Dan Dennett on Free Will & The Self

21 thoughts on “Dan Dennett on Free Will & The Self”

1. Majority of philosophers today agree on the position of compatibility.

2. I'm not sure Dan, if that answers the question of free will in a teleogical sense. But always good to listen to you. Also I'm not sure that taking responsibility is a social construct to deal with one's actions … not whether those actions are a result of free will.

3. "The decisions I make exist independent of causality, contingency, brain chemistry, and determinism because they just do okay? Something something quantum mechanics. I am very smart."

4. I want to see Daniel and Sabine fight!

   By the way,

   THERE IS NO FREE WILL IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM

5. Dennet's "Elbow Room" is a great exploration of the varying definitions of free-will. While it does explain the compatibilist position well, Compatibilism presents such a neutered conception of free will, its hard to see why it preserves it at all.

   Hume is considered to be a compatibility and he's an OG so while I remain a hard determinist, I can respect my boi Hume.

6. I suppose free will could be considered as a description of a process much like an organ. So we recognise the heart as being an organ, having its own particular function. We can even see the apparent boundaries of the organ, and yet these are somewhat arbitary since the heart only functions within systems it is a part of. Free will is, as Dennett says, caught up in history, the shapes of cognition and so on. We put arbitary boundaries around the process of excercising free will.

7. Too much talk about responsibility used as an argument, which is beside the point.

   The will to want to be responsible or not for decisions is just a crutch we use in order to get on day by day, to live in our required illusion, whatever it may be. This says nothing about the existence or inexistence of free will. This desire exists regardless of the existence or lack of free will.

   Also, even if the self is made non-responsible, you would still lock a criminal even if you thought he didn't have free will.

8. I see it like a menu, you may not have the freedom to choose what's on the menu but your free to choose from what there is to choose from on the menu.

9. Yep well if you actually had free will you could forgive those people but because there is no free will of course their effects must inspire causes in you. Lol

10. The wise and just holding me responsible are of course wise and just them selves 😮😅

11. Consciousness is Le Illusion

12. Making decisions isn't "miraculous". He's a crackpot. He simply pretends something we have direct knowledge of is "miraculous" in order to discredit it in favour of the theory of mechanical physics and its metaphysical canons.

13. I liked that time when Bret Weinstein showed Sam Harris how there is such a thing as free will. 🤣

14. Who else thought: "why is there Letterman in my recommendations?"

15. demonstrably vacuous
    pitiful
    what a waste of mental activity

16. What does the term ”free” add to ”free will”? What do you want to be free from? Your genes? Your childhood? Your memories? Your friends? If we remove all these, what is left of ”you”?

    Your ”will” is ”free” enough to express what is ”you” but it’s not free from ”you” 🙂

17. Let's see what the bonehead has to say today…(watching)…
    Sounds OK, but don't be fooled. To avoid becoming a conservative or a Libertarian, watch Robert Sapolsky instead.
    (This video is funny because Dennett absolutely does not believe in free will. Neither does Sapolsky, but that knowledge doesn't drive Sapolsky to lecture you to be responsible. Because you aren't stupid.)
    My opinion of this channel is declining with every Dennett video.

18. I used to think that those who have the ability of moving, have the will power…then i thought the earth moves, rotating and turning around the sun .., why the earth is not given the power of will to change direction to stop?!
    I thought maybe it is because the earth is part of something bigger: the solar system. “There” is where earth is not only itself but ourselves. So maybe a sense of essential belonging is an eternal will to choose obedience…
    If i belong to a very organized and sustainable system i abide by the obligations.
    I should be “there”.

19. Ah the senses of driving an analog car with adequate power, windows down, through beautiful terrain. Appreciate your thought sharing Dan.

20. Much like a charlatan from the Ancient Greek world he will be forgotten. If he is lucky, perhaps he’ll survive as a footnote in some Library of Babel.

21. Will has to be free so that a merciful and loving God can punish you for all eternity for your sin. God gave you free will for exactly this purpose. Thanks, God.

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