Dan passed away yesterday. Very sad news. Dan was everything you would want to say - kind, generous and talented in many areas of life. Not least, he made excellent cider from his own orchard. I had the privilege (and pleasure) of sampling his best at Tufts University, Medford in 1992. I wrote to Tufts in the throes of a personal crisis, asking whether I might sit in on his classes as a PhD student from the UK. He immediately accepted me, no charge, so I was able to sit in on his classes when he was going through some of his new book, 'Consciousness Explained'. We got into some stimulating and animated exchanges, something I will always treasure. Thank you Dan. Your kindness and generosity at that time means a huge amount to me.
Here's my take on "luck": Luck is JUST a label we attach after the fact. Things went in my favor, I was "lucky" - things DIDN'T go in my favor, I was "unlucky"... I hope at least SOME of you out there find that useful.
wish Michael Shermer would have some/all of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe (SGU) podcast panel on his program and vice versa. is there some kind of schism in the skeptic "community" that prevents this?
He frequently visited their show in the past, that much I know. But considering that the SGU has turned more to the left it's possible Shermer as a centrist doesn't fit their profile anymore.
Perhaps making a decision IS free will, even if you could not possibly have made a different decision based on the information you had at the time. Either you make a decision based on the information you have at the time, or you act randomly. The latter is not really what we think of as free will.
at a time before engineering, which puts science to the test, "philosophy" where "anything goes" was like grasping in all direction while blind. There was a time when that's all we could do. Today, we have many answers that constrain our search. This old style "anything goes" philosophy feels like wasteful word masturbation. The human brain doesn't contain universal truths that navel gazing can reveal. After all, it's just the product of evolution, a 100% physical process. The desire of getting an intuitive feel for how human intuition works (qualia) is ridiculous. I'm not saying we can't build a machine that thinks EXACTLY they way we do. A system that makes models such as our brains can't model itself 100%, that would require an infinite regression. So our intuition appears like magic to yourself, as it must. But you can convince yourself that it's 100% machinery in action by depriving your self of air for a couple of minutes.
49:00 That thought experiment doesn't do anything. Sam's point stands just fine. No, you could not have chosen to do otherwise, or you would have. Whatever your choice was you did not have any control over the factors that made you choose what you did. To say "of course you could have chosen to do otherwise" is just not seeing the argument. You chose what you chose for reasons beyond your control. And no, Dennet, it is not a "good example". You have zero input on what your neurons will make you do or say next, or NOT say or do. Consciousness does not control consciousness, neurons do. Just like the pressure in a room is determined by the density of air molecules. The pressure doesn't control the pressure!?!? The pressure is the thing that is controlled. Same for consciousness and neurons. If your argument is "of course you could have chosen to fire a different pathway of neurons" then you'll have to explain that one to me.
Dennett is saying that it makes no sense to create a fictional scenario where everything in the world is EXACTLY the same down to the find structure of the universe, and then ask if I could have done otherwise. He is saying that that is just not a useful way to discuss freewill. This point is used in his argument against the general idea of free will, saying that free will adherents assume that a 'will' that is some kind of spark that exists apart from the world and that in any given situation, it can generate a choice of its own origin, even in exactly the same situation. He also uses this point against strong determinists like yourself, saying that it just doesn't make sense to use the example you want to use as an argument that a person could not have made any different decision in that fictional scenario. He then follows up with his explanations about how we should view freewill. It's an interesting argument, and very difficult to get across in few words.
@Corteum not really. More of a freethinking person. Didn't take on another religion, accept the best in most. Independent in my politics. Believe in critical thinking. Come have a beer with me and see for yourself. But you're correct in one sense: We all have blinders on at times, and we all are susceptible to group-think and indoctrination.
@@majorkade Dennet's claim to fame is that it's illusions all the way down. Presumably he includes his own assertions and claims in that category. But at least you got disentangled from the religious illusion!
Remove the mysticism from religion and what remains is, essentially, philosophy. Philosophy can be inspected, accepted, neglected, corrected or rejected without the empty threat of eternal punishment or the false promise of a celestial reward.
Sure. But remember, remove the mysticism from religion, and lose the poetry, art, music, and architecture. Lose the fellow-feeling that emerges only in the communitarian commitment to transcendental principles. Lose the sense of reverence and meaning that can only occur within such a comprehensive spiritual and aesthetic gestalt. Win some / lose some.
@@willmercury Not so. None of the arenas of human creativity you listed necessarily rely on substantiated proof of a supernatural dimension or mysticism in order to be attempted or accomplished.
I've just ordered the book. Over the years Dennett has been my philosophical role model. The only thing I disagree with him on are his views on free will. Other than that he has always played a central role in my philosophical thinking.
So sad that Dan went out on a losing battle in defending free will. 'Self control' would be better seen as controlled self... Locating an enduring authorial Self is difficult enough. If you accept edge cases as lacking in free will, or that allowances should be made for mitigating circumstances regarding responsibility etc. then all you need to do is take the logical step of regarding all of the circumstances pressing in on an individual's behavior over a life time (and due to genetics and so on) and you have the same situation for everyone, there is no merit nor blame that can be attributed to free agency. Maybe the best way to put it is 'life is brain damage'. I think Dennett was a great mind, but I think he was somewhat naive where determinism and qualia are concerned. Or possibly I don't have the intellect to appreciate his counter arguments. Either way, respect to a powerhouse thinker. Breaking the Spell was an important read for me.
Epiphenomena has intentions and recursive actions all by it self? How? By evolution? That IS the hard question! We don't have access to our own qualia? Nonsense on stilts. This is not skepticism, this is outright ignorance.
21:38 10 years after he retired from a lifetime of filling blackboards with complex equations faster than Marvin the Martian, and 50 years after he'd told me that he had a "problem" with Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, my old man said the thing fell perfectly into place while sitting at home watching a TV show about it on the Discovery Channel. Or whatever. PBS maybe.
I define free will as the ability to move against the force of gravity on its own. As far as Consciousness, it has to do with the actions of living neurons. It's not some magical object. It's a concept or the actions of the brain. Mind is to brain what beat is to heart.
31:30 Some people have bad machinery and some people have good machinery. But did they choose to have the good machinery? Did the “disabled” ones choose to have the bad machinery? This is a weird thought to me that we wouldn’t hold people with bad machinery responsible for their actions but we would hold good people responsible for their actions. The point is, the one with the food machinery no more decided to have that than the one with the bad machinery. That’s the whole point.
Please just get Sapolsky and Dennett in the same room, or the same episode. It’s painful watching both sides here misrepresenting Sapolsky’s views, and then strawmanning.
I hope you have a more in depth knowledge in other areas than you do about the EU. What a ridiculous response. I think you lost the questioner as a listener. It is better to explain you have little expertise in the area than showing it.
"... what it would take for poeple to move from their current position to some other position" People will only change their position if the change is not accompanied by a serious loss of competence. This is true even for the sciences. For example, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas S. Kuhn (Kindle: page 151) states: "The transfer of allegiance from paradigm to paradigm is a conversion experience that cannot be forced. Lifelong resistance, particularly from those whose productive careers have committed them to an older tradition of normal science, is not a violation of scientific standards but an index to the nature of scientific research itself." Therefore, one will not be able to (easily) convince someone for whom the integration into his religious environment is of importance that there is no God and that all living beings have come into being by evolution.
In answer to Michael Shermer's thought experiment. Determinism is not an explanation for anything. But if Jane knew her husband doesn't have libertarian free will, it would help her. Michael says "of course he could have done otherwise" but does he know what that means in a deterministic universe. How could he?
How can it be proven that the tumor was responsible for the man's feelings towards children? After it was removed I doubt he would tell the truth about his feelings and of course would say I'm cured having a perfect excuse. Later being caught again and having the tumor return could have been a coincidence. If it was a tumor that is responsible,1 then any sort of sexual deviance should be attributed to a malfunctioning brain.
I loved Dr. Daniel Dennett, very sad to hear about his passing, I've would have loved to meet him, he was my absolute favorite, an intellectual giant, a legend, true sage, heard he was also very kind gentle person, huge loss to civilization, I will watch tons of his lectures in the next few weeks in his memory, I made a playlist of his lectures and interviews for myself to work through, listening to Dr Dennett lectures would be my idea of Heaven 11:02
Cherry picking does happen in "science" although it obviously is not real science when it occurs. Studies commisioned by businesses cherry pick all the time. They may throw out 10 studies and only pubish the one which favours their interests.
Dennett is absolutely correct that all Scientists have or make philosophical assumptions that they either examine critically or not. Im wondering if Dennett has ever read Karl Popper and what his opinion is of him if he has?
@@d_e_a_n That makes sense to me. You can accept the human brain as part of the natural world, subject to the laws of physics, while preserving many of the elements traditionally called "free will" that are "worth wanting" - as Dan puts it.
@@sulljoh1 I’ve listened to him discuss this with Sam and I’m on Sam’s side. Dennet mostly likes the idea of us being responsible for our actions. But that misses the point about what many (or at least me) thinks of when they think of free will. If I remember correctly it really seemed like he just wanted free will to exist. I guess it depends on how you define free will.
My wife was atheist blood, bone muscle and skin. I forced her to marry me at the Russian Orthodox Church in Washington DC. St.Nicolas on Wisconsin Avenue in 2003. In 14 years of marriage she showered me with books by famous local American atheists. The list is long, and I personally met many. Needless to say, -“I am a lost soul in the vastness of infinite universe looking for one simple question. Who am I? What am I? “ I believe this question is at the bottom of everyone’s existence . I don’t claim to have them answers, but I would like to inspire some questions in young people #Bogoslowsky .🦁🤴
One thing that frustrates me about the Sam Harris view on determinism is it always sounds absurdly dualistic to my ears. "You can't punish me for that action, my brain and body did it, not me!" The complaint seems to be that you can't imprison my innocent soul just because the body it inhabits is a machine determined to have committed the crime. If nothing we do truly matters, then why do you care if you are imprisoned? If you were free, nothing you would do anyway would be caused by you either (by this way of thinking). Presumably, Sam Harris makes his argument because he wants to cause changes in the system of jurisprudence - he apparently thinks actions (such as writing his books) do matter, even though his argument is that they don't. Quite perplexing! Imagine we have a robot programmed poorly and it goes and kills people. An angry mob wants the robot dismantled. No, says Sam, you can't dismantle the robot, the robot was determined by its programming to kill. But, in fact, if it's all machinery, and the machinery is dysfunctional, that's actually grounds for dismantling. If we could install in the robot a free will chip, then and only then would it maybe make sense to give the robot another chance. Now, at least, it might change its ways.
Dennett is a good philosopher. Like George Gale, Helena Cronin, Gilbert Ryle, Hilary Putnam, Ned Block, Ruth Milikan, Patricia Churchland, Paul Kurtz, George H. Smith, Adolf Grunbaum, Diderot, Ludwig Buchner, Robert Nozick, Ayn Rand, Harry Binswanger, Leonard Peikoff, Tara Smith, Tibor Machan, etc.
Daniel Dennet doesn’t have free will. Could Dennet just decide to believe the opposite of what he believes? No. He can only say the things in his mind. He has no freedom beyond that. It’s not just that he can’t say or believe things he doesn’t know. He can only believe that which he knows. He could never wake up tomorrow and just choose to believe the opposite. We can choose what we want is better stated: We can only “choose” what we want, and that’s not much of a choice, because we don’t choose our wants. If Dennet’s free will exists, it exists in the same way that a computer chess game has free will.
Whether God exists is the wrong question. Universe. As we know, it is a perpetual process, most likely mathematical structure continuously evolving. Universe is not an item. It’s not a thing it’s not an object. It’s a process. Questioning, the establishment about the existence of deity is truly admired as every other questioning an authority. Just in case authority has too much power. Contributions of spiritual inheritance to contemporary world is certainly undeniable. At the beginning of 21st-century humanity is craving more than ever spiritual reincarnation, a.k.a. new format of spirituality, perhaps even without reference to GOD. I encourage everyone of my followers to engage on your own tireless quest. Nothing is for sure. What was true yesterday, today is just a fog of illusion. Keep your mind open to every scientific idea. At the same time keep in mind your own nature reflects the nature of the universe: process, process, process. You are not an item you are a process. #Bogoslowsky .🦁🤴
Daniel Dannett. He is to materialist philosophy what Jordan Peterson is to psychology: a genius to beginners and easily discarded by veterans of the field.
