Dennett: "[Strawson] invokes common sense against which to contrast “the silliest claim ever made” (I’m honored!), but here is some other common sense that pushes back: when you encounter people who claim to have seen a magician saw a lady in half, counsel them to postpone their extravagant hypotheses—backwards time travel, multi-world wormholes, quantum entanglement, “real magic”—until they have exhausted the more mundane possibilities."
Seriously? Who watches a magician saw a lady in half and not know that it is an illusion? Don't we refer to such magicians as illusionists? Talk about a straw man. I like this, too: "we already have lots of evidence that nature has devised a cornucopia of shortcuts and indirect tricks to help animals cope with the complexities of their environments." Who exactly is this nature that devises these things. It must be a who, because it devises things.
I think Strawson's reply, using Dennett's own words, is quite effective.
No comments:
Post a Comment