarter if you take the easy ways when they are available.
DANIEL DENNETT