Daniel Dennett Quotes

Simple determinism, whether of the genetic or environmental kind, is a depressing prospect for those with a fondness for free will.

The trend of psychology, education, anthropology, and social science is toward environmentalism in the explanation of group differences, which means that the racial beliefs which defended caste are being torn away. It also means, by implication, that the white majority group in power is accused of being the cause of the Negro's deficiencies and unhappiness.

My conclusion is that there is no reason to believe any of the dogmas of traditional theology and, further, that there is no reason to wish that they were true. Man, in so far as he is not subject to natural forces, is free to work out his own destiny. The responsibility is his, and so is the opportunity.

The historic idea that the devil tempts men had this remarkable effect, it produced the man of iron who fought; the modern idea of blaming his heredity or his circumstances produces the man who gives in at once.

Keep your rivers flowing as they will, and you will continue to know the most important of all freedoms-the boundless scope of the human mind to contemplate wonders, and to begin to understand their meaning.

The great paradox of determinism and free will, which has held the attention of the wisest of philosophers and psychologists for generations, can be phrased in more biological terms as follows: If our genes are inherited, and our environment is a train of physical events set in motion before we were born, how can there be a truly independent agent within the brain? The agent itself is created by the interaction of the genes and the environment. It would appear that our freedom is only a self delusion.

And because God's love is uncoercive and treasures our freedom - if above all he wants us to love him, then we must be left free not to love him - we are free to resist it, deny it, crucify it finally, which we do again and again. This is our terrible freedom, which love refuses to overpower so that, in this, the greatest of all powers, God's power, is itself powerless.

Life is mere chance only when one allows it to be.

Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit.

Everyone should have the opportunity of not being over-influenced.

I believe in destiny. I believe destiny opens doors for you, but it's up to you to walk through them.

A thoroughly socialized person is one who desires only the rewards that others around him have agreed he should long for - rewards often grafted onto genetically programmed desires.A person who cannot override genetic instructions when necessary is always vulnerable..The solution is to gradually become free of societal rewards and learn how to substitute for them rewards that are under one's own powers.

We built this [socialistic] society not for the curbing of personal liberty, but in order that human personalities should really feel free.

I just haven't been conditioned into thinking that the right answer can't be a simple one. When I told you you'd been contaminated I meant by that attitude, which is wider-spread than the common cold and just as undermining. Did nobody ever point out to you that the only liberty implied by free will is the opportunity to be wrong?

Humans are, as Sartre put it, 'condemned to be free'. To insist that science, or God, objectively defines moral values is to abandon our responsibility as human beings to make such judgments.

It's your duty to use what influence you have, unless you want to drift through life like a fish belly-up on the stream" "I wish I could believe that life really is something more than a stream that carries us along, belly-up" "Alright, if it's a stream, you're still free to be in this part of it or that part, aren't you? The water will divide again and again. If you bump, and tussle, and fight, and make use of whatever advantages you might have-" "Oh, that's fine, I'm sure, when you have advantages." "You'd find them everywhere, if you ever bothered to look!

If the enemy opens the door, you must race in.

The guarantees of civil liberty are but guarantees of freedom of the human mind and spirit and of reasonable freedom and opportunity to express them...The very essence of the liberty which they guarantee is the freedom of the individual from compulsion as to what he shall think and what he shall say...

I like to think that we’re not defined by what happens to us…because so many times they’re beyond our control. I like to think that we’re defined by our choices and our decisions.

Freedom is the right to choose: the right to create for oneself the alternatives of choice. Without the possibility of choice and the exercise of choice a man is not a man but a member, an instrument, a thing.

The individual has totally different interests from the society, because the society has no soul. The society is soulless. And if you become too much a part of the society, it will reduce your soul also to a non-entity. Beware, before you have lost your whole opportunity. Don't be a slave. Follow society to the point you feel is needed, but always remain master of your own destiny.

People, even genetically damaged people, make choices. That’s what matters.’

Without good-will, no man has any presumptive right, except the right or opportunity to change his will, so long as there is hope of it.

You have a "turn" every time you have an opportunity to choose. But most of us only see a tiny fraction of the choices we have.