Daniel Dennett Dead At 82

[pood]

Of course, what to have for breakfast and what job to take is largely a product of genes and memes as well, granted, but it never follows that I have to have this or that for breakfast, or take this or that job.

 

[pood]

P.Z. Myers talks about Dennett here. I agree with him about the “four horsemen” crap, and especially about Harris.

 

[pood]

As southernhybrid has discovered, and I discovered this thread through her, there’s a topic in religion v. science about Dennett. Maybe the two threads should be merged to avoid confusion.

 

[southernhybrid]

Of course, what to have for breakfast and what job to take is largely a product of genes and memes as well, granted, but it never follows that I have to have this or that for breakfast, or take this or that job.

You're right. I've been eating cereal for breakfast most of the time, since I was about 2 or 3. Plus, I recently started eating Cheerios again, my favorite food as a little girl. I imagine if my mom cooked us eggs and toast for breakfast, that might be my breakfast choice. She ate cereal too. So, yeah, we are influenced by our childhood experiences at least to some extent.

As far as jobs go, one year I changed jobs about 5 or 6 times. One lasted for a week because of the way I was treated. That was crazy year, but an RN can have many job options as long as she has experience and does well on an interview. My father changed jobs fairly frequently prior to going on disability for PTSD at age 50. Was I influenced by him? Who knows? I stayed in my last job prior to retirement for 18 years. It was part time and I had a lot of freedom, as long as I adhered to the Medicaid regulations. It was low stress and my patients loved and trusted me, which is probably why I stayed there so long, despite low pay.


My late sister was like a clone of our grandmother, so the genetic influences were very obvious to those of us who knew both of them. My sister didn't have nearly as much contact with our grandmother as I did, so it had to be genetic in her case. They were so much alike right down to their love of having long, painted fingernails, suffering from obesity, cutting people out of their lives over trivial things etc.

The books I've read about why we don't have free will weren't extreme. They were more like what I already thought and they helped reinforce my ideas regarding why we don't have absolute free will. It helps me not be too judgmental by understanding people have little control over who they are. For example, a psychopath has no control over their immoral actions, regardless if they are violent or non violent. Society should be protected against their actions as we have no cure at this time for psychopathy, but prisons should be humane places, and most of them are currently far from that these days.

I've not read enough by Dennett to fully understand his position, but it sounds like his ideas regarding free will may have been somewhat similar to mine. You know a lot more about him compared to me, so if you feel like it, explain how you perceive his positions on free will.

 

[Jarhyn]

To be fair, I don't think we have the power to decide what to have been, and not every person has whatever it takes to honestly state what we have been and currently are, but once at that precipice, one may decide whether to continue being that and do their best to remond themselves of that contract at future decision points.

Having some heuristic of awareness allows us to consciously redirect who we are until that redirection no longer is necessary.

Behavioral modification is an entire field of fairly wide and strong study, and to someone trained in it and trained in application of it, they can self-direct techniques of it.

So while we cannot decide what we are or what we know, knowing some stuff and happening to be some particular thing does give one powers over their own future behavior in allowing someone to design some truth into their own contingent mechanisms on the basis of gnostic, conscious thought. This is such a powerful concept that the realization of which (and the teaching of which) was widely suppressed and hidden multiple times throughout history, by the gnostics, by occult societies, by the people in the church that frequently killed both. It is the very heart of the idea of "induction" or "gnosis" and hailed as the very core of "magical awakening", this mere belief that you have power over yourself (albeit the ways advertised by these traditions are spotty and only mildly effective at best).

I just find it so funny that people have made such a big deal about that idea so as to think the open communication of it were dangerous.

 

[pood]

I've not read enough by Dennett to fully understand his position, but it sounds like his ideas regarding free will may have been somewhat similar to mine. You know a lot more about him compared to me, so if you feel like it, explain how you perceive his positions on free will.

Sure, give me a day or two, because it might be a long-ish post.

 

[The AntiChris]

I've not read enough by Dennett to fully understand his position, but it sounds like his ideas regarding free will may have been somewhat similar to mine. You know a lot more about him compared to me, so if you feel like it, explain how you perceive his positions on free will.

This might help: Daniel Dennett - What is Free Will?

 

[southernhybrid]

I've not read enough by Dennett to fully understand his position, but it sounds like his ideas regarding free will may have been somewhat similar to mine. You know a lot more about him compared to me, so if you feel like it, explain how you perceive his positions on free will.

This might help: Daniel Dennett - What is Free Will?

It helped a little bit, and Dennett did sound like an interesting, thoughtful person, as this was the first time I ever watched an interview of him. So, I think I pretty much agree with his points, although it's still a bit confusing to me, as to just how much he felt we are responsible for our actions. Thanks for the post. It is difficult knowing exactly how much, if any "free will" we actually have. As I've said before, most of our behavior is determined by genetics and environmental influences. I am always trying to figure out why certain individuals are the way they are, and what were the influences in their lives that made causes them to behave the way they do.

MY favorite book on the topic is "The Cruelty of Free Will". I'll have to look up the author. He wrote another book on free will that I read. Naturally I can't remember the title of that one. I'll see if I can find it.

 

[southernhybrid]

I found the other book. It's called, "The Nonsense of Free Will"

Richard Oerton (born 1936) spent his professional life as a lawyer, working in private practice, in legal publishing, at the Law Commission (for 13 years), briefly and unhappily in the Treasury Solicitor's Department, and finally as a consultant with Solicitors and Parliamentary Agents in Westminster. He wrote or edited legal textbooks and wrote other books ("Who is the Criminal?", "'A Lament for the law Commission") and a lot of articles, book reviews and letters to legal and other journals and newspapers. He's been a member of the Howard League for Penal Reform for well over half a century and he agitated against capital punishment and for the legalisation of homosexual behaviour - much to the disgust of most of his fellow solicitors.

Closest to his heart are his two books about free will ("The Nonsense of Free Will" and "The Cruelty of Free Will') produced in retirement. He doesn't expect to be remembered at all, but if he were remembered for anything he would want it to be for these books.

 

[No Robots]

The Fetishism of liberty / Harry Waton.

This book examines the notion of free will from a determinist position. Waton was an expositor of Spinoza. Spinoza famously opined that if a rock in motion were conscious, it would believe its motion to be free, and that this is same as most people's understanding of their own actions as free.

 

[Jarhyn]

I've not read enough by Dennett to fully understand his position, but it sounds like his ideas regarding free will may have been somewhat similar to mine. You know a lot more about him compared to me, so if you feel like it, explain how you perceive his positions on free will.

This might help: Daniel Dennett - What is Free Will?

It helped a little bit, and Dennett did sound like an interesting, thoughtful person, as this was the first time I ever watched an interview of him. So, I think I pretty much agree with his points, although it's still a bit confusing to me, as to just how much he felt we are responsible for our actions. Thanks for the post. It is difficult knowing exactly how much, if any "free will" we actually have. As I've said before, most of our behavior is determined by genetics and environmental influences. I am always trying to figure out why certain individuals are the way they are, and what were the influences in their lives that made causes them to behave the way they do.

MY favorite book on the topic is "The Cruelty of Free Will". I'll have to look up the author. He wrote another book on free will that I read. Naturally I can't remember the title of that one. I'll see if I can find it.

We are as just as responsible for our actions as effective response may be rendered to prevent or reinforce future or continued behavior.

In some respects, it reveals free will as a thing that must be worked for, and for which to even start to have it, one must set their own terms and conditions of their behavior and reasoning processes, and stand to enforce those terms within.

Just doing that can be dangerous depending on the terms of that contract and it's ongoing amendment and enforcement within oneself, and problematic dissociation can result, too.

People have literally worshipped the very idea of having free will so vigorously that they missed the point.

it would believe its motion to be free

If it did, it would be correct.

An object in motion shall remain in motion within its degrees of freedom until acted on by an outside force.

This is a description of the famous law of motion, as applies to behavioral dynamics.

Call it the first law of behavioral dynamics.

To be fair, it would be wrong about being free to stop, when it hits the ground. When it hits the ground, it is "being forced to stop", as stopping was not within nor evoked of its degrees of internal freedom.

It could the decide whether it was being "forced to be motionless on the ground" or "at peace with this state, and thus deciding to be on the ground", but it is not free to decide to be in the air flying. It is only free to want that, again assuming a thinking rock (vis a vis "companion cube")

 

[The AntiChris]

It helped a little bit, and Dennett did sound like an interesting, thoughtful person, as this was the first time I ever watched an interview of him. So, I think I pretty much agree with his points, although it's still a bit confusing to me, as to just how much he felt we are responsible for our actions.

The following is taken from Marvin Edwards' thread, Compatibilism: What's that About? It might help a little more

I think it explains quite well the kind of Dennettian compatibilism I subscribe to.

Compatibilism asserts that free will remains a meaningful concept within a world of perfectly reliable cause and effect. There is no conflict between the notion that my choice was causally necessary from any prior point in time (determinism) and the notion that it was me that actually did the choosing (free will).

The only way that determinism and free will become contradictory is by bad definitions. For example, if we define "determinism" as "the absence of free will", or, if we define "free will" as "the absence of determinism", then obviously they would be incompatible. So, let's not do that.

Determinism asserts that every event is the reliable result of prior events. It derives this from the notion of a world of perfectly reliable cause and effect. Our choices, for example, are reliably caused by our choosing operation. The choosing operation is a deterministic event that inputs two or more options, applies some criteria of comparative evaluation, and, based on that evaluation, outputs a single choice. The choice is usually in the form of an "I will X", where X is the thing that we have decided we will do. Our chosen intent then motivates and directs our subsequent actions.

Free will is literally a freely chosen "I will". The only issue here is what that choice is expected to be "free" of. Operationally, free will is when we decide for ourselves what we will do while "free of coercion and undue influence". The notion of "undue influence" includes things like a mental illness that distorts our view of reality with hallucinations or delusions, or impairs the ability of the brain to reason, or imposes an irresistible impulse. Undue influence would also include things like hypnosis, or the influence of those exercising some control over us, such as a parent/child, doctor/patient, commander/soldier. It can also include other forms of manipulation that are too subtle or too strong to resist. These are all influences that can be reasonably said to remove our control of our choices.

The operational definition of free will is used when assessing someone's moral or legal responsibility for their actions.

Note that free will is not "free from causal necessity". It is simply free from coercion and undue influence.

So, there is no contradiction between a choice being causally necessitated by past events, and the most meaningful and relevant of these past events being the person making the choice.

Therefore, determinism and free will are compatible notions.

 

[No Robots]

Here is Spinoza's full statement:

Let us conceive a very simple thing. For instance, a stone receives from the impulsion of an external cause, a certain quantity of motion, by virtue of which it continues to move after the impulsion given by the external cause has ceased. The permanence of the stone's motion is constrained, not necessary, because it must be defined by the impulsion of an external cause. What is true of the stone is true of any individual, however complicated its nature, or varied its functions, inasmuch as every individual thing is necessarily determined by some external cause to exist and operate in a fixed and determinate manner.
Further conceive, I beg, that a stone, while continuing in motion, should be capable of thinking and knowing, that it is endeavouring, as far as it can, to continue to move. Such a stone, being conscious merely of its own endeavour and not at all indifferent, would believe itself to be completely free, and would think that it continued in motion solely because of its own wish. This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined.-- Letter 62 (58) Spinoza to G. H. Schalle

The stone's motion and its stopping are both constrained and determined by other forces/objects. For Spinoza, freedom is not freedom of decision, but freedom to act according to one's nature, a property that belongs only to God. Human freedom lies then only in aligning with the will of God.

 

[Jarhyn]

Here is Spinoza's full statement:

Let us conceive a very simple thing. For instance, a stone receives from the impulsion of an external cause, a certain quantity of motion, by virtue of which it continues to move after the impulsion given by the external cause has ceased. The permanence of the stone's motion is constrained, not necessary, because it must be defined by the impulsion of an external cause. What is true of the stone is true of any individual, however complicated its nature, or varied its functions, inasmuch as every individual thing is necessarily determined by some external cause to exist and operate in a fixed and determinate manner.
Further conceive, I beg, that a stone, while continuing in motion, should be capable of thinking and knowing, that it is endeavouring, as far as it can, to continue to move. Such a stone, being conscious merely of its own endeavour and not at all indifferent, would believe itself to be completely free, and would think that it continued in motion solely because of its own wish. This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined.-- Letter 62 (58) Spinoza to G. H. Schalle

The stone's motion and its stopping are both constrained and determined by other forces/objects. For Spinoza, freedom is not freedom of decision, but freedom to act according to one's nature, a property that belongs only to God. Human freedom lies then only in aligning with the will of God.

And spinoza is a crank over 400 years out of date? We're talking about Dennett here, not a 400 year old corpse.

Humans have momentary and real nature, in that we are determined by the nature of the material we are in these moments each of them real. God in fact is the thing that lacks nature on account of not existing as even a possible object describable by any form of nature.

 

[No Robots]

^And how many callow youth have not sung triumphal hymns over Spinoza's gravemound?--Schelling

 

[Jarhyn]

^And how many callow youth have not sung triumphal hymns over Spinoza's gravemound?--Schelling

I mean, show me how I'm wrong?

I spent my life learning to BE "spinoza", not learning how to suck his decomposed dick.

I think Socrates had something to say about Ion on that regard.

 

[southernhybrid]

I apologize is this becomes one more crazy thread about free will that goes on endlessly. That was never my intention. I just mentioned that Dennett, a well known atheist and philosopher had expired, and thought some of you might be interested.

I think that's all I have to say. I guess I'm not a hard core determinist, but I don't think we have very much free will in the way that it's traditionally defined by religion or philosophy.

 

[No Robots]

^And how many callow youth have not sung triumphal hymns over Spinoza's gravemound?--Schelling

I mean, show me how I'm wrong?

I spent my life learning to BE "spinoza", not learning how to suck his decomposed dick.

I think Socrates had something to say about Ion on that regard.

You're just another priest, praising the Great One, yet rejecting everything he taught.

 

[No Robots]

I apologize is this becomes one more crazy thread about free will that goes on endlessly. That was never my intention. I just mentioned that Dennett, a well known atheist and philosopher had expired, and thought some of you might be interested.

I think that's all I have to say. I guess I'm not a hard core determinist, but I don't think we have very much free will in the way that it's traditionally defined by religion or philosophy.

Dennett paddled about at the shore of philosophy, got scared by determinism, and never ventured into the depths.

 

[pood]

The Fetishism of liberty / Harry Waton.

This book examines the notion of free will from a determinist position. Waton was an expositor of Spinoza. Spinoza famously opined that if a rock in motion were conscious, it would believe its motion to be free, and that this is same as most people's understanding of their own actions as free.

Yeah, and Einstein said the exact same thing about the moon. I believe Einstein read Spinoza and a lot of other philosophers, including Hume. I think this is all wrong. If a rock or the moon were conscious it would no longer be a rock or the moon, but some kind of embodied intelligence with a nervous system, limbs of some kind for moving, an ability to consider options. I’m sure the moon would get really bored after awhile just going round and round the earth in a well-worn path — conscious beings tend to get restless — and would veer off to explore parts unknown, like Saturn, where it would have 80 sister moons to boogie with. Should it try to move away from the earth and found that it could not do so, then THAT would show it has no free will, or, if it had compatibilist free will, it would be a case were, say, a man is in prison, and wants to be free but can’t.