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From Bacteria to Bach and Back Again: Difference between revisions
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{{a|book review|}}{{br|From Bacteria to Bach and Back Again}}<br> | {{a|book review|}}{{br|From Bacteria to Bach and Back Again}}<br> | ||
{{author|Daniel Dennett}} < | {{author|Daniel Dennett}} <br> | ||
===On how to philosophise with a hammer=== | ===On how to philosophise with a hammer=== | ||
{{quote|''Truth cannot be out there — cannot exist independently of the human mind — because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there. The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not. Only descriptions of the world can be true or false. The world on its own, unaided by the describing activities of humans, cannot.'' | {{quote|''Truth cannot be out there — cannot exist independently of the human mind — because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there. The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not. Only descriptions of the world can be true or false. The world on its own, unaided by the describing activities of humans, cannot.'' | ||
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Darwin’s idea is dangerous because it works on anything that habitually replicates itself with occasional variations: not just organisms. [[Evolution]] is, says Dennett, like a “[[universal acid]]”, apt to dissolve knotty intellectual conundrums wherever they arise. | Darwin’s idea is dangerous because it works on anything that habitually replicates itself with occasional variations: not just organisms. [[Evolution]] is, says Dennett, like a “[[universal acid]]”, apt to dissolve knotty intellectual conundrums wherever they arise. | ||
Conundrums don’t come knottier than those of classical metaphysics, and {{author|Daniel Dennett}} has spent the 22 years since {{br|Darwin’s Dangerous Idea}} trying to dissolve them with his bottle of universal acid. First it was free will (in 2003’s {{br|Freedom Evolves}}). Then God (in 2006’s {{br|Breaking the Spell}}) and now, in newly published {{br|From Bacteria to Bach and Back Again}}, Dennett returns to mind, a problem which he declared settled as long ago as 1991, in {{br|Consciousness Explained}}. | Conundrums don’t come knottier than those of classical metaphysics, and {{author|Daniel Dennett}} has spent the 22 years since {{br|Darwin’s Dangerous Idea}} trying to dissolve them with his bottle of universal acid. First, it was free will (in 2003’s {{br|Freedom Evolves}}). Then God (in 2006’s {{br|Breaking the Spell}}) and now, in newly published {{br|From Bacteria to Bach and Back Again}}, Dennett returns to mind, a problem which he declared settled as long ago as 1991, in {{br|Consciousness Explained}}. | ||
A one-line summary of each of these books would be: “You’re thinking about it the wrong way. It’s [[evolution]]. Everything else is an illusion”. | A one-line summary of each of these books would be: “You’re thinking about it the wrong way. It’s [[evolution]]. Everything else is an illusion”. | ||