We need to let our children grow up to face the world armed with knowledge, with much more knowledge than we ourselves had at their age. It is scary, but the alternative is worse.
Daniel DennettRead
Not a single one of the cells that compose you knows who you are, or cares.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Our individual identity is not recognized by the cells in our body; they operate without awareness.
This quote by Daniel Dennett suggests that the essence of our being is not defined or understood by the individual cells that make up our body. While we perceive ourselves as coherent individuals with thoughts and emotions, our cells function autonomously, highlighting a philosophical perspective on identity, consciousness, and the nature of self.
Themes
IdentityConsciousnessPhilosophyCellsSelf
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in discussions about the nature of consciousness in a philosophy class.
More from Daniel Dennett
All quotes βPhilosophers are never quite sure what they are talking about - about what the issues really are - and so often it takes them rather a long time to recognize that someone with a somewhat different approach (or destination, or starting point) is making a contribution.
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Words have a genealogy and it's easier to trace the evolution of a single word than the evolution of a language.
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The secret of happiness is: Find something more important than you are and dedicate your life to it.
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Some philosophers can't bear to say simple things, like "Suppose a dog bites a man." They feel obliged instead to say, "Suppose a dog d bites a man m at time t," thereby demonstrating their unshakable commitment to logical rigor, even though they don't go on to manipulate any formulae involving d, m, and t.
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As every scuba diver knows, panic is your worst enemy: when it hits, your mind starts to thrash and you are likely to do something really stupid and self-destructive.
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