adamz24's review against another edition
4.0
Much more interesting than Dennett's dealings with consciousness, and easily the best argument for the validity of his status in Philosophy, that I know of.
wmainwold's review against another edition
5.0
This book is a great resource for semi-knowledgeable students of evolution. Plus Daniel Dennet is a cognitive scientist, so I obviously love him.
morgan_blackledge's review against another edition
4.0
For those of you Game of Thrones fans, Daniel Dennett is like the George R. R. Martin of Darwin.
For those of you Darwin fans, George R. R. Martin is like the Daniel Dennett of Dungeons & Dragons.
For those of you Dungeons & Dragons fans, you're probably already familiar with both George R. R. Martin and Daniel Dennett, so I guess you guys (probably not girls, but maybe) are the intended audience of this review.
Before going any further did you ever notice how Daniel Dennett and George R. R. Martin look like twins separated at birth. Seriously, Google image search them and tell me I'm wrong.
In fact, if you slapped a Greek fisherman's hat and a black Members Only jacket on Daniel Dennett, I doubt I could tell those two apart.
I guess the easiest way to tell them apart would be their bank accounts. My guess is Martin is quite a bit more wealthy than Dennett.
In America you can make a whole heck of a lot more money writing about fantasy then dispelling fantasy (oh snap).
In case you didn't catch my drift, Daniel Dennett has made a career out of writing about Darwin. And to further elaborate, Charles Darwins dangerous idea is like the acid that melts crystal unicorns and rainbows down into a brownish green, smelly ectoplasm with bacteria in it.
Admittedly less fun in many ways than an ancient world of wizardry, craft and jealous, wrathful deities and demigods (Dungeons & Dragons reference). But really fucking clarifying and useful if you want to understand the way the world actually is.
Dennett and Martin are more similar than different though. Both have clearly spent too much time sitting at a desk (that was a fat joke), both are amazingly long winded (in the good way), and both are masterful at bringing their epically vast worlds to life via cool literary devices.
Dennett would refer to such devices as "intuition pumps" i.e. cool functional metaphors (like sky hooks and universal acid) that make difficult ideas suddenly accessible, and thereby more useful and generative.
Warning!
This book is long.
REAL FUCKIN LONG MAN.
Dangalang is it long..............
I'm really enjoying it and still, it feels too long, almost as if it needed a.. uhhh.....how do you say.....editor?
At least one whole (normal) book length section of this epically long book is a ridiculously lengthy and through defenestration (that's right, defenestration, look it up, I'm pretty sure this is a legit alt usage of the word) of Steven J. Gould's theory's e.g. Spandrals of San Marcos and the Panglossian Paradigm. And it's about as warm and fuzzy as a Red Wedding.
Oh my god. I'm so glad I'm not on Dennetts hit list. That man can talk ya ta death. Do not mess with Dan Dennett. He will pillory you with iron verbiage and pitch you out the moon door.
Dennett tosses a lot of ideas around in this book, but the central idea of evolution as a repeating, simple algorithm is probably the one that will really stick with me in the end. It's a cool way of framing evolution via natural selection. A mindless, iterative process that somehow eventually spins minds out of frisky dirt. If you're opposing that dangerous idea, than I got news for ya. Winter is coming.
For those of you Darwin fans, George R. R. Martin is like the Daniel Dennett of Dungeons & Dragons.
For those of you Dungeons & Dragons fans, you're probably already familiar with both George R. R. Martin and Daniel Dennett, so I guess you guys (probably not girls, but maybe) are the intended audience of this review.
Before going any further did you ever notice how Daniel Dennett and George R. R. Martin look like twins separated at birth. Seriously, Google image search them and tell me I'm wrong.
In fact, if you slapped a Greek fisherman's hat and a black Members Only jacket on Daniel Dennett, I doubt I could tell those two apart.
I guess the easiest way to tell them apart would be their bank accounts. My guess is Martin is quite a bit more wealthy than Dennett.
In America you can make a whole heck of a lot more money writing about fantasy then dispelling fantasy (oh snap).
In case you didn't catch my drift, Daniel Dennett has made a career out of writing about Darwin. And to further elaborate, Charles Darwins dangerous idea is like the acid that melts crystal unicorns and rainbows down into a brownish green, smelly ectoplasm with bacteria in it.
Admittedly less fun in many ways than an ancient world of wizardry, craft and jealous, wrathful deities and demigods (Dungeons & Dragons reference). But really fucking clarifying and useful if you want to understand the way the world actually is.
Dennett and Martin are more similar than different though. Both have clearly spent too much time sitting at a desk (that was a fat joke), both are amazingly long winded (in the good way), and both are masterful at bringing their epically vast worlds to life via cool literary devices.
Dennett would refer to such devices as "intuition pumps" i.e. cool functional metaphors (like sky hooks and universal acid) that make difficult ideas suddenly accessible, and thereby more useful and generative.
Warning!
This book is long.
REAL FUCKIN LONG MAN.
Dangalang is it long..............
I'm really enjoying it and still, it feels too long, almost as if it needed a.. uhhh.....how do you say.....editor?
At least one whole (normal) book length section of this epically long book is a ridiculously lengthy and through defenestration (that's right, defenestration, look it up, I'm pretty sure this is a legit alt usage of the word) of Steven J. Gould's theory's e.g. Spandrals of San Marcos and the Panglossian Paradigm. And it's about as warm and fuzzy as a Red Wedding.
Oh my god. I'm so glad I'm not on Dennetts hit list. That man can talk ya ta death. Do not mess with Dan Dennett. He will pillory you with iron verbiage and pitch you out the moon door.
Dennett tosses a lot of ideas around in this book, but the central idea of evolution as a repeating, simple algorithm is probably the one that will really stick with me in the end. It's a cool way of framing evolution via natural selection. A mindless, iterative process that somehow eventually spins minds out of frisky dirt. If you're opposing that dangerous idea, than I got news for ya. Winter is coming.
eswapnil's review against another edition
3.0
Wow! It feels like ages since I picked up this book for reading. I was reading it on-and-off for almost a year (may be more). It is difficult book to grasp and author does not make easy to grasp it either. He talks in long and difficult prose. I don't mean to say he didn't try to explain thing very well, it just that this book is not targeted for laymen users. In shorts author does not talk in pigs-and-bunnies. Sometimes some concept just blows your mind and then sometimes it feels like author is explaining same thing again and again and not going anywhere. This books is more about philosophy (given that author is philosopher) than hard science.
bettyhaile's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
lennyankireddi's review against another edition
4.0
This lengthy and thought-provoking book by Dan Dennett is more a treatise on Darwinian thought than a commentary on the Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. It highlights and discusses the many offshoots of thought relating to reductionism, utilitarianism, Kantism and many other lines of philosophical rumination when considered in the light of Darwinian principles of the evolution of living organisms, the algorithmic nature of the existence of such and the anatomical and behavioral traits they possess and display. This commentary on the interpretations over time by many celebrated and infamous luminaries of the fields of philosophy, biology - evolutionary and sociobiology and other thought leaders includes the reflections of Darwin himself and dwells on the fallacies and incongruencies of thought committed by the experts, that resulted from either limited or incomplete knowledge or the inability to logically and consistently articulate the meaning of Darwinian existence and its implications on human existence.
Dennett is clearly an adherent to the ideas formulated by Richard Dawkins in "The Selfish Gene" and to those that have read Dawkins' work and tend to understand and agree with his take on the prime replicator and therefore, the prime benefactor of utility, it is not hard to see the philosophical scaffolding that Dennett builds around these ideas to support his arguments. Dennett spends a considerable amount of page real estate identifying why Darwin's idea is considered so dangerous by so many who are wedded to a traditionalist or exceptionalist interpretation of the meaning of human life and how it stands apart from the meaning of other forms of life. In doing so, he focuses special energy in lambasting Stephen Jay Gould for his insistence on factors other than natural selection leading to selection and goes into many examples why Gould's instances for what he, Gould, presented as new and revolutionary ways of understanding evolution, in reality, fit very well into the well known picture of natural selection as supported by John Maynard Smith.
The text gets a little circumloquacious in places and there is a constant reference to sky-hooks and cranes that if you didn't really get the analogy for the first time it is introduced in the book, you may find hard to fit into the picture in the scores of other places where they are mentioned. There is also the usual philosophical abstraction of thought in many places that is hard for someone who deals more in concrete ideas to follow. However, the book is a prolific provider of fodder for thought and presents many ideas that one may have considered before but not in a certain way that would yield different results or confuse them more. Overall, a long and arduous but decent read.
Dennett is clearly an adherent to the ideas formulated by Richard Dawkins in "The Selfish Gene" and to those that have read Dawkins' work and tend to understand and agree with his take on the prime replicator and therefore, the prime benefactor of utility, it is not hard to see the philosophical scaffolding that Dennett builds around these ideas to support his arguments. Dennett spends a considerable amount of page real estate identifying why Darwin's idea is considered so dangerous by so many who are wedded to a traditionalist or exceptionalist interpretation of the meaning of human life and how it stands apart from the meaning of other forms of life. In doing so, he focuses special energy in lambasting Stephen Jay Gould for his insistence on factors other than natural selection leading to selection and goes into many examples why Gould's instances for what he, Gould, presented as new and revolutionary ways of understanding evolution, in reality, fit very well into the well known picture of natural selection as supported by John Maynard Smith.
The text gets a little circumloquacious in places and there is a constant reference to sky-hooks and cranes that if you didn't really get the analogy for the first time it is introduced in the book, you may find hard to fit into the picture in the scores of other places where they are mentioned. There is also the usual philosophical abstraction of thought in many places that is hard for someone who deals more in concrete ideas to follow. However, the book is a prolific provider of fodder for thought and presents many ideas that one may have considered before but not in a certain way that would yield different results or confuse them more. Overall, a long and arduous but decent read.
unwovenrainbow's review
5.0
I really enjoyed this book. As a non scientist, I sometimes found all of the information about evolution a touch overwhelming, but, broadly speaking, it was really helpful to have a more detailed understanding of Darwin to help with my understanding of human development/human nature. Dennett helped me see evolutionary psychology in a new light. I also found some of his discussion about religious freedom compelling. I will read more Dennett in the future.
barrynorton's review
4.0
Really struggled with Chapter 10. It really degraded to personal attacks (I'm so clever because I'm down with Artificial Life - remember that agenda? - whereas SJG doesn't even use a word processor). This kind of thing doesn't agree well or reflect your future self in a good light.
More...