On 29/12/2020 07:23, Dan Asimov wrote:
Dennett is rightly skeptical of those pseudoscientific notions.
Trouble is, he takes skepticism so far that he doesn't believe in the existence of qualia (like the experience of the color red).
That doesn't mean that he doesn't think people don't experience the colour red. It just means he doesn't think that it's fruitful to analyse how that happens in terms of _things_ that somehow embody the essence of those experiences. "Trouble is, Einstein takes skepticism so far that he doesn't believe in the force of gravity." (He believes that gravity is what you get when things follow geodesics in spacetime.[1]) "Trouble is, set theorists take skepticism so far that they don't believe in the set-theoretical universe they're working with." (They believe that there is no universal _set_.[2]) "Trouble is, geocentrists take skepticism so far that they don't believe the sun rises." (They believe that the earth rotates in a way that makes the sun's apparent position in the sky change.) [1] I am not sure whether the actual historical Einstein thought it wrong to call gravity a "force". I know that some later physicists have expressed that opinion. [2] At least, those who work in ZF-like set theories and are platonist about mathematical objects. -- g