Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This book is typical of Daniel Dennett's other offerings. It's extremely meaty, rich in metaphor and analogies, often deep and remarkably thought-provoking, linguistically clever, wide ranging to the point of being distractingly digressive and covers a remarkable swathe of intellectual ground, from computers to neurobiology, from word acquisition to elevator design, from computer bugs to biological viruses, from Charles Darwin to Alan Turing. That being said, it's hard to say what this book is really about since it's about so many different things. As another reviewer pointed out, Dennett's digressions can sometimes be distracting and it is difficult to see the central point in his argument. The book also doesn't seem to present a novel hypothesis per se. Its ostensible purpose is to describe the evolution of human minds and thinking and what makes them special. It succeeds in this endeavor to a large extent, but still doesn't end up really explaining key concepts like consciousness (which Dennett thinks is an illusion). The main device that Dennett uses for unraveling intelligence and minds is the concept of memes which was introduced by Richard Dawkins. According to Dennett, the co-evolution of genes and culture through memes is what makes human minds special. Again, gene-culture co-evolution is not a new concept, but Dennett explores it with verve and insight. I think the main function of this book is to serve as a springboard for exploring some very clever analogies between software and biology and for appreciating the naturalistic evolution of human language and thinking. There are gems scattered throughout the text: for instance, the concept of "competence without comprehension" which is a version of Dawkins's "blind watchmaker" analogy, and the very revealing insight that simple things like nail cutters might be impossible to imagine arising through natural selection while complicated things like human minds can well be imagined evolving this way. There are also excellent discussions on how children acquire words and how these words then interact with genetics and culture to produce very human features of the brain like foresight, introspection and planning for the future. Some of this material constitutes an argument against intelligent design. The analogies are elegant and often clever and Dennett's play on words can be very subtle; for this reason several paragraphs may have to be read a few times to really grasp their essence. In this sense the book has to be savored and resampled like fine wine. In general then, I enjoyed the book but found it too digressive and slow-going in parts. On several occasions I found Dennett slipping into academic language, with the academic references and jargon to boot. Reading this volume requires patience and careful study, and this patience will often be rewarded. But it's not what you would call an introductory or popular treatment: if you are not familiar with standard popular works on evolution, language and psychology by writers like Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Matt Ridley or Daniel Kahneman it would likely be pretty hard going. But as a sampling of scattered gems which reveal themselves through rumination and constant reflection, it's hard to find a writer as clever and insightful as Daniel Dennett.