No, I didn't listen to Daniel Dennett's TED Talk "The Illusion of Consciousness," which you sent me. I've spent too much time on the idiocy of Daniel Dennett and Paul and Pat Churchland and other idiots whose emotional attachment to materialism and whose university philosophy dept. salaries depend on them holding to such idiocy as the idea that consciousness is an illusory epiphenomenon of molecules arranging and rearranging in brains. Their every articulation of their philosophy is dependent on their denied assumption of consciousness, their own and that of their students and audiences. ,
Eliminative materialism is, literally, the stupidest idea to have ever been pushed within academia. Literally. And I say that with Jordan Peterson running around, these days.
The idiocy of that philosophical dung heap is most easily shown by pointing out the fact that illusion is a state of consciousness, as is every single thing they build their paper castles out of. Any professional philosopher who could hold that consciousness is an illusion has proven only one thing, materialism is an illusory state of consciousness that leads to the ultimate in intellectual decadence as personified in Daniel Dennett, Paul and Patricia Churchland and the current field of English language philosophy, at least in so far as that philosophy is based in the ideology of materialism. Anyone who can think is entirely justified in ignoring their bull shit and thinking less of any philosophy department that maintains them on salary. TED, too.
You know, asking me if I listened to Dennett and wanting me to be convinced by it all depended on you caring about my consciousness. Though I suspect I just told you something you hadn't thought of. Daniel Dennett isn't so much a meat head as a puzzlewit.
The measure of Dennett is that he writes for popular consumption, not for his peers. I can't think of a serious philosopher who doesn't write for the field rather than peers. I also don't know anyone worth regarding who takes Dennett on consciousness seriously.
ReplyDeleteFoucault used to give occasional lectures with packed attendance. The French, you know. He had too much to say to reduce it to a TED talk; and he was too serious in his work to present to such an audience.
I suppose there's some snobbery in that, but if you're doing important work, you do it for specialists. Unless you can't.