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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.

— Daniel Dennett Consciousness Explained (1991)

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More quotes by Daniel Dennett

Go ahead and believe in God, if you like, but don't imagine that you have been given any grounds for such a belief by science.

The distinction between responsible moral agents and beings with diminished or no responsibility is coherent, real, and important.

Elbow Room (1984)

Wherever there is a conscious mind, there is a point of view.

Time and the observer (1995)

Every human mind you've ever looked at … is a product not just of natural selection but of cultural redesign of enormous proportions.

Kinds of Minds (1996)

Not a single one of the cells that compose you knows who you are, or cares.

Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness (2005)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Daniel Dennett (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.