Dennett lecture on “free will”
A couple of years ago Daniel Dennett gave a public lecture at Edinburgh University on free will, determinism and compatibilism (the view that determinism and free will are compatible). He’s a very good speaker (as well as a great writer) and I think everyone who is interested in these issues should see this whether their views tend to align with his or not (unless they’re already very familiar with his position on this). Personally, I think he’s guilty of serious “sins of omission”, but what he does say is extremely hard to argue with (excepting only where he says things like “that’s all there is to it!”). Here’s the lecture on Youtube. (I’ll stop posting such stuff to Facebook shortly, because I think Twitter’s much more suitable. There I’m RobinFaichney.)
January 11, 2010
Posted in: announcements
3 Responses
Robin
Thanks for alerting me to DD’s lecture. He certainly is a good speaker and he does most of it merely with words
While i agree that the predictability of an outcome says nothing about whether it was the consequence of a choice or not, his position is still that FW is illusory. I think this is mistaken and comes from a simplistic view of cause and effect. My view is that linear, billiard ball causality doesn’t apply to feedback systems which can be genuinely free agents (within their capacity, of course).
cheers
Richard
Hi Richard, thanks for taking an interest! (And sorry for the delay in responding.)
I’m interested — though skeptical, to be honest — in what you say about feedback systems being free agents. As it happens, I’m doing a university course called “Self, Agency and the Will” at the moment, and I’ll be writing an essay fairly soon. Can you tell me more about your view on this?
PS Dennett would strongly dispute that “his position is still that FW is illusory.” (Or that it was ever.) For instance in his book Freedom Evolves (which I’m currently reading for a class) from page 224. Consciousness is in the same boat. I say it depends on the context, on exactly what you mean by “illusory” or “real”. But in broad terms, these days, apart from his omissions as noted in a recent post (and its comments), I have to say, I’m with Dennett.
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