Daniel Dennett - The Genius of Charles Darwin: The Uncut Interviews
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2024
- Richard Dawkins interviews Dan Dennett for "The Genius of Charles Darwin", the Channel 4 UK TV program which won British Broadcasting Awards' "Best Documentary Series" of 2008.
This footage was shot with the intention of editing for a television program. What you see here is the full extended interview, which includes a lot of rough camera transitions that were edited out of the final program (along with a lot of content).
Must be a treat for Richard Dawkins to be speaking to one of his heroes, Charles Darwin
I'm also shocked that he is still alive!
/s
@@ordinarryalien oddly enough they’re the same age
Said on every video of Richard and Dan 😂
Daniel Dennett is primarily a Professor of Philosophy, rather than a working scientist. He covered much more than Darwin in his writings but is not comparable to Darwin as a scientific innovator (ok it was a joke, but just to make things clear)
@@TimLondonGuitarist you are confused. That's Charles in the flesh.
Am I the only one who feels satisfied that Daniel Dennett looks like Charles Darwin?
I feel so privileged I could listen to this!
Today I heard the news of his passing and immediately thought of this video, which I probably watched a decade ago, especially this bit at 29:40. He was incredibly smart and his delivery so calm and welcoming.
"you've no business to be bored" the greatest quote ever
I can see that Dawkins really admires Dennet.
Listening to Dennett, I realize how much I love life and how I feel at one with nature. The gratitude he references is such a critical part of coping with the facts of life (length, death) I'm happy there are people like this around to remind me of this. People drift through life aggravated by the most petty and insignificant things while never acknowledging that they are alive and to be alive is both rare and profoundly splendid. Cheers to life.
Life is extremely pleasant on the whole for some, extremely painful on the whole for others, and somewhere in between for everyone else. If there is no free will, as many great thinkers believe, life is extremely unfair. At best, life is still very unfair because of how powerful some influences on our behavior and happiness are such as socioeconomic status at birth, parents, genes, culture, country of birth, etc.
So I would disagree that life is "profoundly splendid." For many, life is a curse - and, at times, I think I am among this "many." Think of women in the middle east treated like slaves and property by their husbands, going through immense torture on a daily basis that they feel powerless to stop. This is just one example of people who got extremely unlucky with when and where they were born.
Also, to be alive isn't rare. There are eight billion of us. If you want to only count individuals in first world countries, then there are roughly eight hundred million of us. To be alive isn't rare and it doesn't universally feel good. You can tell I'm pretty upset if I'm venting on an 11 year old comment.... I am pretty upset.
I am a great admirer of both of these men, i'm glad that these extended interviews are available. Dennett is such an interesting and witty man in conversation, and lets not forget his long list of contributions to his field and critical thinking in general. There is something so charming about him, I wish he was my grandfather.
These men has changed my life in so many good ways with their spreading of real knowledge (scientific and based on data) than many many self help books I read.
RIP. Dan. Your teachings will live on.
He is suffering in hell now for eternity. 🔥
Thank you gentlemen...for this conversation...and for the work of both of your lives.
Such a wonderful interview! Great interviewee and excellent interviewer! Thank you so very much for sharing! You nailed it!
Dawkins and Darwin both are great.
Love to hear them.
You’ve heard Darwin’s voice?
@@Jerrybk6 🤣
43:46 That pause though... :)
"Oh my goodnees what do I say!" face
I've just discovered Daniel Dennett too, after having left Boston (where I could have tracked him down, perhaps!). What an amazing thinker.
Dennet and Dawkins here really hit the spot. I believe they will be the philosophers the next generation will compulsorily study at school together with Socrates and Plato.
The problem with today's society though, is that there's still too much social inequality and lack of an efficient system for spreading culture and scientific knowledge in order to allow for the masses to leave their cults ans religions.
How do you explain to a poor industry worker who has to struggle to provide for his family, even though he works 10 hours a day 6/7 being exploited, who couldn't afford an education even if he wanted to get one, who was very likely raised in strongly religious environment, who has to experience each day first hand the ugliness and injustice still too widespread in most of modern societies and living spaces that he should be nothing but grateful for that and that his source of consolation can merely come from barely being alive? I'd say that 90% of the people in that situation would be stuck in an inextricable cultural rut simply because they would be lacking of the very thinking tools to get out of there.
The problem is that, very frequently, you are phisically and deterministically able to think and talk somewhat like the gents in the video only if you were lucky enough to be born in an equal and just society promoting laic values and offering a free, truly modern, education. The alternative would be being in the conditions to afford the costs in terms both of money and energy to be able to cultivate yourself in case you live in one of the still too numerous countries where you have to pay for your education and religion is still rooted in society (these last two conditions, not by chance, usually appearing together).
Dawkins and Dennet, in my opinion, are following the right route to achieve a better future for mankind but the boat they're rowing on needs as many rowers as it can have in order to get to its destination.
Too many people are kept from even getting their paddles by correctable sociocultural flaws.
L Sch Very well said.
Brilliant assessment
LS. Very late to the party I know, but I had to compliment you on your post. Fabulous assessment.
you reform government, ultimately they are the next step down from religion, it's high time we had a house of scientists instead of a house of lords. it's time women got on the ball as well, i'm amazed that the womens rights movement isn't demanding bible's be burnt for the way women are portrayed, in all religions,.
Dawkins is a philosophaster and Dennett a handwaver.
Neither is without merit, but come on now.
Even Santa doesn't believe in a god.
Actually laughed out loud. 10/10
bp56789 😂
Two great men/minds
I loved Dr. Daniel Dennett, very sad to hear about his passing, I've would have loved to meet him, he was my absolute favorite, an intellectual giant, a legend, true sage, heard he was also very kind gentle person, huge loss to civilization, I will watch tons of his lectures in the next few days in his memory 23:31
I'll bet his books make good door stops.
Made me tear up when they spoke of having "no one to thank".. in a sense they're wrong, we can always be thankful for those individuals and/it circumstances that allowed us the right to exist, and the community which fostered our growth until we were old enough to fend for ourselves.. but even more broadly, yes.. we must thank the billion year old process that fostered us as a social species whereby we could use language and exalt the Universe in Awe..
All in all, we still need a philosophical system by which such gratitude can be ritualized and fostered outside of religion.. this will be our final relic.. our final Pyramids or Stonehenge..
Awesome video. Good stuff
Good stuff. Thanks, Dan and Richard.
Come on, RD does not have the resources of a TV network ! He has his organisation, with a few people, but I think he is doing an amazing job in bringing reason to the world. He has put up the UNCUT video for us all for free. It is a wonderful insight into how much work goes into the making of a program. Imagine what he could do with the resources given to Big Brother or some such similar McTV.
love the interview but find the the camera movement from side to side annoying and distracting.
As nasty as the world is, the grandiose nature of existence and the complexity of life are so vast and wonderful that it really is quite a pleasure to be alive, and whether or not there was a first cause is really quite irrelevent in the context of the incredible nature of the universe.
40:44 --> They look so nice, like old friends...and Dennett has a beautiful house!!
Not cutting in at all. This is an open discussion and you are more than welcome.
Thanks for pointing that out.
Simply beautiful!, Daniel Dennett is a poet!
Heartwarming, eyeopening and browsoothing interview, goes into my favs!
A fascinating conversation, and funny that they left in the bits where the crew asked them to repeat stuff.
"Hymns to the Universe"
Yes!
Please!
Thats right
33:15 - if you watch only one part of this, listen to Dennett's comments here.
"I can make more reason for others to be thankful."
YES
Imagine having Dan Dennett for a neighbor? Although, I'd probably drive him nuts - maybe Sam Harris would be better (no, on second thought, I'd probably drive him even MORE nuts).
I don't like gun toting neighbours, I'll take Dan over Sam any day. He gets free will more correct than Sam too... :)
sam harris would be busy podcasting doing jui jitsu and meditating.
he'd never do his gardening though, cos:evolution of plant life :)
Listening to this discourse, and contemplating the fact that _all of us_ - has the inherent ability to participate in (or, rather - on) the excact same trains of thought, boggles the mind.
To quote Daniel; _‘Thank goodness!’_ . . . . . .
Great talk, thanks for uploading these to RUclips. Ideas should be free.
This casual conversation between two persons of different- but complimentary - disciplines is nothing less than a confluence of intellectual forces (theirs and those that they draw upon) that, more than any video I have ever seen or any book I have ever read, has the power to change lives - and, for those lives which are not in need of change, to deepen and broaden their understanding of their singular and unique existence...and of Existence in general.
fantastic conversation! it's so refreshing to see richard dawkins intellectually converse with someone on his own wavelength rather than be stuck dealing with the usual asinine drivel like stalin's atheism, or where do atheists get their morals or disproving the bible. THIS is a REAL conversation we can all learn from!
what is this "director" doing? messiing up dawkins conversation.....
It's Paul W.S. Anderson's newest project lol
We are unique when we accept the responsibility no matter what would be the cost, losses involved in doing it.
It's like that with every interview, but normally they cut it out, so it looks like they're having a discussion that isn't interupted.
The end of the interview has two outtakes that are fantastic.
why are those producers mouthing off at richard?
They lost the moment
I love Daniel Dennett. I love that man.
Technical reasons= the cameraman fucked up!
Thank you, Richard.
At around the 40:00 ish mark, the director seems a little too worried about conveying a message (or teasing out?) that I personally find already rather obvious (and I suspect that Richard did too). Consolation for bereavement can come from the many reasons Richard suggested and especially _because_ we are aware of our own mortality. You can't be both "joyous" and/or reverent and not have an inkling of the nonpermenence of self or others. It comes with the territory. A package deal, so to say.
On a sidenote...This speaks _VOLUMES_ about the billions that still bereave in spite of believing they are eternal conscious souls. I sincerely believe that deep down, most of them know it's all malarkey.
If you ever find yourself describing hundreds of millions, or even billions, of people as all being disingenuous, simply because they hold views that you think are indefensible, you should realize that you've strayed into "arrogant, hubris-filled prick" territory. I mean this without anger, but only sympathy for you.
Anyone can point out the flaws in other people's logic. Fucking kids can do it, and everyone knows that kids are objectively awful.
Try breaking new ground and attack your OWN cherished assumptions, biases, and beliefs in a public forum. At the absolute least, stick with the interesting sort of thoughts you had in the 1st paragraph. Your personal judgment of religion wasn't necessary to communicate the important part: Knowledge of death is required to fear or celebrate it.
That has certain implications for ideas like original sin or "the curse" of mortality, but you make it hard for a religious person to discuss those things with you because you make it clear that your intentions are less than benign or respectful.
And not all religious people are argumentative, close-minded gasbags.
"but you make it hard for a religious person to discuss those things with you"
So you decided to dance around my point instead of actually addressing it?
"And not all religious people are argumentative, close-minded gasbags."
I never even remotely implied that they were. Are you in the habit of inventing demons whole cloth?
"Anyone can point out the flaws in other people's logic."
Except those unfamiliar with critical thought and reasoned logic. This pretty much removes kids from the roster, don't you think?
this is (roughly) what i had in mind to explain the director's antsiness:
dawkins: "quit your bitching; you're alive, dammit!"
*camera makes mysterious sound*
dawkins: "of course, i wouldn't say that to somebody who'd just lost a loved one..."
director: "ah, could we just make sure we got that last part?"
(by the way, is "cogita" the imperative form? if so, badass. if not, correct me!)
oh yeah, +1 on your sidenote, btw. dennett, as you are no doubt aware, describes this with his usual aplomb in a lecture right here on the tubes about "believing" in god. sam harris applies the same principle in reverse, if you will, when he urges us to take the suicide bombers' professions of belief seriously *based on their actions*.
At 37:50 the sound man looks like he's choking down the urge to smack the producer with the mike boom.
This is so interesting. Behind the scenes
Does anyone else really dislike the way this is shot?
The last part of video is bit annoying.. why can't the producers keep silent just filming the spontaneous flow of the conversation of these twogreat minds of our day....??? I think we are all luckey in the sense that we are able to participate in this talk as an audience though it in indirect way...Thanks Richard and Daniel.
The first time I saw him, I thought he looked like Santa Claus.
I thumbs-upped your comment because in it, I hear a true sense of wonder for the possibilities that the future could hold. You're an idealist. Good stuff.
OK, but getting a second take is nothing to be upset about, it's a common event in making any sort of video. The director is just doing his job in ensuring he has a selection of material to choose from when making the final cut. Again, RD has given us the UNCUT footage, I value it as an insight into how such a polished video can be made on a limited budget.
The sad thing is that once people are past a certain degree of ignorance they do not even understand that they don't understand... I refer to the exhibit above.
RD 31:40 "...You've no business to be bored!"
Fantastic quote!
Those two have a great way of seeing things :)
Richard you gotta be way too busy to read these but I'm almost proud of the thought they you might read my opinion here on this page, your like a fucking celebrity, an education hero! Education Man up, up and away!!!
Wonderful. Big ideas expressed eloquently and convincingly.
38:20 I think I saw smoke coming out of Richard's ears. Lol. Love you all. Cheers.
I'm sad as an improbable animal.
2 brilliant minds in one room
It's been a while since I lived in England and the interaction between the director and Dawkins shows how civilized and polite a lot of English folks are. I kind of miss it, there's more animosity in everyday interaction in most other countries, whereas in England you could have a a sentence like this "Excuse me, I'm sorry for bothering you about this, but would you mind, perhaps terribly, to consider not pissing in the middle of the street please?"
Religion is the nurse crop for science. The best quote I have heard in a long time
Another voice for reason gone… RIP.
hey contemporarybeatnik, were you going for cool irony with your misspelling of 'euradite'(otherwise known as erudite, meaning: very learned), or did you swim out of your depth for a moment, while trying to nail MGS?
This was informative and quite comical as well. I love the way they acted in such a realistic setting. It is much different than religious preachers with conversation already rehearsed and with no input allowed from others. It was people like Richard that helped me come out of the closet as an atheist. My 14 year old son is also an atheist much due to my influence which has upset his mother who is a devote Jehovah's Witness. I think this video would help him as well.
Thank you
Certainly two of the best, smartest guys on the planet. Champions!
They are much smarter than Charles Dumbo .
Quite possible my favorite moment in this whole video: 37:30. As the director is going on and on - as is his job to do, I know - a bemused Dennett, ignoring the conversation between Dawkins and the director, refers to the steady, harmonically rich tone that has emerged in the background:
"Wonder how long that's gonna last... It's a leaf blower, it might be a while."
This makes me smile.
Yeah, don't thank your "sky daddy"
True
love both of these guys but what is this reality TV? You said what you said and thats that. Takes diminish some of the appreciation I have for this conversation.
believe me it was legitimate even with all the TV bull crap
That's the producer, and that's his job.
This is done in every documentary, and every pre-recorded interview. - This is the uncut version to show that this is ALL that is being done, and not alot of the other trickery, fake editing, etc. that is often being done.
Religion as the nurse crop of science. A beautiful metaphor.
Science as the nurse crop of Religion is equally a beautiful metaphor.
Denis Mailloux but Denis my dear friend, religion was here way before science.
Bjarne Søegaard
Bjarne my friend, I cannot agree more with you this time. And I would go so far as to say that science and religion are both one and the same, even if they bear different names.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (Genesis 1:1)
Denis Mailloux Not to be a stickler for detail, but I believe your quote is from John 1 and not Genesis :)
I stand corrected. I knew I could count on you to avoid making the same mistake. Maybe I should have called up a Protestant friend to proofread me before sending you my reply.
Best video on the internet.
Wow! everything they said was so beautiful, and so awesome! Wow, it is so great to be conscious and to want to understand, it is so incredibly awesome to be atheist to the idea of a deity!
For the most part it looked pretty spontaneous. Probably as the interview goes on the director takes cues from where the talk is going and wants bits redone to clarify and to condense the point for editing purposes.
I don't think the director makes them say things they wouldn't otherwise say.
There are good people who encourage discussion in the field of science, and good people who encourage discussion in the field of religion
AND there are bad people who discourage discussion in both fields as well.
And I think this video, for example, shows two very good people having a great discussion.
One of the big takeaways from Dennett is that the self and consciousness aren't what we intuitively think they are. But if our notions of consciousness and personal identity are confused, then so too must our notions of death, no?. There isn't a reified self that persists from moment to moment, much less after death. There is, technically speaking, nothing to die. After one bodily construction perishes, the consequences of its life are inherited by other biological systems, systems that call themselves "I" just like the previous ones. The problem isn't "death", per se, it's perpetual, mundane existence wrought with seemingly senseless suffering. We have to somehow make peace with entropy and decay, which is ultimately the aim of a virtuous life. The way to "conquer death" is to dedicate your life to something more important than yourself; in doing so, we come to realize that the true, liberated self isn't the delusional, egocentric phantasm we believed it to be, but an extended entity that includes us all. Understanding this, we neither fear death nor seek to hasten its arrival, but are content to do what we can for our larger self (the world and its denizens), NOW, while we have the opportunity.
When it comes to anxiety over death and impermanence, what we have on our hands is a spiritual/existential problem, not a metaphysical one.
brilliant ty dawkins and dennett
I cant remember who said this but you could sum it up as
"We are the universes way of knowing itself"
Great interview.
Too bad the directors couldn't cut themselves out of the production. I understand trying to get it right but don't understand why they just didn't edit better.
Man, that’s pretty much as deep as it gets.
Richard's thought on death and charishing life gives me a nice reason to live, and helps me when thinking about death. The chances that I wouldn't have been born are 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 So even if there isn't an afterlife, I still am happy to do something with the life I have. Although if there is an afterlife, and it's something like Pandora in the movie Avatar, that would be AWESOME lol....
In a sense all of us who are born here have an afterlife. Our genes live on in our descendants and our bodies become part of the elements here. Our works may live on too. Our existence may help some great moral shift to go forward.
Awesome Video!!!
Thank god for Daniel Dennett
Here's to "Hymns to the Universe!"
Plot twist: They're actually Dumbledore and Harry Potter in the future.
NO WAY!!!!!!
#MINDBLOWN
Amazing video...THANKS!
amazing post, really moving
I don't get it why people criticise the canera. I loved the camera work.
I'm grateful to my friend Rayven for recommending this video.
I
How could living things have come from non living things?
Well, the body makes cells from proteins (food) to grow, right?
You already understand more than all creationists.
the soul is emergent . The soul is just matter that is seemingly "alive".
You are right: Part of my masters degree was the philosophy of science. And I'm glad that it's over ;) Seriously: You are right. By educating people how science works and why it won't work any other way we could settle things so easily. I have to scratch my head when I see a video that tries to explain why creationist »facts« are wrong, but the videos would be much shorter (and sometimes more enjoyable) if they explained that even their thinking process is scientifically wrong.
As I agree because could see lots of cultures would disappear alongside religions but disagree that it is painful . No it is painful for only blind who choose to be loyalist, devotedly given in some baseless idea otherwise the process itself is luxuriously nurturing it enhances the person's engagement with living.
I read Consciousness Explained about 15 years ago.
He does a great disservice to Christianity and Judaism when he says it's all between an immaterial immortal soul and a mortal material soul. That's all I am saying. There may be plenty of Christians who are neo-platonists, but no serious theologian holds that view.
37:40 for Jeff Goldblum
I was also contrasting the way that science is a conversation in itself and theism is really just one person (god) telling everyone what is what.
Science is more democratic and theology is more dictatorial. There are those who want to be told what to do and then there are those who want to talk about what we should do and I'm glad that I happen to fall into the latter category.
Dawkins looks younger even though he is older than Dennett by a year.
check a series called " through the wormhole" there was an episode that went through the research. in the early earth while the surface was getting bombarded by comets and asteroids there were potentially simple amino acids literally getting smashed into more complex forms,and it also discusses the possible ways the cellular wall came about
Both still alive and healthy!