Hardcover
Published April 30, 2017 by W.W. Norton.
Great book that covers many of the topics that Dan Dennett has worked on, such as cognition, mind, and consciousness, in an accessible and at the same time careful and engaging way. Provides a nice synthesis of his core ideas and contributions to research on those topics.
While this book about the Evolution of Minds, the vast majority of it is background, making sure we're on the same page, and explaining his reasoning for requiring such background etc. One example is he spends several pages explaining why he chose the title . I think it could have been shortened significantly, though it was actually quite easy to read and in some cases it was really enlightening. For example, in explaining his use for the word "designed" in that it really has two related but distinct meanings in English which is something I hadn't realized before and explains some of the confusion I've noticed surrounding that word. Also, this was my first introduction into the idea of the evolution of language. Its written very clear and convincing, and it has really changed the way I think about both language and evolution. Though, I'm not super convinced on his …
While this book about the Evolution of Minds, the vast majority of it is background, making sure we're on the same page, and explaining his reasoning for requiring such background etc. One example is he spends several pages explaining why he chose the title . I think it could have been shortened significantly, though it was actually quite easy to read and in some cases it was really enlightening. For example, in explaining his use for the word "designed" in that it really has two related but distinct meanings in English which is something I hadn't realized before and explains some of the confusion I've noticed surrounding that word. Also, this was my first introduction into the idea of the evolution of language. Its written very clear and convincing, and it has really changed the way I think about both language and evolution. Though, I'm not super convinced on his conclusions for AI. Chat GPT answered almost all of his questions he thought AI wouldn't be able to answer for a long time. So yeah... that's a little terrifying.
This is a fairly technical book of philosophy, also of interest to biologists if only because it tells a story that could be a rich source of papers to establish the likelihood of the steps in this sketch of how minds may have evolved.
It also purports to refute several philosophical positions on mind, the self and free will but requires you to follow a fairly detailed argument. It will take me a couple of more careful readings to decide about this, but if nothing else, Dennett provides some useful thinking tools.
