Philosopher Daniel Dennett on Matter, Meaning and Mind

If you fretted that you were merely a billiard ball on the pool table of life, Dan Dennett says take heart: you're actually a team of tiny robots. Dennett is often cast as the arch-reductionist, but he's actually more of an emergentist, as you'll hear in this interview. I've been wanting to talk to him again ever since we discussed his religion-as-biology book "Breaking the Spell" in 2006. We didn't have time then to get around to what he considers his life's work on mind, consciousness and free will. So when an opportunity finally came up last week, I did my best to cover all that ground in the hour Dan granted me.