/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.14770306]

>But recently I have learned from discussions with a variety of scientists and other non-philosophers (e.g., the scientists participating with me in the Sean Carroll workshop on the future of naturalism) that they lean the other way: free will, in their view, is obviously incompatible with naturalism, with determinism, and very likely incoherent against any background, so they cheerfully insist that of course they don't have free will, couldn’t have free will, but so what? It has nothing to do with morality or the meaning of life. Their advice to me at the symposium was simple: recast my pressing question as whether naturalism (materialism, determinism, science...) has any implications for what we may call moral competence. For instance, does neuroscience show that we cannot be responsible for our choices, cannot justifiably be praised or blamed, rewarded or punished? Abandon the term 'free will' to the libertarians and other incompatibilists, who can pursue their fantasies untroubled. Note that this is not a dismissal of the important issues; it’s a proposal about which camp gets to use, and define, the term. I am beginning to appreciate the benefits of discarding the term 'free will' altogether, but that course too involves a lot of heavy lifting, if one is to avoid being misunderstood

[Anonymous No.14770313]

Sam Harris destroyed him.

[Anonymous No.14770327]

Like every American ""scholar"", he needs to read through Medieval Christian theology, German idealism, and the works structuralism and post-structuralism once again, as if he ever did, and then hopefully he won't spew anymore rubbish like that and call it thought :)

[Anonymous No.14770331]

>>14770306
He should have figured this out 50 years ago.

[Anonymous No.14770334]

>>14770327
>Medieval Christian theology, German idealism, and the works structuralism and post-structuralism
All of those things are idiotic rubbish.

[Anonymous No.14770343]

Dennett for me is synonymous with the feeling of being a 16 year old precocious retard just getting into philosophy and reading whatever was on the Philosophy shelf at the used bookstore. I read 5 or 6 of his books, was puzzled over whether I was the stupid one or whether I had actually seen through his compatibilist casuistry and sophomoric scientism, emailed him to ask for clarification, received a not very useful reply back, and moved on with my life.

For me he's in the same unconscious category as "those Wikipedia articles I read when I was a kid just getting interested in [topic]." Actually worse, because at least the Wikipedia articles presumably contained all sorts of things that were over my head at the time, so that I could actually profit by returning to them with more knowledge and wisdom. Dennett is permanently adolescent fare.

So when I see adults taking Dennett seriously I get this eerie feeling, like I'm watching a bunch of thirtysomethings have a serious argument about which McDonald's Happy Meal toy they preferred in the summer of 1996. How do you even remember that shit, beyond "oh yeah haha, I remember Happy Meal toys." Shouldn't you be reading Plato or something?

[Anonymous No.14770366]

>>14770343
That's a very roundabout way of saying
>i don't understand the basics of the natural sciences

oh and
>plato
>2020 ce
definitely a larp. the latest BioTech papers are infinitely more relevant than platon

[Anonymous No.14770377]

>>14770334
Okay, 20-something fuckwad who's only sources of education were a shitty western post-modern school and the internet.

[Anonymous No.14770397]

>>14770343
also this

[Anonymous No.14770406]

>>14770343
Do you still have the emails and his response?
I'm curious what you asked him to clarify.

[Anonymous No.14770409]

>>14770343
shouldn't you BE Plato or something?

[Anonymous No.14770495]

>>14770377
Says the dumbfuck who praises post-structuralism.

[Anonymous No.14770502]

>>14770334
this is why all good posters leave this board. keep up the stupidity amigo

[Anonymous No.14770545]

>>14770502
Nice projection, mongoloid.

[Anonymous No.14770576]

>>14770495
I praised post structuralism? Do I praise Zeus if I read plato? It's essential reading even if you don't view yourself a part of their camp in every conceptual or methodological question. Don't mistake hacks like Dennett for an "opposition" to "post-modernity", they simply ignore this tradition, along with most of the western canon, and write about pseudos only a semi-educated dimwit would even consider a topic for philosophical thought. American academia and media enabled this, but if you take opinions from someone like this seriously, you know you're just pertaining to a convenient authority.

[Anonymous No.14770585]

Sticking ya'lls dick in a blender trying to combine evolution and creationism

[Anonymous No.14770596]

>>14770576
>It's essential reading
It's the exact opposite of essential reading. It's complete and utter garbage. Pseuds like you are contaminating /lit/ with your idiocy. You should be ashamed of yourself.

[Anonymous No.14770599]

>>14770596
I'll pretend to be your favorite author and reply: can you shortly give us an argument against this utter garbage?

[Anonymous No.14770617]

>our choices

Haha, he still believes in free will secretly

[Anonymous No.14770629]

>>14770617
Choices are physically determined like everything else, brainlet.

[Anonymous No.14770632]

>>14770629
It's not a 'choice' then

[Anonymous No.14770636]

>>14770632
Yes it is. If it's caused by a conscious brain state rather than an external event, it's a choice.

[Anonymous No.14770646]

>>14770636
Read what you're saying numbnuts

[Anonymous No.14770654]

>>14770646
You first.

[Anonymous No.14770664]

>>14770654
I think you forgot what you're supposed to be arguing.

[Anonymous No.14770668]

>>14770664
No, that would be you.

[Anonymous No.14770670]

>>14770668
No u

[Anonymous No.14770675]

>>14770670
How can I spell it out more clearly than I already have?

[Anonymous No.14770715]

This comment reads like an inversion of William James' view on free will aside from the verbal slight of hand that we should avoid the phrase "free will" when describing it. What that means simply is look to the consequences, look to whatever meaningful difference the concept makes in living life. This is more of a constructionist view of free will in that we can build a system around it as a central assumption, and generate effects that retroactively support it. Consider the placebo effect and all the wacky implications it entails. The power of belief is self-asserting.
I wouldn't conclude that belief in free will causes free will. However, nothing at first pass excludes the possibility. Dennett is essentially calling into question the validity of the legal system, and privileging <i>responsibility </i> as the criterion of importance for ascertaining the existence of free will.
Neuro-law is notoriously contentious for these reasons, and there are many ways you can examine the issue. Some lawyers interested in the subject find it an intrusion, as if (perhaps defensively) it would lift a veil and cause the entire centuries-wrought apparatus of the law toppling from an attack on its fundamental assumption: that people are responsible for their actions.

Dennett is wrong here, responsibility is not the key criterion. Rather we should look to the idea that belief in free will causes one to behave in ways one would not otherwise, in a manner, that is, in which habit, reflex, conditioning, current behavioral repetoire or past behavioral history anticipates with strong likelihood.
Whether or not I have "free will" is to play with a word. What matters is right now I can visualize myself doing something I've never done before and then proceed to do it.

[Anonymous No.14770716]

>>14770327
>Fellow colleagues and friends, I believe that I have stumbled upon the answer to our predicament. Having encountered the philosophical work of [Gyles Dylyuzy] and [Felix Guaterry], I have understood that one must understand the universe as a virtual chaosmos. One can only truly conceptualize free will and determinism rhizomatically, revealing them to be nothing more than empty signifiers and "not abstract enough rather than too abstract" when not understood within the pluralistic assemblages of Pure Difference and multiplicity. In short, in order to become Bodies without Organs, we must, as the phrase goes, grab the wolf by the anus! *gestures as the crowd applauds wildly*

[Anonymous No.14770721]

"The insanity defense" <---> "The I-have-no free will defense"

[Anonymous No.14770726]

I hold a man responsible not because as he is he might have acted differently, but to make him different.

[Anonymous No.14770729]

>>14770636
what makes a brain state “conscious”?

[Anonymous No.14770742]

>>14770675
Internal 'state' vs external 'event'? State not physically determined? State not physical? How does a state 'cause' a choice?

[Anonymous No.14770743]

>>14770306
Looks like he finally saw the light

[Anonymous No.14770770]

>>14770729
I have no idea. I just used "conscious" to exclude things like tic disorders.

>>14770742
Everything is physical. That's why there is no free will. Choices are physical events that occur beneath the skin. Consider two events:

a) I jump into the pool
b) Someone pushes me into the pool

In the (a) case, jumping in the pool is my choice -- it is determined by physical states internal to my body. In the (b) case, jumping in the pool was not my choice -- the event was caused by factors outside my body.

[Anonymous No.14770771]

How do we keep STEM-mouthbreathers out of philosophy?

[Anonymous No.14770774]

>>14770771
Dennett is a philosopher, moron.

[Anonymous No.14770789]

>>14770770
You may want to quickly google what 'free will' and 'choice' is

[Anonymous No.14770793]

Start with the premise that beliefs can be causes. Beliefs then can be causes of other beliefs, as is intuitive enough from daily life. Put another way, certain beliefs are not possible without certain priors. If you believe one thing you also believe everything that chains along with it in the course of arriving at its effect.
Consider then taking on the belief that affords you the most optionality: the ur-belief that unlocks as most possible actions. That would be the belief in free will, which in turn is presumably a pre-requisite for actions that would otherwise be blocked off. Self-fulling prophecies give the negative side of this reasoning. Do don't believe doing something will work so you don't bother doing it, therefore producing the predicted result. How is a positive inversion of this self-fullfilling behavior inconceivable? And is its conceivability not the very proof of its existence?

[Anonymous No.14770794]

What does a deterministic act look like?

What does a free will act look like?

[Anonymous No.14770795]

>>14770774
Sure, in the illustrious school of "analytic philosophy".

[Anonymous No.14770798]

>>14770789
That's actually what you may want to do. I am well-versed in the subject.

[Anonymous No.14770809]

>>14770795
AKA, Philosophy as it is actually practiced in universities. AKA, Philosophy by non-crackpots.

[Anonymous No.14770830]

>>14770798
My man you are full of shit and your constant 'no u' routine makes you look like a retard. Don't reply until you prove you have checked google

[Anonymous No.14770836]

>>14770830
You don't even realize how ironic your post is. You have clearly never read Dennett.

[Anonymous No.14770837]

>>14770306
https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Free_will_(solution)
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Mc6QcrsbH5NRXbCRX/dissolving-the-question

[Anonymous No.14771050]

Why did Denett fail to read the wisdom of Immanuel Kant? Perhaps if he had he would not shame himself so.

[Anonymous No.14771064]

>>14770502
We haven't left. We just don't post.

[Anonymous No.14771440]

>>14770306
>I have surrounded myself with individuals who, perhaps without any thought whatsoever, had to have adopted a materialist worldview in order to carry out their lifelong devotion to their profession. These like-minded gentlesirs--well, most of them, but I wont mention the others--have confirmed to me what I wanted to hear, with a slightly different phrasing so I can feign a certain evolution in my fossilized beliefs...

>t Reddit, the philosopher

>p.s. pls buy a hat.

[Anonymous No.14771470]

>>14771440
Yeah but to be fair they are physicalists (or naturalists to be more precise) because they are intelligent.
There are no rational or intelligent arguments for the existence of the spirit. So their congruence of thought is based more on mental acumen than on peer pressure or confirmation bias.
If you believe in god, metaphysics, soul, etc. it is because you don't understand physics, genetics, and cognitive science. That's just how it works. Like knowing how to play chess means you aren't going to play h4 for your opening move.

[Anonymous No.14771578]

>>14771470
>Because the 'sciences' all exist on enclosed, entirely consistent and entirely confirmed bases! AND every scientist has a high IQ inately--therefore they dont need to examine the rational integrity of their epistemology they just knooooow :D it's just like chess (that's an intellectual game, right? One that 'high IQ individuals' know from birth, and anyone who questions the actual worth of the game as a pastime just doesn't get the ruuuuules. Just like science ftw) Not to mention IQ tests may have been designed within a specific framework to reward certain thought-patterns, but only the best ones!

Upvoted chessmaster! Don't be embarrassed, but your genius is showing!

Your Daddy may have never approved, but daddy Dennet wuvs youuuuu!

[Anonymous No.14771597]

>>14771578
Absolutely seething

[Anonymous No.14771603]

>>14771440
>So they seem to say basically what I think, and that's enough rigor for me.

[Anonymous No.14771615]

>>14770306

[Anonymous No.14771624]

>>14771470
Contemporary metaphysics generally presupposes materialism.

[Anonymous No.14771626]

>>14771615
Sums up this idiot pretty well. No concern for what words mean, only that they feel good when said.

[Anonymous No.14771636]

>>14771615
>>14771626
Brainlets filtered hard.

[Anonymous No.14771638]

>>14770770
>I have no idea.
whole post is pointless then

[Anonymous No.14771653]

>I am beginning to appreciate the benefits of discarding the term 'free will' altogether, but that course too involves a lot of heavy lifting, if one is to avoid being misunderstood
I'm not wrong, you just don't get it!

[Anonymous No.14771657]

>>14771636
t. Dennett

[Anonymous No.14771880]

>>14770716
>look guys, I've "stumbled upon" one of the most famous philosophers of the 20th century, let me pull a shallow misuse of his concepts to flex a bit

[Anonymous No.14771883]

>>14771638
In your dreams.

[Anonymous No.14771890]

Morality is a Semitic fiction