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Dennett talks about his view on free will and why it doesn’t necessarily rules out a determenistic universe. Ok, it’s not about atheism but it’s still a very interesting topic.
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Dennett on free will and determinism
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49 thoughts on “Dennett on free will and determinism”
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A discussion with Dennett and Wilford Brimley would be downright hilarious.
Man, what ann odd video to watch. I'm just not used to seeing Daniel Dennett be wrong.
I think I'm going to stick with the last two words in this video "who cares"
I take the train to the nearist place around my house (by choice) but I can't change it's course to drop me at my house door. Simple as that And this is how I think about anything in my life.
The arguement about free will didn't make any progress in the last few years.. And those guys keep it on just stay occupied.
Determinism and compatibilism: Who wins on Occam's Razor?
He lost me right when he started to dissect words. Inevitability is what has happened …thus you can predict. Sorry Dennet, you're wrong.
Hm..free will, whose free will? The biochemicals or mine own? If the biochemicals just follow all the physical laws, I am not the one who is making the decisions. I have to be more than my biochemicals, Otherwise it would be Russell's dilemma.
I Agree with Daniel Dennet, that free will is an illusion regardless of universe being deterministic or undeterministic. Free will is an ilussion not because of determinism, it is an illusion because we equate it with thought processes, the meaning of whic we can not or do not understand and therefore proclaim it as a metaphysical concept independant from the rest of our thoughts, that we do not consider as a part of our free will.
I think I'm going to point to this video the next time I need an example of the moving the goalposts fallacy.
His error is in missing that natural selection was determined in a materialistic universe, down to the position of every molecule which was part of evolution, so that evolution itself could not have occurred in any other way, and the 'avoiders' so formed could have formed in no other way, including each minuscule step of avoidance and the subsequent consequences of that, right down to the current illusion of free will in humans. Every thought is a chemical reaction formed by previous states and without escape. In other words, even the avoiders were determined to avoid down to the last molecule.
This is a freight train sized hole in his reasoning, and one can only assume it is because he so wants there to be some actual freedom of action rather than mere existence watching internal and external forces in his own mind drag him along.
This article got me thinking about Determinism: http://firsttoknow.com/jim-twins/ Two twins, separated at birth, adopted by different families, unaware of each other; both named James, both marry women named Linda, then women named Betty, both have a dog named Toy (and more!).
I dont really understand his argument. Agents will only avoid certain things. Agent might or might not avoid something, but ultimately they will only make the choice they make at any given point in time. I cannot change what i did yesterday, and today and tomorrow will be the same story. No matter what the probability is for any event, only one outcome will occur.
He ends the interview by dismissing other versions of free will as metaphysical conceits; though most people's conception of free will is probably that "man can will what he wills" as well as merely being able to "do what he wills" cf. Schopenhauer.
To call his version of free will so much more useful he must expound his definition of free will much more.
Edit:
I am defining free will as to be in opposition to a deterministic viewpoint, because many people contend that their free will is not completely dependent on the brain.
The compatibilist defines free will to comport with a deterministic universe, which puts the brakes on the conversation, and hides the fact that the mind does not do anything without a physical corollary i.e. the brain, instead of elucidating that fact.
Trying to get good things = seeking behavior
Im a Christian, which obviously means I disagree with Daniel Dennett on certain things. But I strongly agree with what he says about compatibilism
This is embarrassing. Dennet is the Ringo Starr of the four horseman….
There are certain key ideas that are crucial to Christianity. Atonement is an obvious one, but Free Will is probably up there in the top three. Without free will, there can be no sin and without sin, we wouldn't need to be saved, which is a fundimental requirement in Christianity. God knows everything, so when he made us with free will, he knew we would sin, which makes him at least partially responsible for the Holocaust.
According to Bennett Google's self driving car has free will because it can avoid collisions. That's what he's saying.
Introducing unpredictable randomness doesn't change the discussion about the viability of 'free will' in any interesting way, is what Dennet is arguing at the end, so you may as well contain the discussion to a deterministic universe. Free will can't mean complete freedom from predictability either; that's just randomness.
"All the varieties of free will that are worth wanting you can have in a deterministic world." That's the key.
The biggest problem in the discussion if so-called free will is the very mushy definitions people bring to the table. Once you're clear about what you mean when you say 'free will' it's not that complicated to show that it does or doesn't exist.
GAHH IT DRIVES ME NUTS THAT I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS!!! No matter how hard I try, to date, I have not been able to see past what Dennett describes here as an "illusion."
I'm disappointed by Dennett's stance. What he's saying starting at 4:50 sums everything up. He says that the agent can't avoid a lightning strike in his future. Then he gives a spear throwing example, and he says that the agent is a good spear avoider. But what he's clearly missing – and I don't understand why an intellectual like Dennett isn't able to see this – is that the agent not being hit by a spear was just as inevitable as the agent being hit by a lightning bolt. The lightning striking the agent was predetermined and the spear missing the agent, too. I take issue with the word 'avoider', because it implies that the agent has a choice.
Sure there is an opposite of "avoider", it's "seeker".
am I the only one who doesn't get why anyone gives a shit about DD? he is consistently wrong about everything. why does anyone take this man seriously? his reasoning skills seem to be on par with a 12 year old.
"In what sense could you talk about the future being inevitable? I don't know." Maybe part of Dan's problem is he can't think of an answer to this trivial question.
God is the only being with freewill. Not saying there is a God, but an infinite being that can infinitely do anything seems to be the only thing that has autonomy. We can't have autonomy based on our basic relation to reality. Even in the domain of imagination, we can only imagine so much.
This is very disappointing.
This seems to be a very poor argument. By this reasoning if we were to see a vehicle driving across a grassy plain while darting and weaving between obstacles we might conclude that it was controlled by a being with free will and that the future of the vehicle (and the being driving it) was not inevitable because it might crash and hit one of the obstacles or it might continue to avoid them. The being would be Dennett's 'agent' or 'avoider'. Of course if we were to inspect the path that it took closely we may find that there are railway tracks buried in the grass and we were actually looking at a train, the future path of which would be inevitable. In the case of human behaviour we are unable, with current technology and perhaps with any future technology, to see the 'tracks', so Dennett simply concludes that the 'tracks' do not exist. This is nothing more than an argument from ignorance.
people who argue against determinism simply cannot grasp it in depth and detail
Avoidance doesn't amount to free choice. If there were no brick thrown toward me I'd have no reason, explanation or cause to dodge it…
Avoidance doesn't amount to free choice. If there were no brick thrown toward me I'd have no reason, explanation or cause for avoiding it…
I came here after a video where Sam Harris made fun of this guy and I can see why. I've heard drunk people make better arguments abiut philosophy.
An agent which avoids an event was always going to avoid said event.
Saying that natural selection can produce avoiders able to circumnavigate otherwise inevitable obstacles is like saying that you can artificially select for luck.
I'm very disappointed with Dennet's view on the subject. I thought he was going deeper on this, but instead It was just a shallow input on the matter, imo.
Watched 7 mins and I have no clue what he is talking about.
If you watch sam harris talking on this subject, he is very clear and makes strong points with concise examples.
I'm not sure exactly what determinism is, but I think if time was reversed by say 1 hour, then things would play out slightly differently the second time due to the randomness seen at the quantum level.
With or without any randomness, its irrelevant to free will.
My point here is that determinism might not be the opposite of free will, cause it could be a random-determinism like I mentioned above.
If he does mean something different when he says freewill, he should clarify it to stop confusing people.
Just because someone can avoid something does not mean they had the free will to do so.
If we look at the neurons of a lizard as it is "avoiding" being eaten, it's neurons are following the laws of physics. Where does the free will come in?
We shouldn't chastise Dennett for his sloppy argument: he had no choice…
Free Will
Free of what?
The Will to do what?
Answer these before you do anything else.
Either our struggle matters or it doesn't. We evolved the ability to anticipate the future because we can make choices, and those choices have consequences. The idea that it's all determined before we make our choices would mean that our struggle is irrelevant. Under those circumstances evolution would not be able to give us any advantage, as there would be no advantage to be had. Determinism is fundamentally illogical. As is free will I might add. It makes no sense to think that we choose our thoughts, our thoughts just come to us as they will, not as we will. Basically, free-will vs determinism is a debate we have yet to develop the faculties to truly comprehend. It's like Plato trying to understand the physical world without the benefit of modern science. All we can do is speculate about what we are incapable of knowing.
"Agents are avoiders" Self Driving Cars are avoiders. Self Driving cars have Free Will according to Dennett.
"growth of evitability " , animals can avoid spears, hence they have free will. they have more degrees of freedom. … he sounds like a complete madman
His arguments ONLY make sense if he is a LIBERTARIAN, but be claims to be a Compatibilist.
What bugs me about Dennett is that when he talks about the mind body problem he says a difference that makes no difference is irrelevant and those who argue for a separation of mind and body use incoherent, ill-defined terms that make no difference at all to the practicality of consciousness. But then whenever he talks about free will he uses a lot of incoherent terms like "evitability" that makes no difference at all to what the situation would be if there were no free will.
To all the kids and sadly, adults freaking out because they think they don't have free will… Your brain is like a computer with automated functions that execute before you realize it, (like breathing while you sleep… Not a choice) but you DO have the free will to reprogram those automated functions, i.e. HABITS, that make up most of your actions throughout the day. Hence, the illiterate begins to look to the left side of English sentences, the unkind man begins glancing behind him as he passes through doorways to see if someone needs the door held, or the YouTube addict starts looking at the clock between videos…. Relax. You're the master of your fate. You're the captain of your soul.
Wow, of all the utterly useless debates mankind has come to, this one is right up top. Either way makes no difference to now. Either way can make no difference to any decision you make; absolutely no effect on how anyone lives their life. Pointless purpose to your life other than to talk about something. And in this case, to pretend there's something there. I suppose millions of people do the same thing every day, you've got to make a living.
Some people define God up and others define God down.
God can.
Creation points to God the Creator.
We have the potential to do good or evil – free will.
All criminals think and act as atheists and effective atheists – disconnected form living to honor God.
Effective atheists claim belief while choosing the opposite – free will.
Most atheists hate God-honoring Christians. Atheism is a stupid religion of excluding God and God's objective morality to justify changeable relative morality while knowing relative morality is destructive.
great video thx
If "evitability" has evolved, so that we can exercise free will, in what sense does this retain the principle of determinism? This is what compatibilists have been doing for centuries, invoking some feature of human or animal psychology that allows us to really choose between real options, but if that's true, it's no longer a deterministic system. If Dennett is convinced of the evitable, he has two options – the one he chooses, which is to deny the traditional argument that determinism rules out free will, and another, which he doesn't seem to recognise (and I've never heard him explain why he avoids it): that determinism does not obtain. The traditional argument seems as sound as the fact that a non-random computer program always returns the same output given the same inputs. Furthermore, it is perfectly possible to retain determinism faithfully and conceive of all these evolved dodges as inevitable ones we must take, since we are biological machines computing inputs, according to the laws of physics. There's no deterministic escape from determinism. Clockwork doesn't find a way to wind itself up. There may be elimination of determinism, even if the evolution of evitability were true. Compatibilism is cognitive dissonance.
Poda maire
An actor will always follow the path of least perceived least resistance. Unconscious actors have infinite time preference.