Dennettian Creature
@dennettiancreature.bsky.social
Darwinian->Skinnerian->Popperian->Gregorian->Dennettian
...issues, and some contradictions, with playfulness and honesty. Looking at human experience as a product of evolution places Zen practice in a special and strange zone. I'd be curious to hear other opinions on this blog post.
#evolution #mind #Zen
#evolution #mind #Zen
November 15, 2025 at 6:01 PM
...issues, and some contradictions, with playfulness and honesty. Looking at human experience as a product of evolution places Zen practice in a special and strange zone. I'd be curious to hear other opinions on this blog post.
#evolution #mind #Zen
#evolution #mind #Zen
Great question. Critics of LLM's say they are just sophisticated word autocomplete machines (an oversimplification). That is often met with the response that our brains do the same thing (a gross oversimplification at best). I once read that LLM's will disrupt/inspire new linguistics research.
November 14, 2025 at 5:54 PM
Great question. Critics of LLM's say they are just sophisticated word autocomplete machines (an oversimplification). That is often met with the response that our brains do the same thing (a gross oversimplification at best). I once read that LLM's will disrupt/inspire new linguistics research.
...I wonder if there is any choice in the matter. Taking an instant snapshot of an apparent emergent relationship may be informative but it is fundamentally incomplete: Everything is the way it is because it got that way. The verb "emerge" is fundamental - I would argue - to all of reality.
November 12, 2025 at 6:02 PM
...I wonder if there is any choice in the matter. Taking an instant snapshot of an apparent emergent relationship may be informative but it is fundamentally incomplete: Everything is the way it is because it got that way. The verb "emerge" is fundamental - I would argue - to all of reality.
The text defines "diachronic emergence" as "emergent relations between relata at different moments in time rather than between relata at different levels of reality (synchronic emergence". I recently heard of "flickering emergence". Time is an important element in these concepts, but...
November 12, 2025 at 5:52 PM
The text defines "diachronic emergence" as "emergent relations between relata at different moments in time rather than between relata at different levels of reality (synchronic emergence". I recently heard of "flickering emergence". Time is an important element in these concepts, but...
...for perspective, especially when the current torrent of misinformation clouds our ability to think.
November 7, 2025 at 6:22 PM
...for perspective, especially when the current torrent of misinformation clouds our ability to think.
...dangerous. Social media comment threads spin out of control on this story (including with the analysis I just re-posted). Human brains and society are not equipped to process information in this way. My attempt to bring up nature and evolution feels awkward, but I always check in with nature...
November 7, 2025 at 6:21 PM
...dangerous. Social media comment threads spin out of control on this story (including with the analysis I just re-posted). Human brains and society are not equipped to process information in this way. My attempt to bring up nature and evolution feels awkward, but I always check in with nature...
...a fact of life. The problem (if I can finally make a point !) is that the flow of information in a healthy human society must pass through established (naturally-evolved) systems if it is to be useful. Trumpist big-tech oligarchs abuse this technology to manipulate public opinion. This is...
November 7, 2025 at 6:16 PM
...a fact of life. The problem (if I can finally make a point !) is that the flow of information in a healthy human society must pass through established (naturally-evolved) systems if it is to be useful. Trumpist big-tech oligarchs abuse this technology to manipulate public opinion. This is...
...on Earth, information emerged slowly at first, tied closely with the matter from which it emerged, and then, with human culture, taking flight and moving faster than ever. But Nature does not want information to spread so quickly as to wrap around the Earth within seconds. Hysteresis is...
November 7, 2025 at 6:09 PM
...on Earth, information emerged slowly at first, tied closely with the matter from which it emerged, and then, with human culture, taking flight and moving faster than ever. But Nature does not want information to spread so quickly as to wrap around the Earth within seconds. Hysteresis is...
...advantage of. For a healthy human society, what is the best rate of the flow of information? Faster is often good, but in order to be useful, information needs to pass through many physical nodes, including people, verification systems, social absorption, etc. In the evolution of life...
November 7, 2025 at 6:03 PM
...advantage of. For a healthy human society, what is the best rate of the flow of information? Faster is often good, but in order to be useful, information needs to pass through many physical nodes, including people, verification systems, social absorption, etc. In the evolution of life...
...infected by parasitic misinformation, triggering emotional responses. A healthy news delivery system - out of necessity - must move more slowly in order to collect facts and craft for mass consumption. The internet has enabled near-instant information, which profit-hungry corporate media take...
November 7, 2025 at 5:56 PM
...infected by parasitic misinformation, triggering emotional responses. A healthy news delivery system - out of necessity - must move more slowly in order to collect facts and craft for mass consumption. The internet has enabled near-instant information, which profit-hungry corporate media take...
...possible because the human model of the world includes the self and its social manifestation: theory-of-mind.
November 6, 2025 at 4:43 PM
...possible because the human model of the world includes the self and its social manifestation: theory-of-mind.
Yes. Making more sense. The recursive nature of consciousness is a useful angle. My take: all living things need some internal model of the world to survive. Brainy animals have complex models, and humans have uniquely recursive models which co-evolved with language. Unbounded self-reflection is...
November 6, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Yes. Making more sense. The recursive nature of consciousness is a useful angle. My take: all living things need some internal model of the world to survive. Brainy animals have complex models, and humans have uniquely recursive models which co-evolved with language. Unbounded self-reflection is...
I agree. I like the conclusion that "things don't matter because we feel them. We feel them because they matter." But the rest of the sentence is a little opaque. Could you restate in a different way?
November 5, 2025 at 10:06 PM
I agree. I like the conclusion that "things don't matter because we feel them. We feel them because they matter." But the rest of the sentence is a little opaque. Could you restate in a different way?
...and messy human reality, which relies on nature in the aggregate, not on atoms.
November 4, 2025 at 7:17 PM
...and messy human reality, which relies on nature in the aggregate, not on atoms.
...physics, is futile. We are a product of evolution, and the way we think, understand, communicate, and reason, is itself an emergent property. Physics will continue on its productive path. The science of consciousness should embrace strong emergence, and engage in the complexity of our evolved...
November 4, 2025 at 7:15 PM
...physics, is futile. We are a product of evolution, and the way we think, understand, communicate, and reason, is itself an emergent property. Physics will continue on its productive path. The science of consciousness should embrace strong emergence, and engage in the complexity of our evolved...
...brand of consciousness that our species possesses. Science must not eradicate spiritual life. It can justify and explain it, but we all need to pray sometimes, and we all need to appreciate the web of life. Scientific reductionism - the attempt to explain everything at the level of fundamental...
November 4, 2025 at 7:10 PM
...brand of consciousness that our species possesses. Science must not eradicate spiritual life. It can justify and explain it, but we all need to pray sometimes, and we all need to appreciate the web of life. Scientific reductionism - the attempt to explain everything at the level of fundamental...
...growing evidence of consciousness as an emergent property of living systems. The evolution of human language and the brains that propagate that language has created inner-simulations of how the world works, and how all these selves interact (human and otherwise) -- and this is the special...
November 4, 2025 at 7:08 PM
...growing evidence of consciousness as an emergent property of living systems. The evolution of human language and the brains that propagate that language has created inner-simulations of how the world works, and how all these selves interact (human and otherwise) -- and this is the special...
...ecosystems, to more I feel this life-force. I may even call myself a biological panpsychist, not just feeling the integrated energy but believing it as scientifically valid. So far there is no scientific evidence that the basis for consciousness is to be found at the atomic level. But there is...
November 4, 2025 at 7:05 PM
...ecosystems, to more I feel this life-force. I may even call myself a biological panpsychist, not just feeling the integrated energy but believing it as scientifically valid. So far there is no scientific evidence that the basis for consciousness is to be found at the atomic level. But there is...
...level. But this is unnecessary in my opinion. Hardcore panpsychists could make one change: to limit the phenomenon to biological life and not try to push it lower than molecules. The more I learn about the evolution of agency in all living systems, the vast interconnected signaling in complex...
November 4, 2025 at 7:01 PM
...level. But this is unnecessary in my opinion. Hardcore panpsychists could make one change: to limit the phenomenon to biological life and not try to push it lower than molecules. The more I learn about the evolution of agency in all living systems, the vast interconnected signaling in complex...
...in human culture for so long. Panpsychism is not so much a calculated logical theory as much as a deep feeling or intuition, which some try to justify with scientific explanations that often just end up as pseudoscience - especially when panpsychists try to place subjectivity at the subatomic...
November 4, 2025 at 6:57 PM
...in human culture for so long. Panpsychism is not so much a calculated logical theory as much as a deep feeling or intuition, which some try to justify with scientific explanations that often just end up as pseudoscience - especially when panpsychists try to place subjectivity at the subatomic...
tendency to see and feel a spiritual dimension to the living world, manifested as God or as a universal life-force...or as a pervasive field of consciousness - panpsychism. Dennett was a thoughtful atheist and urged people to understand religion - to explore the reasons it has been so pervasive...
November 4, 2025 at 6:53 PM
tendency to see and feel a spiritual dimension to the living world, manifested as God or as a universal life-force...or as a pervasive field of consciousness - panpsychism. Dennett was a thoughtful atheist and urged people to understand religion - to explore the reasons it has been so pervasive...
...reality). The reason is what Dennett calls "Cartesian gravity". Dualism is natural because it evolved in human language/brains/society for practical reasons - as a mental structure that recognizes selves with free will. It is an artifact of human theory-of-mind. There is also a natural...
November 4, 2025 at 6:48 PM
...reality). The reason is what Dennett calls "Cartesian gravity". Dualism is natural because it evolved in human language/brains/society for practical reasons - as a mental structure that recognizes selves with free will. It is an artifact of human theory-of-mind. There is also a natural...