Daniel Dennett: ‘I begrudge every hour I have to spend worrying about politics’
I meet Daniel Dennett, the great American rationalist, on the day of Donald Trump's inauguration, as good a day as any to contemplate the fragility of civilisation in face of overwhelming technological change, a topic he examines in his latest book.
Dennett is a singular figure in American culture: a white-haired, white-bearded 74-year-old philosopher whose work has mined the questions that erupt at the places where science, technology and consciousness meet. His subject is the brain and how it creates meaning and what our brains will make of a future that includes AI and robots. He's in London with his wife, Susan, to mark the publication of his latest book - From Bacteria to Bach and Back - and I find him in a rented flat in Notting Hill, scowling at his laptop. "I was about to send a tweet," he says. "Something like, 'Republican senators are in an enviable position. How often does anybody get a real opportunity to become a national hero? Who's going to step up and enter the pages of history?'"
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