The full title of this book is Darwin’s Dangerous Idea; Evolution and the Meanings of Life. Note the word Meanings is plural.
This book is provided some of the key seeds of the Only 22333 project.
Here’s what ChatGPT says about this book
"Darwin's Dangerous Idea" by Daniel Dennett is a well-written and thought-provoking book on evolutionary theory and its implications for various fields of knowledge, including philosophy, psychology, and religion. Dennett presents a clear and accessible overview of Darwin's theory of natural selection and its impact on our understanding of the world. He argues that natural selection is a "dangerous idea" because it undermines many traditional beliefs and assumptions about the world and our place in it. Overall, the book is highly recommended for anyone interested in evolution, philosophy of science, or the intersection of science and
Not a bad summary for a machine!
I have just started re-reading the book. A quarter of a century on the ideas are still relevant and important.
When I first read it I was blown away by the idea of the Library of Babel as a method of understanding big numbers. There are literally dozens of other intellectual treasures in the book but Jorge Luis Borges Library of Babel1 is one that has bounced around in my head ever since.
In Darwin’s Dangerous Idea Dennett uses the vast but finite number of books in the imaginary library to elucidate the possibilities of variation in the genome of humans and other organisms.
When this book was written the Human Genome Project was just getting started and the conventional wisdom was that the number of genes was much larger than 22333. But Dennett’s arguments and conclusion are just as valid, even though the size of the Library of Genotypes is just a bit smaller.
Darwin’s Dangerous Idea on Amazon
Also By Daniel Dennett
The Mind’s I 2022 edition