1. Comment #54379 by rmercad2 on July 6, 2007 at 5:00 pm

Finally!!!

I get to be the first one to comment on something new in this site.

......
.....?

I got nothing to say:(

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2. Comment #54381 by hasty toweling on July 6, 2007 at 5:12 pm

Nice talk. Dennet's point of view is interesting to us non-believers, but memetics is far too abstract and sophisticated for believers to understand. Try explaining replicating, mutating ideas to someone as dense as a conservative pundit. They simply don't have the capacity for it.

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3. Comment #54385 by LB on July 6, 2007 at 5:38 pm

"Religion is the root of all evil" says Richard Dawkins

That Channel 4 producer has a lot to answer for!

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4. Comment #54388 by magetoo on July 6, 2007 at 6:36 pm

The videos are actually hosted on YouTube. Here are links without the hideous Google Video top frame:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

(As a side effect, this makes the download-to-watch script I'm using work, so it might be useful for others as well.)

And it would be nice if posting links worked as expected too, without having to go back and edit the post every single time.

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5. Comment #54391 by Crazymalc on July 6, 2007 at 7:23 pm

Daniel Dennett is one of the treasures of the world.

It is interesting to compare Richard Dawkin's and Dan Dennett's point of view. Richard Dawkin's seems convinced that we'd be better off without it. Dennett is not so sure.

His "place of solace" is an interesting idea. If you have the misfortune of having no friends, no family and no social network to speak of then a church and its community can be a great source of comfort.

But, is it "right" to find solace in something that is false? If you apply a decrease-the-suffering idea (like Dawkin's argues in TGD on the issue of abortion),then that lonely person suffering has been decreased, albeit in a false way.

I'm sure someone will chime in with a "but religion is evil". But it is not all evil. Lonely person above being a good example.

And this is why I think Daniel Dennett is a treasure. We need to break the spell of religion and study it some more. See if we can find ways to get the good out of it and none of the bad. Let's fully understand it first and then see what can be done

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6. Comment #54392 by marcdesm on July 6, 2007 at 7:33 pm

Mr Dennett brings up an important point. Religion serves a need for many people. Perhaps if Mr. Dawkins' next book offered a natural alternative to serve this need, he'd have an easier time of spreading the message of evolution.

Non scientist/engineers tend not to listen to you if you just find what's wrong with the current state of affairs. You've got to come up with a convincing alternative to get their attention it seems.

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7. Comment #54398 by windfall on July 6, 2007 at 8:18 pm

Nice clip. I'm glad to see Dan back in the game (after his surgery last year). His comments are always so measured. In many ways he is an ideal scientist (even though he is a philosopher); refusing to make premature conclusions until the evidence is in.

I have huge respect for his insistence that religion must be studied and understood before we decide what to do with it. He does not hide his atheism, but treats religion like some new organism he's found. What's it do? How's it work? What's it for? Cui bono?

The example of the ant that's been hijacked by a fluke is a great one. The point being that one can discern two interests: that of the ant and that of the parasite.

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8. Comment #54399 by Bonzai on July 6, 2007 at 8:22 pm

I recognize "rage boy" in the begining of the clip. Yeah!

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9. Comment #54402 by waxwings on July 6, 2007 at 10:11 pm

I don't think it can be overstated that when Dawkins or Harris (or even Dennett) speak of 'religion', they often use two different definitions depending on context. I do not imagine than any of these guys, or for that matter anyone here, would find any disagreement about religion so long as it was understood which meaning was in use.

In one context, 'religion' is a very broad term. It seems to encompass a set of beliefs intended to give some kind of meaning or purpose to life, and to provide a moral framework. By this vague definition, there's not anything objectionable about religion per se.

In the other context, the one which is used far more often, 'religion' refers to the kind of dogmatic, supernatural, faith based systems which cannot by edict, be questioned or modified. These kinds of religions are dangerous and, to use Dennett's term, toxic.

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10. Comment #54403 by LeeC on July 6, 2007 at 10:17 pm

I like Dan, the only problem is both Dan and Richard D have a lot of "faith" in these memes.

Has anyone seen a meme or explained how one could work physically?

Lee

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11. Comment #54409 by scooternyc on July 7, 2007 at 12:46 am

Does anyone know, can you download a video off of youtube? or is there a way to copy a video from a site like youtube?

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12. Comment #54411 by beeline on July 7, 2007 at 12:52 am

Has anyone seen a meme or explained how one could work physically?

Have you ever seen a 'bit' of information, or a 'word', and can you explain how they work 'physically'?

Memes, genes, bits and words are all just information packets that manifest themselves in different physical media. Genes use molecules, bits use electromagnetic charges, words use ink shapes on paper, or sound waves (and who knows what else in the brain...)

Just because you can't 'throw it in the air and catch it' doesn'e mean it's nonsense. Information is not like solid matter.

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13. Comment #54413 by jpmrb on July 7, 2007 at 1:01 am

To scooternyc,

There are many ways you can download YouTube videos. The one i use the most often is by going to
http://keepvid.com/

Other people will certainly have their own favourite. All i can say is that this one works great for me. The downloaded video is in a proprietary file format, and i use iSquint (free, google it!) to convert it and place it automatically in iTunes if i so wish. Sorry i know absolutely nothing about Windows, but that should give you an idea of the process involved.

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14. Comment #54414 by Nastikananda on July 7, 2007 at 1:08 am

I think we need people of different temperaments, manners, appearances and the levels passion to promote this cause of providing a questioning opposition to Religions. Sam Harris does it his way and others like Dennett and Dawkins do this differently. Christopher Hitchens does it in a controversial manner. I think all these methods of communication will reach or attract the attention of various target segments of audience. I hope more people will tend to rise up to satisfy the needs of the left over niche. Religions are designed to satisfy people of all temperaments except atheists.Can we have someone to seduce the believer?

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15. Comment #54419 by sheepscarer on July 7, 2007 at 2:03 am

To marcdesm

Science is the alternative - when you realise that religion explains nothing in this wonderfully fascinating universe but science gets you glimpses of the truth then this fact makes me hungry to know more of what human ingenuity has discovered.

To get an idea of what's going on in cosmology, biology, quantum physics, neuropsychology etc etc we look to the latest scientific research. (incidentally can anyone recommend a good follow up to Gribbin's Schrodinger's Kittens - he left many threads dangling and I've not found a recent [written for the layperson] update to the problems posed by the experimental data)?

Religion reveals no truths here and if its only remaining purposes are to set a good example for human behaviour and consolation then I've yet to see the first and the second is based on a deluded sense of human importance.

Live your life as if every day is the last. One day you will be right.

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16. Comment #54427 by CJ on July 7, 2007 at 3:04 am

Thanks to Ben Hope for finding the original and magetoo for the Youtube versions. DD is, as always, just wonderful to watch, he's like the loving old sage of a grand daddy that every child should have. One day I to will try to grow a soup filter like that.

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17. Comment #54433 by Lord_Satorious on July 7, 2007 at 4:15 am

Why is it in a discussion like this, someone always has to ask, 'but can science comfort people?', as though science were the replacement for religion. Science is not the alternative to religion. Science may provide good reasons to discard your own religion, but it's not the replacement for it. That would suggest science itself is a religion. So what then is a replacement for religion? Human beings. When something tragic happens in your life, find someone that loves you and talk to them. It's what we're doing already, minus the 'god' bit who acts as little more than the imaginary friend.

Other than that, I love Dan Dennett. He's like Santa Claus, with a sackful of good ideas.


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18. Comment #54439 by TIKI AL on July 7, 2007 at 5:28 am

"Live your life as if every day is the last. One day you will be right." ...sheepscarer (15.)

...no gods or green bananas in this house.

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19. Comment #54450 by TIKI AL on July 7, 2007 at 7:31 am

I don't believe in miracles on 34th street, Pennsylvania Ave, or anywhere else.

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20. Comment #54454 by gordon on July 7, 2007 at 8:04 am

Is it me, or does Dan look more and more like Darwin?

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21. Comment #54455 by Arfken on July 7, 2007 at 8:08 am

I always find it nice to see that Scandinavian TV allows the people in the interviews to properly speak in a normal way as compared to the hysteric chopped-up, comercial driven American ones. I guess BBC also keeps interviews and debate programs at this high level..

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22. Comment #54456 by Severus Snape on July 7, 2007 at 8:20 am

Ho Ho Ho!

Great video!

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23. Comment #54458 by VanYoungman on July 7, 2007 at 8:37 am

Re:54403 by Lee C

Yes you can see a meme. It would be in the form of a neural cell assembly a la Donald O. Hebb. Some assemblies are stronger than others and urge the limbic system to pass them on. That's what makes them powerful replicators.

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24. Comment #54495 by Spinoza on July 7, 2007 at 1:00 pm

'meme' just is a way of describing information, and information supervenes on physical 'stuff'. So you PERCEIVE the physical stuff, and apprehend the memes thusly.

i.e. the 'meme' meme is propagated very easily...

I mentioned it at work the other day and told the guy it was like a virus and now it was in his head and would either die out or replicate if he told anyone.

Hahaha.

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25. Comment #54501 by Johnny O on July 7, 2007 at 1:56 pm

"Religion is the root of all evil" says Richard Dawkins


That Channel 4 producer has a lot to answer for!

No one seems to have noted the question mark in the title. "Root Of All Evil?". He's asking us, not making a statement.

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26. Comment #54507 by alanmackenzie on July 7, 2007 at 2:55 pm

Has anyone seen a meme or explained how one could work physically?

Has anyone seen a God, or explained how one could work immaterially?

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27. Comment #54512 by rebby on July 7, 2007 at 3:17 pm

True, Prof. Dennett may look like Santa...but he also looks (and sometimes sounds) like an aged Darwin.

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28. Comment #54523 by Shuggy on July 7, 2007 at 4:14 pm

It seems to me that one of the functions of religion is to bring people together and engage them in a shared activity where they can submerge themselves in the joint identity. Singing, praying, even (for the Quakers) silence, are all means to that end. I suspect that for young people rock concerts (and night clubs?) serve the same function. In some places, perhaps political rallies.

Is there some way we can bring that to consciousness and mobilise it for good (without the supernatural)?

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29. Comment #54525 by rebby on July 7, 2007 at 4:15 pm

LeeC...
Robert Aunger's "The Electric Meme" tries to do just that. Whether or not he succeeds I leave to you. But unlike some popularizers of memetics, Aunger is looking for a plausible account of memes.

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30. Comment #54533 by alovrin on July 7, 2007 at 4:50 pm

Dan is an excellent talker always concise and interesting.
I wonder if he really believes the religions that are around today exist because they have passed some time test. It seems to me the reasons run much deeper than that, or was he just paraphrasing for TV.

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31. Comment #54538 by Dr Benway on July 7, 2007 at 5:24 pm

rebby:

...he also looks (and sometimes sounds) like an aged Darwin.

Hey Darwin died in 1882. How do you know how he sou...

God? Is that you?

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32. Comment #54577 by Shuggy on July 7, 2007 at 10:01 pm

alovrin:

I wonder if [DD] really believes the religions that are around today exist because they have passed some time test. It seems to me the reasons run much deeper than that, or was he just paraphrasing for TV.

They do evolve, and the great majority are extinct, so the big ones tend to be old, but they can spread with extreme rapidity, as eg Scientology and Moonism, within living memory.

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33. Comment #54584 by hasty toweling on July 8, 2007 at 12:58 am

LeeC,

Memes are much simpler than you probably think. If you have an idea and pass it on -- that's a meme. There's no hocus-pocus going on there. The point of the meme concept is to highlight the similarity that ideas can have to living organisms -- both replicate and mutate and undergo a form of selection. Religious memes are particularly interesting because they have obvious built-in mechanisms that are "designed" (I would prefer to say "evolved") to help sustain and spread them.

Examples: promised punishments and rewards (heaven and hell), mandates for infecting children, belief without reason as a virtue, encouragement of tightly knit communities, etc... The main thing is that ideas will spread only if they have certain qualities that help them spread, regardless of whether or not they're true.

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34. Comment #54608 by aparlak on July 8, 2007 at 6:07 am

"a worm takes over an ants brain and induces an abnormal behaviour, beacuse the worm needs to get into the belly of a cow to reproduce..."

I can hear the religious screaming "This is design!". Although this story is told to show that religion is a meme that spreads itself like a virus, that same example is prone to be used out of context as supporting religion.

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35. Comment #54611 by czarethan on July 8, 2007 at 6:47 am

My thoughts exactly aparlak.
Now, on the subject of memes: could they be likened to some form of computer virus that uses interface between CPUs to spread and insert new programming into the recipient? Am I anywhere near the mark? I guess I have always thought of the brain as a blank hard drive (I am well aware of the stupendous oversimplification here) and conditioning, experience as well as information gathered as a form of software. Now my fellow nigh-hairless apes, please enlighten me.

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36. Comment #54695 by rationallady on July 8, 2007 at 2:25 pm

Shouldn't we recognize that religion for many has a palliative placebo effect? I know religion is "a sugar pill" so it can't help me, but I don't think I should keep it from helping others.

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37. Comment #54697 by Dr Benway on July 8, 2007 at 2:38 pm

rationallady:

Shouldn't we recognize that religion for many has a palliative placebo effect? I know religion is "a sugar pill" so it can't help me, but I don't think I should keep it from helping others.

Watch the video. Dennett comments on your point near the end.

Dennett feels we shouldn't make assumptions about religion. Rather, we ought to study how religion is helpful and how it is harmful, to individuals and groups of people. We need data.

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38. Comment #54702 by Diplo on July 8, 2007 at 3:05 pm

scooternyc said:

Does anyone know, can you download a video off of youtube? or is there a way to copy a video from a site like youtube?

Try a site called http://www.youtubex.com/ - just paste in the URL of a YouTube video and you can download it in .flv (Flash video) format.

You can find plenty of free players for this format, such as:

http://www.wimpyplayer.com/products/wimpy_standalone_flv_player.html

http://www.rivavx.com/index.php?id=422

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39. Comment #54760 by youmemeyou on July 8, 2007 at 9:51 pm

[quote=hasty toweling]
Nice talk. Dennet's point of view is interesting to us non-believers, but memetics is far too abstract and sophisticated for believers to understand.[/quote]

A well-conveyed idea makes thinking easier. The fact is that our skills as communicators have to evolve adaptively. Telling people they are too stupid to improve their thinking is not a boost for you. It is simply unkind.

That is not the effect we should be having.

Most people are not conservative pundits, and even their listeners can be receptive if a good idea is well told.

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40. Comment #54770 by alovrin on July 8, 2007 at 11:52 pm

Comment #54577 by Shuggy

I just have to presume he is referring to religions that have been around for a while. And has limited himself to dealing with those and any others can be dealt with under the same parameters.
It still seems more complex to me, but its a small quibble with an otherwise excellent I/V.

Other Comments by alovrin

41. Comment #54795 by logical on July 9, 2007 at 1:50 am

"A more peaceful version" and showing the Christian fanatics fighting the teaching of evolution - that is Danish irony.
Perhaps they were lacking photographs of bombed abortion clinics (but they do have footage of Timothy McVeigh), so Danish TV seems not to take the whole very seriously.

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42. Comment #54820 by The Smart Patrol on July 9, 2007 at 3:36 am

He is a philosopher and warrior and his enemy is religion!

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43. Comment #55030 by Pandemonium on July 9, 2007 at 6:42 pm

The problem we are facing now with the placebo of religion is that it is soporific and the imbiber is behind the wheel of a rather large and hazardous machine. The planet is at a turning point at which all hands must be on deck, and, as a bumpersticker I once saw said: "Be Alert. We need more Lerts."

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44. Comment #55031 by hasty toweling on July 9, 2007 at 6:45 pm

youmemeyou said,

"[quote=hasty toweling]
Nice talk. Dennet's point of view is interesting to us non-believers, but memetics is far too abstract and sophisticated for believers to understand.[/quote]

A well-conveyed idea makes thinking easier. The fact is that our skills as communicators have to evolve adaptively. Telling people they are too stupid to improve their thinking is not a boost for you. It is simply unkind."

I agree that using harsh language is probably a bad idea for winning people over. Furthermore, intelligence ain't everything (Newton, who was probably 10 times smarter than me, believed in Alchemy).

Nevertheless, go back and watch O'reily (a quick-witted and intelligent man) interviewing Dawkins. His thinking is so out of whack that there really isn't a nice and accurate way of describing it. Watch McGrath arrogantly spew nonsense at Dawkins in that interview. Is 'stupid' not a fairly precise description? Or witness Kirk Cameron explain why a banana proves that Jesus died for our sins, and that all Muslims are going to Hell. Will such a mind really be able to comprehend something as subtle and abstract as the meme concept? I honestly doubt it. Not without some serious de-brainwashing first.

Other Comments by hasty toweling

45. Comment #55475 by BT Murtagh on July 11, 2007 at 8:15 am

I actually made some headway with explaining evolution to a creationist using Dennet's ideas about evolving religious memeplexes, though quite in the way I expected.

The sticking point was how micro-evolution could lead to new 'kinds' and I used the analogy of two branches of a given religion gradually changing until you had, say, Catholicism and Mormonism, different as Great Danes and Chihuahuas, and about as likely to interbreed. (Yes, they look pretty similar to me too, but to him they were hugely variant.)

Just as the analogy was giving out - i.e. the point where I was realizing that I didn't know how to verbally map the transition to full-on speciation - his eyes suddenly lit up with understanding and he said something like "OH! So little heresies can stack up! It doesn't have to be one sudden leap, like Scientology!"

At that point I decided it was best just to agree, and let that concept cool and embed itself. The next time we talked, he was finally able to accept that eyes can in fact evolve stepwise... :)

Other Comments by BT Murtagh

46. Comment #55860 by IJM on July 12, 2007 at 4:48 pm

Great interview, it's amazing to watch someone who's second language is English form questions far more concisely than Hannity did with Christopher Hitchens.
Lord_Satorious, the reason he asked the question,'but can science comfort people?' is because he was conducting an interview for TV and a wide audience. I know that on this web site we hear this kind of thing asked all the time, but not everybody else does and so questions like this must be asked to be asked to give a fair and balanced view, or least to give fair and balanced questioning. That is not to say that I don't think you understand the point or that Dan Dennet doesn't give a balanced view himself. Not everyone reads all the info they should or could and many get all their info from TV, which being honest is an entertainment based meduim. Wow that sounds terrible to say but as someone who left school at 16 with minor qualifications and flunked college, I may be allowed to. I am not accusing here, I was one of those who didn't research anything other than the best insurance/credit card deals myself until a few months ago.
Ian

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47. Comment #209515 by whoosh on July 12, 2008 at 1:37 pm

The interview is still available online on www.dr.dk.
The interview is right at the beginning of the programme called 2. Sektion from May 13th 2007.

http://www.dr.dk/DR2/2sektion/2007/05/09113904.htm

Other Comments by whoosh

48. Comment #209523 by phil rimmer on July 12, 2008 at 2:09 pm

Bum!

Nothing works.

Any other links to try?

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49. Comment #209948 by whoosh on July 13, 2008 at 3:31 pm

hey phil
It does work. Mind you its not a direct link. You have to click the text beside the small telly icon in the middle of the page (the blue framed box).
I am born danish but I live in sweden so there shouldn't be a restriction on international IP's.

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50. Comment #209970 by phil rimmer on July 13, 2008 at 4:36 pm

Thanks, whoosh. I saw the "see program here" link but it just opened a tiny window and nothing more happened. It might be a firefox thing, though I have viewers and codecs for all video formats. I'll try I.E. tomorrow.

Thanks again for your help.

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