Wilfrid Sellars described the task of philosophy as explaining how things, in the broadest sense of term, hang together, in the broadest sense of the term. (Substitute “exploring” for “explaining” and you’d have a good mission statement for the Mindscape podcast.) Few modern thinkers have pursued this goal more energetically, creatively, and entertainingly than Daniel Dennett. One of the most respected philosophers of our time, Dennett’s work has ranged over topics such as consciousness, artificial intelligence, metaphysics, free will, evolutionary biology, epistemology, and naturalism, always with an eye on our best scientific understanding of the phenomenon in question. His thinking in these areas is exceptionally lucid, and he has the rare ability to express his ideas in ways that non-specialists can find accessible and compelling. We talked about all of them, in a wide-ranging and wonderfully enjoyable conversation.Support Mindscape on Patreon.Daniel Dennett received his D.Phil. in philosophy from Oxford University. He is currently Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy and co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. He is known for a number of philosophical concepts and coinages, including the intentional stance, the Cartesian theater, and the multiple-drafts model of consciousness. Among his honors are the Erasmus Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the American Humanist Association’s Humanist of the Year award. He is the author of a number of books that are simultaneously scholarly and popular, including Consciousness Explained, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, and most recently Bacteria to Bach and Back.Web siteBibliographyGoogle Scholar pageAmazon author pageWikipediaTalk on The Illusion of ConsciousnessCenter for Cognitive StudiesThe Clergy ProjectTwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dr. Daniel Dennett discusses aboutness, intention, ethics, and trust in religious and secular worlds. They touch on academic freedom, postmodernism, and the loss of trust. Topics include patterns, unity of spirit, neuroscience, and the ethics of AI and technology.

In this episode, we examine the timeless question of “free will”: what constitutes it, what is meant by it, what ought to be meant by it, and, of course, whether we have it at all. We start with the neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky who begins to deflate the widely held intuition and assumption of “libertarian free will” by drawing out a mechanistic and determined description of the universe. We then hear from the philosopher who has long been Sam’s intellectual wrestling opponent on this subject, Daniel Dennett. Dennett and Sam spar about definitional and epistemological frameworks of what Dennett insists is “free will,” and what Sam contends could never be. The author and physicist Sean Carroll then engages Sam with more attempts to find a philosophically defensible notion of free will by leaning on the unknowable nature of the universe revealed by quantum mechanics. We then listen in on Sam’s engagement with the mathematician and author Judea Pearl who focuses on matters of causation to tease out a freedom of will. After a historical review of Princess Elizabeth’s famous exchanges with Rene Descartes, we hear from the biologist Jerry Coyne, who firmly agrees with Sam that a deterministic picture of reality leaves absolutely no room for anything like free will. We then hear from the curiously entertaining mind of comedian and producer Ricky Gervais who was thinking about free will while taking a bath when he decided to phone Sam. We conclude with Sam’s own response to concerns that an erasure of free will inevitably result in fatalism, loss of meaning, and passive defeat. Sam insists that the loss of free will actually pushes us in the opposite direction where we begin to see hatred and vengeance as incoherent and start to connect with a deeper and truer sense of genuine compassion.   About the Series Filmmaker Jay Shapiro has produced The Essential Sam Harris, a new series of audio documentaries exploring the major topics that Sam has focused on over the course of his career. Each episode weaves together original analysis, critical perspective, and novel thought experiments with some of the most compelling exchanges from the Making Sense archive. Whether you are new to a particular topic, or think you have your mind made up about it, we think you’ll find this series fascinating.

Daniel Dennett, philosopher, discusses the mind, soul, and personal identity. They explore free will, therapy, and the consciousness of video game characters. They also discuss the dangers of large language models and counterfeit people. The podcast delves into trusting thoughts, responsibility in philosophy, assumptions in science, robustness and fragility of free will, debunking arguments against machines, the influence of sailing on philosophy, fictionalism and illusions of consciousness, evolution of religion, and the illusion of phenomenal states and truth.

Please check out Numerai - our sponsor using our link @ http://numer.ai/mlst Numerai is a groundbreaking platform which is taking the data science world by storm. Tim has been using Numerai to build state-of-the-art models which predict the stock market, all while being a part of an inspiring community of data scientists from around the globe. They host the Numerai Data Science Tournament, where data scientists like us use their financial dataset to predict future stock market performance. Support us! https://www.patreon.com/mlst MLST Discord: https://discord.gg/aNPkGUQtc5 Twitter: https://twitter.com/MLStreetTalk YT version: https://youtu.be/axJtywd9Tbo In this fascinating interview, Dr. Tim Scarfe speaks with renowned philosopher Daniel Dennett about the potential dangers of AI and the concept of "Counterfeit People." Dennett raises concerns about AI being used to create artificial colleagues, and argues that preventing counterfeit AI individuals is crucial for societal trust and security. They delve into Dennett's "Two Black Boxes" thought experiment, the Chinese Room Argument by John Searle, and discuss the implications of AI in terms of reversibility, reontologisation, and realism. Dr. Scarfe and Dennett also examine adversarial LLMs, mental trajectories, and the emergence of consciousness and semanticity in AI systems. Throughout the conversation, they touch upon various philosophical perspectives, including Gilbert Ryle's Ghost in the Machine, Chomsky's work, and the importance of competition in academia. Dennett concludes by highlighting the need for legal and technological barriers to protect against the dangers of counterfeit AI creations. Join Dr. Tim Scarfe and Daniel Dennett in this thought-provoking discussion about the future of AI and the potential challenges we face in preserving our civilization. Don't miss this insightful conversation! TOC: 00:00:00 Intro 00:09:56 Main show kick off 00:12:04 Counterfeit People 00:16:03 Reversibility 00:20:55 Reontologisation 00:24:43 Realism 00:27:48 Adversarial LLMs are out to get us 00:32:34 Exploring mental trajectories and Chomsky 00:38:53 Gilbert Ryle and Ghost in machine and competition in academia 00:44:32 2 Black boxes thought experiment / intentional stance 01:00:11 Chinese room 01:04:49 Singularitarianism 01:07:22 Emergence of consciousness and semanticity References: Tree of Thoughts: Deliberate Problem Solving with Large Language Models https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.10601 The Problem With Counterfeit People (Daniel Dennett) https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/05/problem-counterfeit-people/674075/ The knowledge argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_argument The Intentional Stance https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271180035_The_Intentional_Stance Two Black Boxes: a Fable (Daniel Dennett) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/28762339_Two_Black_Boxes_a_Fable The Chinese Room Argument (John Searle) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/ https://web-archive.southampton.ac.uk/cogprints.org/7150/1/10.1.1.83.5248.pdf From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds (Daniel Dennett) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bacteria-Bach-Back-Evolution-Minds/dp/014197804X Consciousness Explained (Daniel Dennett) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Consciousness-Explained-Penguin-Science-Dennett/dp/0140128670/ The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul (Hofstadter, Douglas R; Dennett, Daniel C.) https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31494476184 #DanielDennett #ArtificialIntelligence #CounterfeitPeople

Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett discuss the rise and fall of New Atheism, questioning its direction and impact. They explore the aggressive nature of the movement and its use of mockery and ridicule. The podcast also highlights the negative effects of this approach, leading to a resurgence in belief in God and a reconsideration of Christianity by secular thinkers. The flaws in the New Atheist argument and the disappointment with Richard Dawkins are also discussed.

Two formidable minds, Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins, delve into philosophy, science, and the intersection of both fields. They discuss topics such as the dangers of AI manipulation, the potential consequences of AI-generated counterfeit people, the power of intuition pumps, humor in philosophical books, meme gene co-evolution, and the origin and evolution of language.

Daniel Dennett, a leading philosopher and cognitive scientist, discusses the influence of Gilbert Ryle, the possibility of conscious machines, the compatibility of free will with determinism, and the complexities of free will and responsibility in old age.

Sean Carroll, Daniel Dennett, and Steven Pinker discuss AI, parapsychology, panpsychism, and physics violations. They delve into debunking claims of parapsychology, explore artificial intelligence, discuss the ethical implications of counterfeit individuals created by large language models, and contemplate the evolution of jobs in the technological age. The conversation touches on the intersection of AI, creativity, and physics, evolution, chaos, decision-making, teleonomy, and emergence in consciousness.

Daniel Dennett is one of the world's most original and provocative thinkers. A philosopher and cognitive scientist, he is known as one of the 'Four Horseman of New Atheism' along with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and the late Christopher Hitchens. In 2013 he came to Intelligence Squared to share the insights he has acquired over his 40-year career into the nature of how we think, decide and act. Dennett revealed his favourite thinking tools, or 'intuition pumps', that he and others have developed for addressing life's most fundamental questions. As well as taking a fresh look at familiar moves - Occam's Razor, reductio ad absurdum - he discussed new cognitive solutions designed for the most treacherous subject matter: evolution, meaning, consciousness and free will.—We’d love to hear your feedback and what you think we should talk about next, who we should have on and what our future debates should be. Send us an email or voice note with your thoughts to podcasts@intelligencesquared.com or Tweet us @intelligence2. And if you’d like to support our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations, as well as ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content, early access and much more, become a supporter of Intelligence Squared..Just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices