Posted by alexandra_k on October 17, 2004, at 2:55:37
Says who?
Well...
IF you believe that one day in our evolutionary past our great great great great distant ancestors were not free; and that now, despite the material world behaving in accordance with the laws of physics, we are free...
THEN welcome to current orthodoxy: you are a compatabilist.
Although it seems to be a recieved view that the physical story is the whole story we still like to believe that we are free, indeed without that belief why would anything matter? While most people maintain that somehow or other compatabilism must be true, most do not attempt to offer a thorough account of the phenomena.
Daniel C. Dennett takes us from the two-dimensional world of Conway's life game into a three dimensional world where the 'smallest place' is a voxel and we can specify the current state of the universe according to Laplace's vision. From the present state of the universe one can calculate its precise state for each moment indefinately into the future. He then shows us how from the ontology of the 'lifes' 'deaths' and 'births' of simple cells we can get a new, emergent level of ontology where gliders glide across the life plane, and turing machines can even self replicate (in theory).
So one can adopt the 'physical' stance, and one can adopt the 'thing' stance (for want of a better label' and so here I am figuring that the idea is (in true Dennettian style) that freedom emerges from the intentional stance. I have yet to read the second half of the book; but based on past installments that would have to be my bet.
"Freedom Evolves" the latest installment of how both physicalism and freedom can be true at the same time. See also "Elbow Room: Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting" and if you are bold "Consciousness Explained". By the master. He's been thinking hard about such stuff for 30 odd years...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:404055
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/books/20041006/msgs/404055.html