Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 16:48:22 +0200
From: "Gatherer, D. (Derek)" <D.Gatherer@organon.nhe.akzonobel.nl>
Subject: Zenification vs. Dennetisation
To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
>I see that Dennett provided "avuncular advice," and that he read an earlier
>draft. As far as I'm concerned, this alone does not demonstrate that
>Dennett was "very deeply involved in the book,"
I think that spending what must have been many hours reading the book
implies a fairly deep involvement, yes.
How deep do you want to go to satisfy your definition of deep?
Co-authorship?
>and the Acknowledgments do
>not claim that Dennett's involvement was very deep. Likewise, I have read a
>previous draft of Dennett's paper "The Evolution of the Evaluators," and
>provided him with advice on it. Yet I would never claim to have been *very
>deeply* involved in the writing of his paper.
>Still, it is only a *suspicion* of mine that Dennett was too busy to get
>very deeply involved in the book. This is based on what he and others have
>told me about how busy he has been in recent years--not to mention time
>needed for his own books, research, and teaching. Nevertheless, if Dennett
>tells me that he not only read the book, but also spent hundreds of hours
>helping to shape its form and content, then of course I would accept that
>as deep involvement.
>Were you deeply involved in the writing of the book, Derek?
I don't know. How many hours reading drafts do you think is necessary to
qualify for deep involvement? I think I probably did spend upwards of a
hundred hours on it, easily.
Let's just clarify your position here Aaron. Do you think that Dennett
would approve of MM or not? I think he would - the 'form and content' as
you say , of Sue's argument concerning the self etc. owes quite a bit to
Dennett's 'Consciousness Explained'. Read the last 2 chapters of CE if you
don't believe me (centres of narrative gravity etc). Sue hasn't Zenified
memetics, she's Dennetised it (and given Dennett's debt to Hume, what would
be the difference anyway?).
Derek
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