Interview with Daniel Dennett - Remastered

We're really excited to have gotten to interview Dr. Dennett recently! He holds the title of University Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Tufts University, as well as the co-director of their Center for Cognitive Studies. He's also the author of a number of books on evolution, consciousness, memes, language, and more, including Consciousness Explained, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, and Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking.

We got to ask him about a lot of great topics, including:
- the role of language in spreading culture
- what linguists and philosophers can learn from each other
- whether the gap between linguists and the general public is closing
- computers and whether they'll be able to use language in a human-like way
- a question from one of our followers about whether we have a dedicated mental language

And more! Hope you all enjoy it.

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Looking forward to next week!

[CadaverSplatter]

I think he is misrepresenting Chomsky as denying evolution in terms of development of Language. What Chomsky objects to is the notion that the capacity for language, as a system of digital infinity, could have been a gradual evolution, rather than a simple mutation that had enormous consequences. To keep it simple, his argument is hinged off the idea of digital infinity, such a system cannot gradually evolve gradually for the simple fact that any fraction of infinity is infinity, and languages are infinite systems.

[Pakanahymni]

Moti, it's supposed to be Lieber*men*!