Daniel Dennett Quotes

We can't stop the development of smarter and smarter artificial intelligences. So our alternative is to make ourselves smarter so that we always stay one step ahead.

I certainly believe that improving our intelligence is of important national interest.

Human intelligence is a marvelous, subtle, and poorly understood phenomenon. There is no danger of duplicating it anytime soon.

We can certainly go further than cats, but why should it be that our brains are somehow so suited to the universe that our brains will be able to understand the deepest workings?

All different forms of human expression, art, science, are going to become expanded, by expanding our intelligence.

Certainly almost everything we do and think is colored in some way by memes, but it is important to realize that not everything we experience is a meme. If I walk down the street and see a tree, the basic perception that's going on is not memetic.

If little else, the brain is an educational toy.

By discovering how our minds work, we can improve our learning power and unlock our true potential.

The acquisition of literacy is one of the most important epigenetic achievements of Homo sapiens. To our knowledge, no other species ever acquired it.

The long-term value of amplifying the intelligence of people is a lot more important than betting on sports.

With genetic engineering, we will be able to increase the complexity of our DNA, and improve the human race. But it will be a slow process, because one will have to wait about 18 years to see the effect of changes to the genetic code. By contrast, computers double their speed and memories every 18 months. There is a real danger that computers will develop intelligence and take over. We urgently need to develop direct connections to the brain so that computers can add to human intelligence rather than be in opposition.

Is Knowledge knowable? If not, how do we know?

The last thing that man will understand in nature is the performance of his brain.

For two minutes a day, think of one positive experience that's occurred during the past 24 hours. Bullet point each detail you can remember. It works, because the brain can't tell the difference between visualization and actual experience. So you've just doubled the most meaningful experience in your brain.

The brain writes the autobiography of our species at the conscious level.

As art is a habit with reference to things to be done, so is science a habit in respect to things to be known.

Fire is a good companion for the mind.

The brain is a mystery; it has been and still will be. How does the brain produce thoughts? That is the central question and we have still no answer to it.

One always begins with the simple, then comes the complex, and by superior enlightenment one often reverts in the end to the simple. Such is the course of human intelligence.

Education, in its broadest sense, is the means of this social continuity of life.

A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.

All other species on this planet are gene machines only. They don't imitate at all well; we alone are gene machines and meme machines as well.

I worry that we don't have a very good definition of consciousness yet which makes it hard to tackle.

The acquisition of the most elementary truth does not devolve upon the individual alone: it is pre-effected in the development of the race.

We are an intelligent species and the use of our intelligence quite properly gives us pleasure. In this respect the brain is like a muscle. When we think well, we feel good. Understanding is a kind of ecstasy.