Theism in animal minds

[Neo-Scholastic]

If it sounds unconvincing or wrong, it's surely becauese I failed at giving a coherent 1 line summary of a book I've read 5 years ago... Dennett is a very smart guy.

Dennett is a bozo. If you apply his "intentional stance" to humans beings, then his position is that no one really has a mind.

[watchamadoodle]

If it sounds unconvincing or wrong, it's surely becauese I failed at giving a coherent 1 line summary of a book I've read 5 years ago... Dennett is a very smart guy.

Dennett is a bozo. If you apply his "intentional stance" to humans beings, then his position is that no one really has a mind.

I haven't read Dennett's books, but it sounds like he is arguing that intention/free will is just a way our brains predict behavior - including when our brains look at the behavior of our own bodies.

So assuming that's a fair explanation, why is it a silly idea? It seems like the mind is hard to explain, and this explains it?

Here is how it works: first you decide to treat the object whose behavior is to be predicted as a rational agent; then you figure out what beliefs that agent ought to have, given its place in the world and its purpose. Then you figure out what desires it ought to have, on the same considerations, and finally you predict that this rational agent will act to further its goals in the light of its beliefs. A little practical reasoning from the chosen set of beliefs and desires will in most instances yield a decision about what the agent ought to do; that is what you predict the agent will do.
—Daniel Dennett, The Intentional Stance, p. 17

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentional_stance

[Spooky]

My first thought.

My second thought:
I sometimes think god is an extension of boredom. We've conquered survival. Since we no longer have to fight for our existence, we've created a new challenge. I imagine if other animals have the ability to be bored, they have the ability to invent god.

[Mudhammam]

Dennett is a bozo. If you apply his "intentional stance" to humans beings, then his position is that no one really has a mind.

Such bullshit. Someone who believes that an 18-century mystic received new revelations from Jesus Christ doesn't get to call anyone else a bozo.

And Dennett absolutely talks about minds as complex computational processes.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I would like to everyone to pause for a moment or two and consider the cosmic irony of a follower of Swedenborg calling Daniel Dennett (or anyone else, come to think of it), a 'bozo'.

Boru