Free will is always a sticky wicket. On the one hand, we make decisions every day that point to our having a say in what we do. Accountability, in general, relies on this notion. On the other hand, whatever our will is, it is clearly constrained: we can’t will away gravity. Free will is a hot topic in neuroscience these Continue Reading …
More Fun Debating Free Will (and Bashing Dan Dennett)
Pop science journalists / authors Bob Wright and John Horgan have an interesting debate on free will from a, well, pop science point of view. Nothing gets resolved, as always, but I like hearing well-informed middle-aged guys argue the same debate we’ve been hearing since the university dorm room. Highlights include Wright’s assessment of Daniel Dennett’s Freedom Evolves:The book is stupid, Continue Reading …
David Eagleman and Daniel Dennett on Free Will and Neuroscience
Wes’s recent post on David Eagleman led to my listening to the Philosophy Bites episode interviewing him. Eagleman’s point here is that the criminal justice system assumes a model of free will that is unsustainable given what we know about neurology, and he gives examples like a normal guy with no apparent deviant impulses suddenly starts exhibiting child molester behavior. Continue Reading …
Tripe, Part Six
Start at the beginning. We are now up to the sixth and sixth and a half sittings. Today’s excerpt puts the connection between tripe (the non-humor forming the bulk of this book) and self-consciousness in terms of our attitudes towards free will: The form and shape of the supposedly humorous is predictable, though the content is not. Unfortunately, form is Continue Reading …
Episode 24: Spinoza on God and Metaphysics (Citizens Only)
Discussing Spinoza’s Ethics (1677), books 1 and 2. God is everything, therefore the world is God as apprehended through some particular attributes, namely insofar as one of his aspects is infinite space (extension, i.e. matter) and insofar as one of his aspects is mind (our minds being chunks or “modes” of the big God mind).
End song: “Spiritual Insect,” by Mark Lint and the Fake from So Whaddaya Think? (2000).
PREVIEW-Episode 24: Spinoza on God and Metaphysics
Discussing Spinoza’s Ethics (1677), books 1 and 2. God is everything, therefore the world is God as apprehended through some particular attributes, namely insofar as one of his aspects is infinite space (extension, i.e. matter) and insofar as one of his aspects is mind (our minds being chunks or “modes” of the big God mind).
It’s in: most philosophers accept or lean towards compatibilism
From a poll of 438 “professional” philosophers. (The idea of philosophy as a profession still amuses me). Of course, that leaves the question of whether one can “lean towards” freely.