We used to think that secrecy was perhaps the greatest enemy of democracy, and as long as there was no suppression or censorship, people could be tru… - Daniel Dennett

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We used to think that secrecy was perhaps the greatest enemy of democracy, and as long as there was no suppression or censorship, people could be trusted to make the informed decisions that would preserve our free society, but we have learned in recent years that the techniques of misinformation and misdirection have become so refined that, even in an open society, a cleverly directed flood of misinformation can overwhelm the truth, even though the truth is out there, uncensored, quietly available to anyone who can find it.

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About Daniel Dennett

Daniel Clement Dennett III (March 28, 1942 – April 19, 2024) was an American atheist philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist whose research centered on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology.

Also Known As

Birth Name: Daniel Clement Dennett III
Native Name: Daniel Clement Dennett
Alternative Names: Daniel C Dennett Daniel C. Dennett
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Additional quotes by Daniel Dennett

What you are is that rolling sum of experience and talent, solemn intention and daydreaming fantasy, bound together in one brain and body and called by a given name. The idea that there is, in addition, a special indissoluble nugget of you, or ego, or spirit, or soul, is an attractive fantasy, but nothing that we need in order to make sense of people, their dreams and hopes, their heroism and their sins.

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As Akins observes, it is not the point of our sensory systems that they should detect "basic" or "natural" properties of the environment, but that they should serve our "narcissistic" purposes in staying alive; nature doesn't build epistemic engines.

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