Sean Carroll

I don't think it's a patchwork in the way that we talked about before.

I think there's a right answer, but the right answer might not be the form of pure utilitarianism or pure deontology or pure virtue ethics or anything else, as we currently understand them.

Dennis Banks says, it seems like Dan Dennett influenced your thinking on a range of philosophical issues.

I've been reading some of his books and articles recently and I'm starting to understand why.

What a sharp mind and talented writer.

But I was wondering, are there any philosophical positions that you think Dennett got wrong?

Look, I'm not, again, the world's expert on the writings of Dan Dennett.

I do think that he's written about a lot of things.

He's much more interested in consciousness and free will than I am.

Those are things that I keep talking about because I think that they relate to things that I do care about, like physics and emergence and things like that.

But I don't.

have detailed opinions about the actual workings of consciousness or free will, like Dan Dennett or Christian List might.

So I think that generally I'm in agreement with the positions that I know about from Dennett.

I do think, as I mentioned earlier in the podcast, that I disagree with some of his labelings or some of the ways that he would express his opinions.

And I also think that, um, you know, I, this is not going to surprise anybody, but I think there's, he could have gone even further and in even more interesting directions in the sort of same way that he was going.

If there had been more physics in what he talked about, I think that there's a very, I mean, Dan was very clear that he was not an expert on physics, right?

That he didn't, uh, have that, uh, in his toolkit as it were.

Um,

And that was fine in his mind for, you know, you have to pick and choose what you're an expert in.

And he was more interested in things like consciousness and free will and metaphysics, ontology, epistemology.