cool. another one of my favorite clips this week was tyson.

when one of the existing 4 croak, ndt gets my vote for next horseman.

i suspect it'll be dennett, but don't underestimate hitchens on a bender.

His series found on Videosift:

A Brief History of Disbelief
Part 1
http://www.videosift.com/video/Atheism-A-Brief-History-Of-Disbelief-BBC-documentary-59m
Part 2
http://www.videosift.com/video/Atheism-A-Brief-History-Of-Disbelief-Part-2
Part 3
http://www.videosift.com/video/Atheism-A-Brief-History-of-Disbelief-The-Final-Hour-33

The Atheism Tapes
Daniel Dennett
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Atheism-Tapes-Interview-with-Philosopher-Daniel-Dennett
Denys Turner
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Atheism-Tapes-Denys-Turner
Richard Dawkins
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Atheism-Tapes-Richard-Dawkins
Colin McGinn
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Atheism-Tapes-Colin-McGinn
Steven Weinberg
http://www.videosift.com/video/Atheism-Tapes-Steven-Weinberg

He's using "inevitable" in an interesting sense, but one that completely avoids the fundamental question of free will.

He may be right in the sense that this ability to avoid things is all society really needs. We don't really need libertarian (not talking about the political sense) free will within our conceptual apparatus.

But there's no reason to equivocate on "inevitable" in this way.


Dennett is an okay philosopher. He's adequate, but as this clip shows, not really the best.

I did indeed.
I'll look into that, even though I've not been fond of Searle. I think Dennett destroys his argument in Consciousness Explained.

In reply to this comment by jonny:
Your Dennett post on free will is tagged as brief - I think you meant long, since it's just over 10 minutes.

Also, check out the talks by John Searle on free will and consciousness.

Your Dennett post on free will is tagged as brief - I think you meant long, since it's just over 10 minutes.

Also, check out the talks by John Searle on free will and consciousness.

^ Quite true. I tend to agree more with David Chalmers than Daniel Dennett re consciousness http://consc.net/chalmers/ or Jaron Lanier, e.g., when it comes to questions about AI.

Daniel Dennett is a great scientific thinker but ultimately takes a reductionist view of conciousness which is opposed to thousands of years of philosophic thinking, and ones own experience.

Flan in the face Daniel, flan in the face.

This video has been declared a duplicate; transferring votes to the original video and killing this dupe - dupeof declared by calvados.

whoops--

*dupeof=http://talks.videosift.com/video/Daniel-Dennett-Evolution-is-a-strange-inverson-of-reasoning

Actually this isn't an excerpt, it's an exact dupe of the link gwiz posted. They're both 7:45 in length.

dupeof=http://talks.videosift.com/video/Daniel-Dennett-Evolution-is-a-strange-inverson-of-reasoning

Sort of dupe of http://talks.videosift.com/video/Daniel-Dennett-Evolution-is-a-strange-inverson-of-reasoning

But it's an excerpt with a specific point, so I won't dupe it.

Good talk.

hmmm, it seems tome that mister Dennetts "Preferer" is something like George Bushes "Decider".
AS for me, I still love cake because it tastes good, even if nobody made it...

Your video, Dan Dennett: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, has made it into your personal Highest Rated Videos listing. Congratulations on a job well done. For you contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Now available in HD: http://richarddawkins.net/article,3625,The-Four-Horsemen-HD---Now-on-YouTube,Richard-Dawkins-Sam-Harris-Christopher-Hitchens-Daniel-Dennett

*promote

Tags for this video have been changed from 'ted, evolution, religion' to 'ted, evolution, religion, philosopher, Daniel, Dennett' - edited by mauz15