[MD] Dennett & James' "Free will"

[david buchanan]

Steve said:
I watched all those videos this morning. ...Bob Doyle sure seems to think he's got this problem licked. He seems more evangelist than philosopher at times.

dmb says:
I watched Bob Doyle's lecture on Jamesian free will too and it's hard to imagine what could be more helpful to this long-running debate. He's a thinker in transition, moving from science to philosophy, and he's talking to the William James Society at Harvard. I think your insulting, dismissive attitude toward him is pretty darn despicable. I'm certainly not surprised that you remain baffled and unmoved, Steve, but his lecture should have clarified all the major the points for you. It was a coherent overview of the present state of the debate and he made it quite clear that Dennett's compatibilism, which represents the majority view, is different from James's "comprehensive compatibilism". 

In part 4, interestingly, Doyle uses the same Poincare quote that Pirsig uses in ZAMM. Sympatico!

In part 5, interestingly, Doyle presents Martin Heisenberg's thinking on the "free will" exhibited by bacteria, which was obviously parallel to Pirsig's description of the amoeba's response in ZAMM. Sympatico!

In part 6, interestingly, Doyle points out that free will is necessary for creativity and for the possibility of being the author of your own life. This not only supports the what I've been saying about free will, but also the issue of creative intelligence in the amateur philosopher.

Listening to that lecture gave me a spooky feeling, as if he had been watching this endless debate and had decided to step in to help me out. It's like he was talking directly to you, Steve, even going so far as to put the thinkers you've been quoting in context so that you could see who is on which side. I mean, if this doesn't do the trick, then what could?  


Steve said:
The question I have about his two-stage model where first comes chance them comes choice is this: after indeterminism offers possibilities HOW does one make a decision among them? Isn't that the original question still sitting there in the back of the lecture hall? We can still look into what goes into making a choice and ask whether those factors are freely chosen or not (if we want to) and so on and so on. We are back to square one. Aren't we? Why would his model prevent us from looking for and finding causal explanations for choices?

dmb says:
Well, yes, you are back to square one but that has nothing to do with James or Doyle. I don't think that your question makes any sense. If you're looking for causal explanations for choices, you're right back in the SOM soup. You're assuming the essential premise of causal determinism and then looking for an explanation of choice that would deny the possibility of choice. Maybe you have a sensible question in your mind, but until you learn to use the terms properly nobody is going to be able to see what that question is. As it stands, however, your questions are ridiculous nonsense. There is no answer to that.



Steve said:
...Why should this "I" be regarded as the final cause for the given act? It seems to me that we can always seek causal explanations on higher or lower levels of description. We can explain the choice as the desire of an individual and still ask, where do these desires come from? We can explain choices in terms of the function of a brain in response to casual laws or random quantum indeterminacy affecting neurons and lots of other ways... 


dmb says:
The same confused nonsense is on display here too, Steve. You're using the terms "cause", "final cause", "causal laws" and the like as if there were all interchangible when in fact they can be and often are used as opposites - especially on this topic. If I claim that I am the cause of my actions, for example, then I am claiming to have free will and I am claiming responsibility for those actions. If I say my actions are the result of causal laws, then I am denying free will and denying my responsibility. Your questions only show that you have no idea what you're talking about, Steve, that you're fundamentally confused about the terms and completely oblivious to what's at stake here.


If Doyle doesn't help you, I honestly don't see how anything could.