PDF I've Been Thinking

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I've
Been
Thinking
Description
quotHowunfair for one man to be
blessed with
such a torrent of
stimulating thoughts. Stimulating is
an understatement.quot8213Rihard Dawkins A
memoir by one of the greatest minds of our age,
preeminent philosopher and cognitive scientist
Daniel C. Dennett.Daniel C. Dennett, preeminent
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philosopher and cognitive scientist, has spent
his career considering the thorniest, most
fundamental mysteries of the mind. Do we have
free will? What is consciousness and how did it
come about? What distinguishes human minds from
the minds of animals? Dennett8217sanswers have
profoundly shaped our age of philosophical
thought. In I8217veBeen Thinking, he reflects
on his amazing career and lifelong
scientific fascinations.Dennett8217srelentless
curiosity has taken him from a childhood in
Beirut and the classrooms of Harvard, Oxford, and
Tufts, to 8220Conitive Cruises8221on
sailboats and the fields and orchards of Maine,
and to laboratories and think tanks around the
world. Along the way, I8217veBeen Thinking
provides a master class in the dominant themes of
twentieth-century philosophy and cognitive
science8213inluding language, evolution, logic,
religion, and AI8213an reveals both the
mistakes and breakthroughs that shaped
Dennett8217stheories.Key to this journey are
Dennett8217sinterlocutors8213Doglas
Hofstadter, Marvin Minsky, Willard Van Orman
Quine, Gilbert Ryle, Richard Rorty, Thomas Nagel,
John Searle, Gerald Edelman, Stephen Jay Gould,
Jerry Fodor, Rodney Brooks, and more8213whse
ideas, even when he disagreed with them, helped
to form his convictions about the mind and
consciousness. Studded with photographs and told
with characteristic warmth, I8217veBeen
Thinking also instills the value of life beyond
the university, one enriched by sculpture, music,
farming, and deep connection to family.Dennett
compels us to consider What do I really think?
And what if I8217mwrong? This memoir by one of
the greatest minds of our time will speak to
anyone who seeks to balance a life of the mind
with adventure and creativity. 17 photographs