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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

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

Hold Life Paint Philosophy
We have had plenty of atheist presidents; they just wouldn’t admit it.
DANIEL DENNETT

Admit Atheist President
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
Religion is defined as social systems whose participants avow a supernatural agent or agents whose approval is to be sought.
DANIEL DENNETT

Natural Religion Social System
To put it bluntly but fairly, anyone today who doubts that the variety of life on this planet was produced by a process of evolution is simply ignorant — inexcusably ignorant, in a world where three out of four people have learned to read and write.
DANIEL DENNETT

Fair Ignorance Learning Myself Process Reading Writing
In the beginning, there were no reasons; there were only causes. Nothing had a purpose, nothing has so much as a function; there was no teleology in the world at all.
DANIEL DENNETT

Beginning Purpose Reason World
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
The idea that God is a worthy recipient of our gratitude for the blessings of life but should not be held accountable for the disasters is a transparently disingenuous innovation of the theologians.
DANIEL DENNETT

Blessing God Gratitude Ideas Innovation Life Ourselves Worth
If I know better than you know what I am up to, it is only because I spend more time with myself than you do.
DANIEL DENNETT

Better Myself Time Yourself
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
There’s no polite way to say to somebody (religious followers) ‘Do you realize you’ve wasted your life?
DANIEL DENNETT

Life Polite Religious Wasted Time Yourself
No matter how smart you are, you’re smarter if you take the easy ways when they are available.
DANIEL DENNETT

Easy Smart Way Yourself
YES we have a soul but it’s made of lots of tiny robots.
DANIEL DENNETT

Build Ourselves Robot Soul
The mind is the effect, not the cause.
DANIEL DENNETT

Effect Mindset Science
We need to let our children grow up to face the world armed with knowledge, with much more knowledge than we ourselves had at their age. It is scary, but the alternative is worse.
DANIEL DENNETT

Children Growth Knowledge Need Ourselves Worst
The way evolution always discovers reasons is by retroactive endorsement.
DANIEL DENNETT

Discover Endorsement Evolution Reason
The best thing about saying thank goodness in place of thank God this that here really are lots of ways of repaying your debt of goodness – by setting to create more of it, for the benefit of those to come.
DANIEL DENNETT

Best Creation Goodness Place Thankful
You can’t get through seminary and come out believing in God!
DANIEL DENNETT

Believe Seminar Yourself
The only meaning of life worth caring about is one that can withstand our best efforts to examine it.
DANIEL DENNETT

Care Effort Examination Life Meaning Worth
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
I think that what one can see from a Darwinian account is how the addition of culture in our species turns us into a very special sort of animal, an animal that can be a moral agent in a way that no other animal can be.
DANIEL DENNETT

Agency Animal Culture Moral See Thinking
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 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 DENNETT

Love Myself People Rate Thinking
Sometimes 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 DENNETT

Clear Detail Mistake Risk Time Yourself
There’s simply no polite way to tell people they’ve dedicated their lives to an illusion.
DANIEL DENNETT

Dedication Illusion People Polite Simplicity
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
Not a single one of the cells that compose you knows who you are, or cares.
DANIEL DENNETT

Care Knowledge 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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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