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On Purpose | Can Darwinism get us from mindless particles to reasons, meanings, and purposes?
Daniel Dennett & Alex Rosenberg in conversation: https://letter.wiki/conversation/1011 …
@danieldennett
1/pic.twitter.com/vhWaDBDHYt
Conversation proposal by Dr Jamie Freestone @JamieFreestone:
"As philosophers, Dennett and Rosenberg have similar starting points. They both seek a scientifically respectable explanation for everything, even the messy human stuff..."
2/
"But they clearly have very different views on what we might colloquially call meaning or aboutness. Dan's books — especially Darwin's Dangerous Idea and From Bacteria to Bach and Back —..." 3/
"argue that the Darwinian algorithm can get us from mindless particles to complex creatures (check), but also to things like reasons, meanings, and purposes. Alex — in The Atheist's Guide to Reality and How History Gets Things Wrong —..." 4/
"takes a more hard-nosed view and says that intentionality and teleology are ruled out by physics, so there's no way to get there, not even the Darwinian way..." 5/
"It would be wonderful to see how much this disagreement is over terminology or different worldviews. The stakes couldn't be higher!" 6/6
Our letters are constructive and yet challenging. Worth a read.
Sounds like an argument around semantics. The purpose of life is to survive. Therefore to find water, mates, make a home, build a dam... There is no universal purpose.
Then why do we talk about it so much? Absolutes never really work and sheer purposelessness is just as absolute as any telos.
That is not a scientific statement, it’s a religious one.
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