“I have grown accustomed to the disrespect expressed by some of the participants for their colleagues in the other disciplines. "Why, Dan," ask the people in artificial intelligence, "do you waste your time conferring with those neuroscientists? They wave their hands about 'information processing' and worry about where it happens, and which neurotransmitters are involved, but they haven't a clue about the computational requirements of higher cognitive functions." "Why," ask the neuroscientists, "do you waste your time on the fantasies of artificial intelligence? They just invent whatever machinery they want, and say unpardonably ignorant things about the brain." The cognitive psychologists, meanwhile, are accused of concocting models with neither biological plausibility nor proven computational powers; the anthropologists wouldn't know a model if they saw one, and the philosophers, as we all know, just take in each other's laundry, warning about confusions they themselves have created, in an arena bereft of both data and empirically testable theories. With so many idiots working on the problem, no wonder consciousness is still a mystery. All these charges are true, and more besides, but I have yet to encounter any idiots. Mostly the theorists I have drawn from strike me as very smart people – even brilliant people, with the arrogance and impatience that often comes with brilliance – but with limited perspectives and agendas, trying to make progress on the hard problems by taking whatever shortcuts they can see, while deploring other people's shortcuts. No one can keep all the problems and details clear, including me, and everyone has to mumble, guess and handwave about large parts of the problem.”
Consciousness Explained (1991)
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Daniel Dennett 86
American philosopher 1942Related quotes

“People ask about dictators, "Why?" But dictators themselves ask, "Why not?"”
As quoted in "Is Putin Popular?" https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/is-putin-popular-c/ (2018), by Jay Nordlinger, National Review
2010s

Anarchism or Socialism (1906)
Context: We are not the kind of people who, when the word "anarchism" is mentioned, turn away contemptuously and say with a supercilious wave of the hand: "Why waste time on that, it's not worth talking about!" We think that such cheap "criticism" is undignified and useless.
Nor are we the kind of people who console themselves with the thought that the Anarchists "have no masses behind them and, therefore, are not so dangerous." It is not who has a larger or smaller "mass" following today, but the essence of the doctrine that matters. If the "doctrine" of the Anarchists expresses the truth, then it goes without saying that it will certainly hew a path for itself and will rally the masses around itself. If, however, it is unsound and built up on a false foundation, it will not last long and will remain suspended in mid-air. But the unsoundness of anarchism must be proved.
Some people believe that Marxism and anarchism are based on the same principles and that the disagreements between them concern only tactics, so that, in the opinion of these people, no distinction whatsoever can be drawn between these two trends.
This is a great mistake.
We believe that the Anarchists are real enemies of Marxism. Accordingly, we also hold that a real struggle must be waged against real enemies.

"'A Conversation With Lois McMaster Bujold", p. 54
The Vorkosigan Companion (2008)

WNYC Radio Podcast, RadioLab, "Shorts: What a Slinky Knows" (29 August 2012), Minute 11:33 http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2012/sep/10/what-slinky-knows/
2010s

“#DissectionKills, With Noah Cyrus,” video for peta2 (8 April 2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVLjUqL2xzw.

“Why did people ask "What is it about?" as if a novel had to be about only one thing.”
Source: Americanah (2013)

Cf. Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah (1921), Pt. I : In the Beginning: I hear you say "Why?" Always "Why?" You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?"
Books, Brain Droppings (1997)
Variant: Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don't have time for all that shit.