Re: Determinism and Free Will (and Quantum Mechanics)

I too was going to mention Dennett's book--however, it's merely
sitting on my shelf waiting to be read. But I did think it might
address some of Loren's questions from the evolutionary
psychologist's point of view.

TG

>Delurking because this is a topic of great interest to me right now...
>
>I have been very absorbed in the work of Daniel Dennett as of late. A
>strict materialist through and through, Dennett nevertheless believes
>we have free will. He would fall under Loren's "option 3". His book
>"Freedom Evolves" is especially useful in this regard. In many ways
>it is a continuation of his discussions in "Darwin's Dangerous Idea"
>about strong AI and the ability to "design in" free will using
>evolutionary considerations.
>
>Dennett argues that the usual discussion of "free will" is trapped in
>predictable ruts due to determinism/indeterminism debates (he thinks
>them irrelevant to the question) or monism/dualism debates (he finds
>no merit in dualism). His argument follows a different form: there
>are several ways we could define free will, and only some of them are
>"varieties of free will worth wanting." Say you were lining up for a
>golf putt, and you missed. If determinism is true, there really
>wasn't a way you COULD have made the putt. But from Dennett's
>perspective, because we have the ability to, say, choose to practice
>our golf game, there exists a set of circumstances in which we can
>make future putts. Indeed, evolutionary forces have brought us to
>this level of sophistication -- and morality (consider the ant, thou
>sluggard) -- by allowing our brains to communicate with our "future
>selves" in such a way that we can plan out such remedial golf work in
>order to improve our "fitness" for golf. That we can improve our
>fitness for something so mundane is a happy by-product of evolution.
>Incidentally, his definition of consciousness falls neatly out of that
>picture.
>
>Some would rightly say that this is not what we usually mean when we
>say we have free will. Dennett rather brazenly sidesteps thousands of
>years of philosophy by taking this course. But this notion of having
>free-will-from-our-perspective doesn't seem that different from
>Calvinist theology to me. Moreover, because it doesn't require
>determinism to be true or false, this view allows for miracles without
>changing the central thrust of the theory. There are the etchings of
>an "option 2" defense in there, but don't expect the athiest Dennett
>to make them!
>
>Chris

-- 
_________________
Terry M. Gray, Ph.D., Computer Support Scientist
Chemistry Department, Colorado State University
Fort Collins, Colorado  80523
grayt@lamar.colostate.edu  http://www.chm.colostate.edu/~grayt/
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