1. Comment #78977 by Matt H. on October 15, 2007 at 3:59 pm

This was a great talk. I loved every minute of it.

Other Comments by Matt H.

2. Comment #78986 by Crazymalc on October 15, 2007 at 4:38 pm

I love that "Thank Goodness" piece so much

Other Comments by Crazymalc

3. Comment #78992 by obscured by clouds on October 15, 2007 at 6:11 pm

Good job editing Josh! The guy who kicked my tripod was barely noticeable, Thank Goodness!!

Other Comments by obscured by clouds

4. Comment #78994 by Atticus_of_Amber on October 15, 2007 at 6:13 pm

Great lecture. I hope he writes it up and puts it online because it draws together a lot of useful threads in a very accessible way.

Other Comments by Atticus_of_Amber

5. Comment #79003 by aoratos philos on October 15, 2007 at 7:08 pm

Thx for all these wonderful speeches and lectures.

I love Dan's not-so-heavy practical approach, it's a great compliment to the styles of the other members of the musketeers. (is this collective phrase still in use here ? lol )

In the interest of science, and in light of Dan's description of the some of the underlying reasons for belief (in belief), I for one am going to adopt a different tact to see if I can coax a different response from the religious.

Other Comments by aoratos philos

6. Comment #79072 by Atticus_of_Amber on October 16, 2007 at 4:00 am

I'm particularly attracted to his delineation of a third type aside from "brights" (hate that term, but I get his drift) and "supers" - the "murkies" or "mysterians".

One of the reasons I thing it is is so immensely frustrating to argue with religious moderates is that they are often not supers but murkies. And Dennett lays out some useful strategies for dealing with them.

Other Comments by Atticus_of_Amber

7. Comment #79159 by namtog on October 16, 2007 at 10:58 am

Greetings,

Loved it.

More I say, more.

Why isn't this on one of my cable channels?

Namtog

Other Comments by namtog

8. Comment #79162 by steve99 on October 16, 2007 at 11:06 am

This has to be one of the best videos posted on this site. Dennett's wisdom and clarity of thinking are so impressive. I may not always agree with many of his philosophical positions, but he is such an impressive speaker.

Other Comments by steve99

9. Comment #79316 by Teratornis on October 16, 2007 at 10:31 pm

In reply to comment #79162 by steve99:

This has to be one of the best videos posted on this site. Dennett's wisdom and clarity of thinking are so impressive. I may not always agree with many of his philosophical positions, but he is such an impressive speaker.

When I listen to really smart people, I tend to agree with whichever one I listened to most recently. And then I listen to the next one...

One problem with the human capacity for belief is that we tend to base it on a few tiny little brush strokes from the whole painting, individual strands of thread from the vast circus tent of reality. Because, basically, that's all we can fit into our short-term memory at a time. So it might just be one silly thing, like a Nancy Drew story, that melts a little more ice off the submerged hulk of the iceberg, making it suddenly top-heavy and causing it to violently flip.

I liked what Prof. Dennett observes about getting our message out in all the ways we can, because you never know when one particular point will get across to someone.

This notion came up in a previous thread about the debate that was structured to slant against Prof. Dawkins. I mentioned that it doesn't matter how many extra rebuttals the theists got, just the fact that some people were hearing the arguments in The God Delusion at all might have made a difference with some of them. If one of those ideas found its mark with someone, the following rebuttals might have been like so much white noise. Or the ideas might roll around in a hearer's mind for days or months, and then later suddenly emerge when the faith-head hears the pastor, priest, or imam say something that just doesn't add up. People in the pews are used to sort of just letting those bothersome bits gloss right over, but once the seed of doubt finds purchase, the contradictions become steadily harder to ignore.

Other Comments by Teratornis

10. Comment #79387 by robotaholic on October 17, 2007 at 6:33 am

I love Daniel Dennett

Other Comments by robotaholic

11. Comment #79388 by robotaholic on October 17, 2007 at 6:33 am

I love Daniel Dennett

Other Comments by robotaholic

12. Comment #79662 by Crossman on October 18, 2007 at 5:18 am

Does anyone know what his Turkish phrase means? "Her insan dogar, yasar, ve olur"... I've been wondering for ages.

Other Comments by Crossman

13. Comment #79663 by steve99 on October 18, 2007 at 5:21 am

Does anyone know what his Turkish phrase means? "Her insan dogar, yasar, ve olur"... I've been wondering for ages.

Well, machine translation gives:

"Every human being dogar, law, and all right"

Obvious really.

Other Comments by steve99

14. Comment #79667 by Logicel on October 18, 2007 at 5:33 am

Oudfreak in the comments under the youtube vid part one writes:

Hi,
the Turkish line "Her insan doğar, yaşar ve ölür" means
every man (human being) is born, lives and dies.

Other Comments by Logicel

15. Comment #79745 by samratpathania on October 18, 2007 at 11:59 am

My wife had a very difficult pregnancy and if it wasn't for the miracles of modern science, neither her nor my lovely daughter would be with me today.
I felt exactly what Dan Dennett stated after his recovery.
I did not know about him or Richard Dawkins back then. But it gives me great happiness and strength to see that there are men like them who have made modern science what it is today.

Other Comments by samratpathania

16. Comment #79747 by Quine on October 18, 2007 at 12:09 pm

Remember, Dan Dennett asked for something that was true in 'Turkish' not something that is necessarily true when translated into any other language.

EDIT: e.g. "This sentence is in English." will not be true if translated directly (especially by machine) into Turkish.

Other Comments by Quine

17. Comment #79957 by keith on October 19, 2007 at 8:39 am

While listening to Julie Sweeney I couldn't help thinking of my West German friends' comments a year or so after the Berlin Wall came down, sometime around the moment when they realised that reunification wasn't going to be all milk and honey: "Can't we have our wall back?" they used to ask a little sheepishly. I must confess to feeling a little bit the same while listening to Ms. Sweeney. Couldn't we just take the non-annoying de-converts, rather in the way that Switzerland picks and chooses its immigrants?

Other Comments by keith

18. Comment #80237 by GBG on October 21, 2007 at 12:21 am

Julia Sweeney is probably the most annoying speaker i have ever heard.

"oh my god, my friend was like oh my god and it was so like whatever, oh my god!"

Other Comments by GBG

19. Comment #83330 by Styrer- on October 29, 2007 at 5:31 pm

At first I thought Dan had taken too much from Dawkins' support of his clarity, by 'dumbing down' such that, in the early parts of his speech here, he was speaking directly and only to a nincompoop such as me.

Thank goodness, to borrow, that I stuck with this man's pedestrian language to the end. For I was rewarded with arguably the most beautifully presented, most forceful and, I submit, most persuasively subtle argumentation against that which AAI and RDF seek to combat I have been allowed to see in this year's AAI contributions.

Brilliant.

Best,
Styrer

Other Comments by Styrer-

20. Comment #83681 by Atticus_of_Amber on October 30, 2007 at 11:31 pm

Can we get a transcript of Dennett's talk?

Other Comments by Atticus_of_Amber

21. Comment #84385 by upsidown on November 2, 2007 at 12:41 am

I think someone should point out that Dennett is talking total nonsense when it comes to economics. Hyper-inflation doesn't happen because people lose their confidence in the currency, it happens when the central bank starts printing huge quantities of money; this devalues the currency and *consequently* people lose confidence in it. He totally misunderstands what is the cause and what is the effect in this case. Moreover, people were against going off the gold standard because they were aware that fiat money makes inflation very easy and thus makes the currency unstable - under the gold standard it is very hard to devalue the currency because to do that you would have to dig up large amounts of gold (during the gold rush there was some inflation but nowhere near the modern phenomenon). Dennett should probably read some books on economics before making any more economic analogies.

Other Comments by upsidown

22. Comment #85292 by Atticus_of_Amber on November 5, 2007 at 12:36 pm

I think Dennett was talking about deflation resulting from a run on the banks.

A loss of confidence in the financial system leading to a run on the banks will cause a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom that will result in deflation. The inflation results as the money "created" by the credit system is "destroyed" by the banks calling in all their loans to pay for calls on deposits. This, I think, was the analogy he was searching for.

Explanation: By lending out deposits, banks "create" money. If those deposits are called in, the banks have to call in their "at call" loans in order to cover the calls on their "at call" deposits. This effectively reduces the money supply by "destroying" the money previously "created" by the banks' loans. With fewer dollars chasing the same amount of goods and services, average prices must fall - i.e. deflation.

Other Comments by Atticus_of_Amber

23. Comment #87033 by upsidown on November 11, 2007 at 3:55 am

He wasn't talking about deflation - he said "hyperinflation". That's the very opposite of deflation.

You wrote: "The inflation results as the money 'created' by the credit system is 'destroyed' by the banks..."

You probably meant: "Deflation results as the money 'created' by the credit system is 'destroyed' by the banks..."

Other Comments by upsidown

24. Comment #90286 by SWo2007 on November 24, 2007 at 1:44 am

A shrine to Disney or Islam?

I can't help but wonder whether anti-globalization-ers would regard this in any way more positive than atheists currently regard Mecca.

Other Comments by SWo2007

25. Comment #360703 by xrayspex on April 6, 2009 at 12:06 am

I live in a time when B.F. Skinner is condemned and vilified. People blast/blasted his conclusions and misunderstand/misunderstood his science. He provided scientific explanations of human behavior that went against cultural presuppositions, this was to be expected. He even explains these behaviors. B.F. Skinner explained religious behavior, moral behavior, responsible behavior, educational behavior, prejudice, hypocritical behavior, every behavior I have ever encountered. He explained all human behavior. His explanations have allowed for effective ways of improving the problems we face. His science has improved learning skills and self confidence, eliminated criminal behavior, cured autism, perpetuated personal responsibility, eliminates compulsive behavior and solves human problem after human problem. Daniel Dennett's philosophical teachings drop learning skills and create problem after problem. Daniel Dennett is glorified, B.F. Skinner is rejected. B.F. Skinner showed how the more something is accepted the more it is perpetuated and the more it is perpetuated the more it is accepted, but it is sad he was too right(science is right). B.F. Skinner has even shown that thoughts and emotions are not causes for behavior, they are effects. He has shattered this dangerous cultural presupposition. Daniel Dennett still thinks beliefs and thoughts cause behavior. How does a belief cause a behavior? Why does somebody believe something and not do it? Why does someone believe something and do something else? Why do people in different cultures that believe completely different things behave the same? How does a person without beliefs behave? How does natural selection select beliefs to trigger behavior? I could go on forever, but I will just add why do people believe the same thing and behave differently? Because Belief's Don't Cause Behavior. It is our experiences and the consequences of those experiences that cause behavior. Natural selection. A belief sometimes goes along with a behavior. Attributing causal effect is superstitious behavior. If he understood the science of human behavior he would recognize his superstitious behavior. He doesn't. How does a thought cause a behavior? If thoughts caused behavior how would we explain someone thinking something and doing sdomething else. Why are we unable to record exactly what we are thinking? Why don't we say exactly what we think? Why do you think the same thing as someone else and behave differently. Again I could go on forever, but I won't. A thoughts sometimes goes along with a behavior. Attributing causal effect to it is superstitious behavior. He thinks he is right like we all do, but nopt being able to see that causes happen 100% of the time and not being able to recognize his ignorance is just pathetic behavior. He calls himself a bright and he is a dim. We need science to counteract this superstitious behavior(every belief from religion to thinking a black cat crossing your path causes bad luck to mentalism is superstition.), quickly. We're not counteracting it. We are rejecting science, Skinner. We are reinforcing superstition, Dennett. URGH!!!! He is a superstitionist(Yes I made that up). Daniel Dennett is a creationist. He makes up causes for things he doesn't understand like human behavior. He just uses terms like rational choice and never explains where a rational choice comes from. He doesn't have to, he is a psuedo- scientist and psuedo-scientists just use any word that explains everything while explaining nothing. People don't make rational choices, they behave. People behave according to the contingencies of reinforcment. Like all animals our behavior is the result of a natural selection process. Daniel Dennett's conditioned ignorance is dangerous. Human progress depends on a scientific understanding of human behavior and Daniel Dennett is perpetuating misunderstanding. Daniel Dennett is standing in the way of science and human progress. He is setting back science 100's of years. It is time we stopped reinforcing ignorance, superstition, cognitve psyschology=intelligent design(fancy words for making up causes for things you don't understand), and every pursuit that stands in the way of scientific advancement. Scott Colby

Other Comments by xrayspex

26. Comment #360705 by Quetzalcoatl on April 6, 2009 at 12:38 am

Drive-by necropost.

Other Comments by Quetzalcoatl

27. Comment #424196 by amorrow on October 16, 2009 at 3:28 pm

Those links point to YT vids that have now been removed. There are other copies on YT, such as these links:

1/3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yzbt6QY6NuY

1/6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7iANFTp5d4

Blog entry with dead YT links
http://saliental.blogspot.com/2006/09/dan-dennett-at-aaic-07.html

Other Comments by amorrow