Looking for thoughts on the Dennett/Harris debate-debacle-flamewar over free will.
Mostly, to me, it seems like they began to talk past each other at some point and that's when it got a bit nasty. Even philosophers of their calibre fall prey to such vagaries.
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.My current impression is that they don’t see “you” as the same thing. I tend to agree with Harris. Harris says that “you” don’t make decisions because “you” are at the mercy of your brain’s output. Then Dennett would define “you” as including your brain. And then Harris would say something like “you choose things in the same way you choose to make Red Blood Cells” to illustrate that we are not consciously in control of what Dennett wants to consider “you.” But restating it now, I’m not sure how you define “you” should matter because everything is a part of the deterministic stream either way, right?
DominicShaull
Level 5
Apr 10, 2018
1
Torq:
That's an interesting take on it. I think maybe you've hit on the problem they got into, yeah.
Not specifically that they define "you" differently, necessarily. My impression is that they are each essentially ssying the same thing in different ways, and getting caught up in semantic quibbling. Fundamentally, I don't think they actually disagree on the nature of free will.
Dennett's approach is to redefine what we mean by "free will", while Harris seems to want to go at it from the other end and redefine the things that lead us to free will.
Makes me think of the blind men and the elephant. Heh.
I haven't heard/seen it. Is it on Youtube?
BeeHappy
Level 9
Apr 8, 2018
1
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