From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds in Science and Inquiry

Mar 06, 2017 Charlene rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: religion, ecology, evolution, decision-making, philosophy

Every time I read Dennett, I wonder why I have put myself through such an ordeal. Aside from wanting to yell at Dennett, who isn't even in the room, I get the urge to throw things and yell, "No, no, and just NO!".

Skillfully, Dennett gives the impression that he is a deep and critical thinker. He does this by filling his many books and many long, long articles with some of the best arguments against his own work, and then addressing the criticisms. That gives the reader the false impression that Every time I read Dennett, I wonder why I have put myself through such an ordeal. Aside from wanting to yell at Dennett, who isn't even in the room, I get the urge to throw things and yell, "No, no, and just NO!".

Skillfully, Dennett gives the impression that he is a deep and critical thinker. He does this by filling his many books and many long, long articles with some of the best arguments against his own work, and then addressing the criticisms. That gives the reader the false impression that he has a deep understanding of those counter arguments. At the end of the day, he does not. I took 4 pages of notes on this book, with the intention of including it all in this review. Instead of including the many (so, so many!) examples I collected of why his arguments are bad, I will try to give just one example that will hopefully illustrate how his thinking in general is limited and lacks an essential critical component.

My example will focus on Dennett's assertion that while some living things know why they do what they do (they have purpose), other living things do not (they are less complex and act without knowing, and thus humans have an agency and purpose that other animals, plants, and microbes lack. While I love discussions about how local rules (do what your neighbor is doing, even if you don't know why) can give rise to global patterns (e.g. the termite following local rules but building global structure of complex termite mound), I found Dennett's discussions on the topic to be lacking.

Early on Dennett described the non-agency of termites. (For an author who always uses far more words than needed to deliver his every argument, he did a shockingly brief and poor job of providing the mind-blowing details about termites and their mounds). Dennett makes it clear that termites have no conscious purpose. They don't know why they carry out the actions they do. Yet, they build a termite mound that is the equivalent of a breathing lung! Super complex structure from the agency-lacking termites. Much later in the book, Dennett discussed how some humans hadn't a clue what they were building when they took actions to build the atomic bomb. However, other humans did know what actions they were taking and served as master intelligent designers. There are so many things wrong with his understanding of termites and humans, it's hard to know where to start when making a counter argument.

First, we could consider the queen termite as the master intelligent designer, since she orchestrates a pheromone-driven symphony of building complex mounds in her colony. Termites follow local rules (they don't know why they put a bit of dirt in a particular spot; they just follow what their neighbors are doing) but create global patterns (like a mound that is air conditioned, thanks to its lung like capabilities). Dennett failed to explain any of this to his reader. Second, even if we want to suggest the queen termite is not the same as the top clearance leader who worked on the atomic bomb, Dennett still fails to understand the lack of human agency. So what if some individuals knew why they built *that* bomb? So what if a human architect knows why s/he built a *particular* house or building? Dennett should be asking why human build in the first place, why they fight with bombs and other weapons, and why they do the many things that all humans do.

Thirdly, and I think most important, Dennett seems to understand the argument that unless we are microbes, we can't actually understand what microbes know or don't know. Yet, he demonstrates that he actually doesn't understand that vital counter argument. Dennett is really sticking to his humans are special stance. For example: Humans know why they do what they do (or at least a subset of them know); AI will never be as smart as humans because human brains are too special for top-down evolution; plants are *obviously* not intelligent, it's just a matter of where we draw the line; non-human animals are less intelligent than humans, and so on). However, microbes built us. When we can make a huge entity that we can ride around inside and control (by making a brain, organs, skin, gut microbe communication systems, etc), then I might agree that we are as smart as microbes. Dennett doesn't know what microbes know. Yet, his confidence about their lack or agency and our possession of agency are steadfast. Every time humans have thought they were special, every time Dennett, *every* time, it turned out they were wrong.

Another bothersome thing about this book is that Dennett is extremely aware of what outdated Dawkins has to say on the topic but he doesn't seem to be aware of the work of better scientists like Jeremy England or anyone working in the field of thermodynamics. When Dennett was spouting about how complex humans are, I kept thinking, "Are you going to mention that complexity is the natural consequence of thermodynamics and illustrate for your reader what that means?" Sure enough, a few sentences later, he actually did mention thermodynamics but it had nothing to do with thermodynamics and the emergence of complexity. So frustrating. He needs to start reading new people.

My main motivation for reading this book was because Sean Carroll (physicist) plugged it on FB. I thought that maybe Dennett had really gone through some sort of change and really came to understand the Big Picture. While he is sometimes good about updating his thinking (unlike Dawkins), he continues to hold on to too many old ideas.

So, while I appreciate that Dennett is able to point out the problems with Dawkins' arguments (arguments that end up hurting atheist arguments and not helping them), and while I appreciate that he is trying to update our concept of intelligent design (I think we do indeed need to update our understanding) he is just too old-school to do an effective job. ...more

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Jan 04, 2022 Jim rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science, 1audio, 2non-fiction

All told, it was interesting & very well narrated. It never really grabbed me, though. I've never cared too much for the short pieces of Dennett's that I've run across before because I just found them bewildering. A GR friend (Nancy?) told me she really enjoyed him, so I decided to try this book & it was much better. He explained & defined terms as he went. Still, his analysis & arguments were long & looping. I often lost the main point on the road to making it, so I'm glad I had the ebook to ba ...more

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