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THE VIDEO SHELF · philosophy of mind

If Brains are Computers, Who Designs the Software? - with Daniel Dennett

Daniel Dennett's Royal Institution lecture on whether the brain is a computer and where its software comes from. He argues that minds are built by evolution and culture, with competence arising without comprehension.

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Why HN readers recommended it

Cited as an excellent entry point to Dennett's thinking on minds, memes and competence without comprehension.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel
The Royal Institution
Topic
philosophy of mind
Format
lecture
Level
general
HN recommenders in dataset
3
HN mentions in dataset
6
Recommendation years in dataset
2018–2024

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

  • I discovered him with the excellent Royal Institution talk "If Brains are Computers, Who Designs the Software?" [0]. And the quote which marked my mind is "How could a slow, mindless process build a thing that could build a thing that a slow mindless process …

    az09mugen on Hacker News · 2024-04
    In Daniel Dennett has died

  • I'd recommend Daniel Dennett's talk If Brains are Computers, Who Designs the Software? as a counterpoint to this article [1]. Dennett's talk is a bit long but I mostly enjoyed it, especially when he points out the computerphobia of many of his colleagues. Of course, …

    13415 on Hacker News · 2020-07
    In Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

  • I find Daniel Dennett's framing of competency vs comprehension a good place to start. He did a nice talk at the RI on it some time ago[1]. A previous one overlaps with similar ground[2]. [1] [VIDEO] [2] [LINK]

    rthrfrd on Hacker News · 2024-03
    In Claude 3 catches researchers testing it

Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.

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