1. Comment #384325 by Steve13 on June 3, 2009 at 9:02 am

Yay, I was hoping you'd release this, that and the Steven Pinker one.
Thanx

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2. Comment #384326 by dw6600 on June 3, 2009 at 9:04 am

Great, I'll look forward to watching this...

Thank you!

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3. Comment #384350 by Nunbeliever on June 3, 2009 at 10:13 am

Hahahaha! The ending was great with the producer and Richard bickering over what approach is the best... Really funny when the producer almost looses his temper and just ask Richard to do it his way and then we'll check out what works best in the mix (meaning that he has already made up his mind on what actually works best), hehehe....

Good conversation by the way :-) I really appreciate that the uncut interviews REALLY are uncut with all the flaws and failures. Gives great insight.

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4. Comment #384356 by LittleFluffyClouds on June 3, 2009 at 10:24 am

Dennett is my intellectual hero. (You can probably guess that from the picture.)

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5. Comment #384380 by clodhopper on June 3, 2009 at 11:41 am

Nice to see Dan looking so hale and hearty.

The director was a bit irritating though. He shouda been at the wedding where jeebus turned the water into wine.

'er....can you just do that bit again...bit of interference there'
'wot, you want me to turn some more water?'
'yeah, just run thru that one more time'
'OK?'
'....well....er no actually, the colour balance was a bit wrong....so if you could just make a bit more wine, that would be good'
'That OK now?'
Well...er, the focus wush shhligtly out (hic), so if we cud jussh get one more take on that weesh shud be fine (hic).
'But I already did that'
'Jush once more plese an schmile inter the camra when you touch ern'
'There you go'
'Er....ssshlite tekernikal prob ther wid the camera jeebus....ave a bit more water (hic)'
'For goodness sakes'
'Thash rite jeebus, for goodness sake.'

Moan over. That's a good way to deal with a day... just to add a bit more goodness to the world in whatever way we can. I like that.

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6. Comment #384381 by MQuinn on June 3, 2009 at 11:48 am

It's very inspiring to hear Dawkins' "hymn to the universe." As Dennett suggests they should make an anthology. Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins, Peter Medawar, Stephen Jay Gould, etc. --what a wonderful idea! It would make the Psalms seem banal in comparison.

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7. Comment #384383 by bentleyd on June 3, 2009 at 11:58 am

Very inspiring.

Thank you!

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8. Comment #384392 by Koldtoft on June 3, 2009 at 12:43 pm

Can not wait to see this. Will all 26 Interviews be posted here ?

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9. Comment #384398 by PERSON on June 3, 2009 at 1:00 pm

Took me a bit of searching to find this but

"Homer Graining" == "Homer Groening"
He only made one film according to IMDB: "Psychedelic Wet"

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10. Comment #384418 by Swordmaiden on June 3, 2009 at 1:51 pm

Would LOVE to see the full length interview of that American education woman who treid to argue with RD over Creationism; Her: show me the evidence!" ....
RD: "well go and have a look round any paleantologist's lab".....she was SO annoying and RD was SO patient.....I can't believe he kept up that patience for long!
Can't wait to get this DVD, I LOVE all the extended interview dvd's. Thank you!

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11. Comment #384450 by nickthelight on June 3, 2009 at 3:43 pm

I have often wondered why Dawkins doesn't incorporate Dennett’s line of argument regarding souls and protein etc into his own debates with the likes of the credulous John Lennox. One further point on him if I may; Does he not see the irony in his ways? He has to use every ounce of his intellect and rhetorical skill to reason to himself the existence of a God. A skill not available to the many millions of believers in Basra, Bombay, Beirut, Belfast, Baghdad....

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12. Comment #384458 by Richard Dawkins on June 3, 2009 at 4:22 pm

Comment #384452 by JDM2

That is grossly unfair. What do you think 'raw' footage means? It means RAW. Raw, as in unedited, uncut. Obviously the camera swings about, because the cameraman (an extremely well-respected professional cameraman, by the way) knows that only a tiny amount of the footage is going to be used in the final cut, and his job is to supply the Director and the Editors with plenty of material to work from, when they get it into the cutting room. That is how films are made. They are not designed to be shown uncut. On this site we have taken a calculated decision to show raw footage, because some people find it interesting, and we gamble on the people who visit here being intelligent enough to know what 'raw' means. If you don't find raw footage interesting, don't watch it. Switch on your television set and watch finished, edited programs instead, complete with music and noddies.

Richard

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13. Comment #384462 by KRKBAB on June 3, 2009 at 4:38 pm

Richard D and Daniel D's conversation right before the cameraman interupted was fantastic. It actually inspired me as I am suffering from depression and despair these days. It was funny to see Richard D's expression: you want us to ay what we just said again?... I almost found myself ready to say the same thing to the cameraman. Well- Thank you Richard and Daniel. A fantastic interview.

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14. Comment #384469 by Steve Zara on June 3, 2009 at 5:18 pm

Comment #384458 by Richard Dawkins

There have been many previous comments which have been hugely supportive of the presentation of raw footage here. I think the presentation of unedited interviews on this site is a valuable resource, which many of us really appreciate.

Perhaps, though, it might be an idea to say that such footage really is raw? Even 'uncut' may not indicate the nature of such material to many. This site has a huge audience and many may not realise that 'uncut' really does mean 'just as filmed' and not "the unedited version". For many films, there are stages in-between.

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15. Comment #384471 by Lord Osis on June 3, 2009 at 5:30 pm

12. Comment #384452 by JDM2

"Unbelievable. Fire the whole crew, Professor Dawkins. They're bums off the street who don't know or care what they're doing."

Bit excessive JDM2!

I personally was too engrossed in the dialogue to really care about any apparent poor production. It wasn't that bad anyway. As Richard suggests, don't watch it - or perhaps just listen to it if you see the 'raw'....

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16. Comment #384472 by Diacanu on June 3, 2009 at 5:33 pm

Richard Dawkins-

What do you think 'raw' footage means? It means RAW. Raw, as in unedited, uncut.

Thanks to years going on a decade of "Girls Gone Wild", and "Jerry Springer: Too Hot For TV", commercials in the states, "raw", has come to mean "filthy", for a generation of kiddies.

So, how d'ya like how we're slaughtering you'se guy's language over here?
;D

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17. Comment #384473 by Steve Zara on June 3, 2009 at 5:42 pm

I love listening to Dennett.

However, I am going to be provocative, and describe how religious ideas can be even more materialistic than Dawkins and Dennett. The supposed words of the Buddha say that there is no soul, not even a materialistic one. It is all an illusion; patterns in neural networks lead people to talk about feelings of meanings and purposes. I don't think that Dennett suffiently abstracts meaning and purpose from physics.

Evolution does not lead to souls. It leads to us talking about souls. But even without souls, even materialistic ones, we can still look to the future, and have responsibilities.

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18. Comment #384474 by Peacebeuponme on June 3, 2009 at 5:43 pm

Steve

any may not realise that 'uncut' really does mean 'just as filmed' and not "the unedited version".

Both of those categories are the same thing. I think you may mean that some will think about it in the sense that there are editions like "Saw IV: Uncut".

Perhaps they were hoping for Dennett to hack-up swathes of theist oppressors in this version.

Either way, I would categorise anybody who is confused about this as a bit special, and agree with Richard that gambling on the least bit of intelligence and common sense amongst visitors would be appropriate for this site.

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19. Comment #384475 by Peacebeuponme on June 3, 2009 at 5:46 pm

The supposed words of the Buddha say that there is no soul, not even a materialistic one

That's interesting, Steve. Do you think some materialists think there is a materialistic soul, as opposed to a theistic one? What would the difference be?

I can't even imagine how this would be conceptualised within a materialistic framework.

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20. Comment #384476 by Diacanu on June 3, 2009 at 5:48 pm

JDM2-

Unbelievable. Fire the whole crew, Professor Dawkins. They're bums off the street who don't know or care what they're doing.

No, no, that's not enough, you softy!

Erase their bank accounts, legally declare them dead, throw them in a dumpster full of hobo vomit, and padlock it shut.

Then voice simulate their mothers telling them they never loved them, and patch it through a cell phone, and then listen as their sobbing and pounding inside the dumpster gets softer, and softer as all the fight and hope drains from them as they die inside emotionally.

Then leave them in there for a couple more hours after that to be really sure.

Then pop off the lock, flip open the lid, throw in confetti, and scream "SURPRIIIIISE"!!!

Then send them to the loony bin, because by now, they surely will have snapped.

Too extreme?
What are ya, crazy?

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21. Comment #384477 by Steve Zara on June 3, 2009 at 5:49 pm

Comment #384475 by Peacebeuponme

Do you think some materialists think there is a materialistic soul, as opposed to a theistic one?

That is the impression I got from this interview.

I have not the slightest idea what "soul" means in a non-dualist materialistic context.

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22. Comment #384478 by Brian English on June 3, 2009 at 5:49 pm

I can't even imagine how this would be conceptualised within a materialistic framework.

What I find interesting is that ghost hunters claim that souls or spirits register on their multimeters. Now, this being the case, those souls or ghosts must be material. Therefore, a materialistic soul is some body of energy that retains a mind and sometimes the bodily form of the person it was once part of (or is?). Sort of like water retaining memory of some poison in homeopathy I presume. ;)

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23. Comment #384479 by Diacanu on June 3, 2009 at 5:50 pm

Steve Zara-

I have not the slightest idea what "soul" means in a materialistic context.

It's a jazz thing.

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24. Comment #384481 by KRKBAB on June 3, 2009 at 5:54 pm

I don't think Dennet thinks there is a material soul. I assumed he was going out on a limb trying to use the word to possibly mean and individual persons consciousness?

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25. Comment #384482 by Diacanu on June 3, 2009 at 5:57 pm

Hmm, what will we call it when we're able to store complete neural patterns on computer media?

Sure, us geeks will say "neural patterns", but you just know the mainstreamies will say "souls", and "ghosts".

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26. Comment #384483 by Steve Zara on June 3, 2009 at 5:59 pm

Comment #384479 by Diacanu

What concerns me is this. That even hard materialists may come to believe that there is there is this special property of matter called the 'soul', which suddenly appears at a certain level of organisation or information processing. That is an impression I get from what Dan Dennett says. I dont think there is. I think there is nothing special about humans, or even about neural tissue processing information. The problem is that our brains have circuits which result in us thinking that we are having the feeling of having souls. That leads to us posting comments to websites about how strange souls are. How strange consciousness is.

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27. Comment #384484 by Peacebeuponme on June 3, 2009 at 6:03 pm

Steve

That is the impression I got from this interview.

But that's not really what Dennett and Richard are saying is it?

Seems to me they are using the soul metaphor, to help describe a materialistic consciousness. I actually thought on hearing that that they were trying to reach out to people on the fence, who are uncomfortable with a fully mechanistic view of consiousness, and therefore who warm to theistic explanations, to say that yes, there is a kind of "soul" which manifests from the firing of our neurons.

They are not advocating a soul in the sense that any layman would recognise I don't think.

Incidentally, I remember that when I first read about Buddhism as a student, that the doctrine of no soul was most (pleasantly) surprising to me for what I considered to be a standard religion beforehand. More's the pity that some Buddhists since have moved away from the Buddha's position since.

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28. Comment #384485 by KRKBAB on June 3, 2009 at 6:04 pm

Steve- I'm kind of with you on that. I don't even think we should be using the word soul. My guess is that Dennet might have been trying to get the attention of any fence sitters listening in. I'd rather stick with the word consciousness- as long as when the word is used there isn't anybody queing up some spooky music to add specious mystery.

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29. Comment #384486 by Brian English on June 3, 2009 at 6:06 pm

But Steve, if there's no soul, then who'll consider the lilies?

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30. Comment #384487 by Peacebeuponme on June 3, 2009 at 6:07 pm

Diacanu

Now just pop that script off to Polygram, badged as "The Game 2" and you'll be a millionnaire.

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31. Comment #384488 by Steve Zara on June 3, 2009 at 6:09 pm

Comment #384484 by Peacebeuponme

More's the pity that some Buddhists since have moved away from the Buddha's position since.

I agree. The Buddha was a seriously interesting philosophical thinker.

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32. Comment #384489 by dstevens on June 3, 2009 at 6:10 pm

It would be interesting to compare this with the finished documentary - anyone know which bit wound up being actually used?

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33. Comment #384493 by Haricots on June 3, 2009 at 6:28 pm

Steve Zara, you are clearly misunderstanding what Dennett means when he talks about souls.
What he is saying when he says that our souls is made up of neurons is that the brain does what dualists thought the soul did.

If you would read his books on the subject the fact that he does not believe in any special emergence of a funky soul-stuff. He is a functionalist, the brain does what it does and any feelings we might think we have is an effect of this functioning. (I bent over backwards there since you appear not to believe in "real feelings", obviously feelings is defined by what we have. So by definition we have real feelings)

Anyway, a truly inspiring discussion. I love the respect you two seem to have for each other.
I would appreciate any further raw material being uploaded here, don't give to much thought into the naysayers.

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34. Comment #384494 by Tim Friede on June 3, 2009 at 6:34 pm

Man, I wish I had a grandfather like either one of them. Or father for that matter. Pretty sad that login in fills the bill.

Keep um comin', edited or unedited, who cares!!

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35. Comment #384495 by mig... on June 3, 2009 at 6:35 pm

Ok, so... lots of tiny mindless neurons make a soul. I can live with this. But i don't see how this is easy too see. If i see the color blue i have a subjective experience of blue... but i have no clue if my experience of blue is the same for everyone. I find this dificult to understand. I have same difficulty with free will (i think it may be the same kind of problem). Dennett is a compatibilist. He says free will and determinism are compatible. But compatibilists also say that brains are submited to the laws of causality. So, they say our decisions, desires, etc, don't depend of us... but depend of the previous events. Compatibilists, i think, use this idea: Maybe it's possible to know what i'm gonna do tommorrow... but if i'm informed... them i can avoid that future. the idea of avoiding future is the idea of free will in compatibilism. But true determinism says that even if you are informed about a future decision you will do exactly what is determined, because being informed is part of causality (it's not a skyhook). So compatibilism actually admits it's defeat... by saying determinism is true...

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36. Comment #384497 by Peacebeuponme on June 3, 2009 at 6:49 pm

Sorry for this...

Why? Say what you want, no need to apologise.

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37. Comment #384499 by Diacanu on June 3, 2009 at 6:54 pm

Richard/Dan-

"Hymns to the universe", capital idea, get right on it.
Chop, chop!
;)

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38. Comment #384501 by mig... on June 3, 2009 at 7:01 pm

18. Comment #384473 by Steve Zara
patterns in neural networks lead people to talk about feelings of meanings and purposes"


I think you are being a little pedantic here.
If we can look at the future, if we have subjective experience, if we have purpose, etc... that's a soul. Dennett is talking about something very common in the material world: Emergent properties. The soul is an emergent property.




27. Comment #384483 by Steve Zara
"What concerns me is this. That even hard materialists may come to believe that there is there is this special property of matter called the 'soul', which suddenly appears at a certain level of organisation or information processing"


Yeah. That's what the idea of emergent property is...

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39. Comment #384503 by chuckgoecke on June 3, 2009 at 7:11 pm

Darwin's idea's greatness is how it unleashed the additional ideas that the earth and the solar system, and the galaxy and the whole universe including each atom and subatomic particle developed, or evolved or formed by non-intelligently guided processes.

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40. Comment #384509 by Fuzzy Duck on June 3, 2009 at 7:50 pm

"Hymns to the Universe" sounds like it would be one of my favorite books, and it doesn't even exist yet (though it should)!

And what was that bit about a film by Homer Groening? I'm quite intrigued and would love to see it.

EDIT: PERSON beat me to it: the film by Groening is called "Psychedelic Wet." Anyone know where to find it?

-Kevin Schreck

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41. Comment #384514 by Scep on June 3, 2009 at 8:15 pm

Yes, complexity evolved from simplicity and science is indeed a candle in the dark.

“A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge.”

A pale blue dot is our home, and science should be our only religion.
We miss you, Carl.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M

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42. Comment #384516 by yyy on June 3, 2009 at 8:27 pm

This is one of my favorite videos from this site. It had a poetic non-supernatural ('natural' without the 'super' I guess) spiritual ambiance, reminiscent of Carl Sagan's 'Cosmos' videos. Not sure if the following even matters because individual humans can have/express their own opinions, but there is perhaps some subjectivity in phrases like 'this is why it was worth coming to life in the first place' or 'life/the universe is fantastic/wonderful'; someone undergoing medieval torture might disagree for example, but I don't want to damage their uplifting poetry. Word definitions are pretty elastic and the 2nd phrase can be interpreted to refer to the objective complexity of the universe instead of the subjective goodness of it.

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43. Comment #384520 by Scep on June 3, 2009 at 8:55 pm

In “Unweaving the Rainbow” Richard says it so beautifully, and why not more of us are able to look at our existence as the miracle it really is, is a mystery. I guess I am one of the lucky ones and maybe you are too, yyy:

"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara.”

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44. Comment #384524 by DrawingYou on June 3, 2009 at 9:17 pm

Comment #384484 by Peacebeuponme

"when I first read about Buddhism as a student, that the doctrine of no soul"

Doesn't Buddhism have reincarnation as part of their tenets? If so, what is supposed to reincarnate, Neural pathways?

Just curious

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45. Comment #384528 by SaintStephen on June 3, 2009 at 9:42 pm

Dennett's book "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" was extraordinary. One of my favorite parts was this passage:

"Darwin began his attack on the Cosmic Pyramid in the middle: Give me Order, and time, and I will explain Design. We have now seen how the downward path of universal acid flows: if we give his successors Chaos (in the old-fashioned sense of pure meaningless randomness), and eternity, they will explain Order -- the very Order needed to account for the Design. Does utter Chaos in turn need an explanation? What is there left to explain? Some people think there is still one leftover "WHY" question: Why is there something rather than nothing? Opinions differ on whether the question makes any intelligible demand at all. If it does, the answer "Because God exists" is probably as good an answer as any, but look at its competition: WHY NOT?"

The man (Dennett) has a sublime intellect, and a (technology enhanced) heart of gold, apparently.

Encore, ENCORE! Hallelujah!

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46. Comment #384544 by Daniella on June 3, 2009 at 11:12 pm

21. Comment #384476 by Diacanu

No, no, that's not enough, you softy!

Erase their bank accounts, legally declare them dead, throw them in a dumpster full of hobo vomit, and padlock it shut.

Then voice simulate their mothers telling them they never loved them, and patch it through a cell phone, and then listen as their sobbing and pounding inside the dumpster gets softer, and softer as all the fight and hope drains from them as they die inside emotionally.

Thanks Diacanu - best laugh I've had all week. :D

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47. Comment #384545 by frederickfarrell on June 3, 2009 at 11:12 pm

found the groening video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3mAFjp9z8g

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48. Comment #384572 by Koldtoft on June 4, 2009 at 1:09 am

@ Comment #384458 by Richard Dawkins
Please ignore that msg, he is not speaking for anyone else.

I (And I think most other people) did very much enjoy this uncut, raw interview. I would very much like the last 25 of them to be posted :)

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49. Comment #384576 by LittleFluffyClouds on June 4, 2009 at 2:13 am

One observation I'd like to make about the promiscuity of gene swapping in bacteria as a metaphor for modern cultural evolution:

More complex forms of life engage in sex to recombine genetic material for the same benefit in terms of evolvability as the bacteria. However, with sexuality, gene mixing is isolated to the reproductive act. Presumably this confers an advantage for complex life, though Richard would know better than I what that might be.

For memes, the reproductive act might reasonably be defined as learning - the point at which an idea is copied into a new mind.

If our metaphor holds, might we expect the more complex cultural artifacts to acquire technologies, like sex, that regulate the sharing of information so that a population puddle with reasonably fuzzy edges on the fitness landscape emerges for optimum evolvability of the compound meme?

Just to start, we could examine the disciplines and the religious orthodoxies.

We've typically assumed that certain characteristics of the Bible, like nonsensical passages, exist to preserve the integrity of the text because you can't paraphrase them, and that experiential or mysterious claims exist to shield the core doctrine from evidential assault. But it may not be the 'intention' of the text to shield itself from ALL revision; that would eliminate its ability to evolve. The function may be to DEFINE a space for revision; not to kill it. So, the shift from a clear doctrine to a fuzzy one with room for syncretism may be similar to the shift from asexual reproduction to sex!

Reading the book of Romans shows how Paul does the legwork of taking a religion particular to the Jews and universalizing it; doing some of the work of deciding the terms under which intercourse occurs between the early Christians and the converts. This illustrates the same principle.

Also note that religious doctrine is often transmitted as a unit, in a particular order. Part of this is because subtle points will not make sense without rudimentary knowledge, just as in math or grammar.

But that isn't all. Just as the instructions to make a protein have to be in the right order, the instructions to program a religious mind may also need to be in the right order; unlike transferring reference information like a string of numbers, indoctrination may have a... developmental phylogeny.

So we could expect variation in those who received different parts of the religious doctrine at different times, and variation in the survivability of those various forms. If you just walk up to a person and say 'God became a man and then sacrificed himself to himself to save YOU from his wrath, so stop being gay' you aren't likely to win many converts. A relationship with the person Jesus is a prerequisite to accepting the more cryptic cosmology.

This also goes some way toward explaining why people who come to the religion for different reasons- to be part of a community, to make sense of the world, to impose discipline on themselves, or whatever it is - might have predictably differing religious characteristics. This would be an interesting theory to test empirically.

Anyway, thank you gentlemen both for your great work! I hope to meet you fellows in Burbank.

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50. Comment #384577 by LittleFluffyClouds on June 4, 2009 at 2:20 am

To Steve:

I think the reason they say 'soul' is the same reason we speak of a chess computer 'trying to capture the queen;' because the intentional stance has more explanatory power than the physical stance for situations of this kind. We change our vocabulary when certain emergent properties become recognizable in primitive systems.

Perhaps, in addition to the design and intentional stance, we have a metaphysical stance. ;)

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