From: Dace (edace@earthlink.net)
Date: Mon 17 Mar 2003 - 02:28:11 GMT
> From: "Scott Chase" <ecphoric@hotmail.com>
>
> As for Dennett's new book _Freedom Evolves_, I've just started it and I'll
> need to finish it befor I decide how I feel about his arguments. To begin
> with, I've got no aversions to the notion that volition might emerged as
an
> evolved trait in a large brained species capable of language, thought, and
> reasoning. Perhaps volition is an autapomorphy unique to our species. If
> Dennett's talking free will, I'm all ears and interested in what he's got
to
> say.
By all means. I hope you're not too unsettled by his layer upon layer of
disgression ("richly detailed narrative," as described on the dust jacket).
Dennett is saying we can still consider ourselves "free" if we just define
the term so that it still somehow means something even if every event in the
universe is pre-determined. We're free in the sense that a computer is free
if it can proceed through a given task along various, alternative routes.
It's the freedom of a machine that's unusually powerful and adaptive. A
slave, for instance, could be regarded as an unusually adaptive and flexible
machine. In other words, the kind of freedom he's promoting is what used to
be called slavery. Though enslaved to the chemicals in our brains, we're
"free" in the sense that the brains we're bonded to are wonders of (blind
and mechanical) evolution.
Ted
> Hopefully he's not dropping as much of the universal acid and there's a
> minimum of flashbacks in this new book ;-)
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