Information, Evolution, and intelligent Design - With Daniel Dennett
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Published 2015-05-13
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The concept of information is fundamental to all areas of science, and ubiquitous in daily life in the Internet Age. However, it is still not well understood despite being recognised for more than 40 years. In this talk, Daniel Dennett explores steps towards a unified theory of information, through common threads in evolution, learning, and engineering.
This event was the first in a series on the theme of 'Convergence', exploring the links between neuroscience, philosophy and artificial intelligence. If you're in London, look out for more events later in the year: rigb.org/whats-on
We are grateful for the help of the Real Time Club in organising this event.
Daniel Dennett is known as one the most important philosophers of our time, with controversial and thought-provoking arguments about human consciousness, free will, and human evolution.
He is also a writer and cognitive scientist, using neuroscience, linguistics, artificial intelligence, computer science, and psychology to inform his philosophy, particularly his philosophies relating to evolutionary biology and cognitive science.
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All Comments (21)
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I think it was about time that Darwin himself explains his theory on Youtube.
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An incredible example of someone with such clarity of mind. I can't tell you how important Daniel Dennett has been in the "evolution" of my thinking. RIP Mr Dennett, your calm reasoning leaves this world, just when we may need it the most.
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A Dan Dennet lecture will always broaden your understanding of the world and humanity. One of our greatest philosophers. What makes him great is the he grounds his philosophy in the sciences and is very articulate. I hope he gets to keep his health for many more years.
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The idea that "the system runs itself" is always so comforting to me. I feel this point after each Daniel Dennett talk I watch. I have a deep need to give, give, give, help, help, help, to the point it makes me break down and want to "exit the scene/picture." When Dennett reminds me that I am one of many bets that the hive makes (is making) to expand/survive, not an important or key part of anything, it makes me relax and "pull back."
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Title threw me off to be honest but very pleasantly surprised. Excellent thanks for the upload
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It seems that many people commenting on this video haven't read any of Dan Dennett's books. These ideas are not easy to understand in 60 minutes.
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Cued at 7:00, Dennett's "Long Answer" - cultural evolution, thinking tools, novel brain structures, evolved "virtual" machines, wetware of our glial cells... - evolution of evolution? A + B - bumped into each other and became an AB? 10 minutes into this talk, I have listened to a linguistic nightmare of endless gibberish. Multi-syllable words strung together in meaningless "Just So" stories without one shred of scientific explanation of every the smallest details of "evolution." I'd love for him to produce a detailed transcript of this talk for everyone to print out and redline. Using his vast vocabulary, he never comes down to earth to explain one element of science convincingly from any discipline related to our existence and that of the world - cosmology, biology, chemistry, paleontology, physics. It is amazing that this presentation is seen as an intelligent analysis of the creation of the world we know.
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One of the few people who can really think and explain complex coherences with words in a way, so that everyone is able to understand them. Daniel Dennett is one of my few heroes.
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Damn, Dennett, back at it again with the dimensional analysis! :D
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Damn Daniel!!!! Back at it again with the wisdom. Couldn't resist, sorry.
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The jump from 'replicators' with quasi-Darwinian properties, to bacteria was way too brief and will be attacked I'm guessing.
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I consider 43:49 to be wrong in order to validate this: consider the quantum building blocks of reality; ergo energy is information, as is its associated quantum material
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Where is the Q&A from this session??? That question looked awesome at the end
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I find Dennett to be often a very engaging presenter - primarily for his content. This talk was absolutely riveting for me. It seems that he and I are on very similar wavelengths.
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12:15 What does he mean by "actually more"? What other type of DNA do we have besides nuclear and mitochondrial?
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Looking at the thumbnail I expected to see Grandmaester Pycelle, was kinda disappointed, but the presentation turns out to be riveting. I count this as a win.
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actually, gaudi made an upside-down model of the sagrada made of strings and hanging weights. so in a way, he let nature (gravity) co-design it.
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I literally saw "TAE CAT".
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A truly remarkable lecture that explains the origins of life correctly!!
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"Extrinsic property of location" 36.17 : but what if they choose the location based on a set of conditions they found advantageous. Then the choice is an intrinsic condition in terms of information (ie a strategy) which means this strategy or meme can be a source of advantage to which the individual may be have a selection advantage. Neuron positions are highly precise.
