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This would be just as informative if someone else wrote a blog post called "How dumb do you have to be to say 'How dumb is Daniel Dennett?'" and then quoted Aar
by byrneseyeview 19y ago
This would be just as informative if someone else wrote a blog post called "How dumb do you have to be to say 'How dumb is Daniel Dennett?'" and then quoted Aaron's in full. No new information, no arguments. I know from other posts that Aaron is a fan of John Searle (whose "Chinese room" argument disproves a Turing Test for artificial intelligence by disproving any kind of intelligence). So to me, this post reads like a reminder that Aaron is on a particular side of a particular squabble.
- randallsquared 19y agoIf Dennett's argument (in the ordered list in that post) is stated accurately, it is obviously wrong. Having not read _Freedom Evolves_, I can't say whether this is an accurate summary, but it's clear that "to avoid the actions you'll deterministically take" and "to avoid objects" are not using "avoid" in the same sense.
- byrneseyeview 19y agoSure. I get the feeling I'm not hearing an accurate summary -- like when Naomi Klein turns something like "the pursuit of rational self-interest maximizes collective gain" into "They're trying to convince people that by doing good you do bad, and that by being bad -- by pursuing your most selfish desires -- you do good." (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2kTy7glZ9s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2kTy7glZ9s). I've read some Dennett, and I've never found anything amenable to the paraphrase AS quoted. I'm sure if you wanted to, you could find people who tell you how ridiculous Dennett was by quoting him that way, just as people have had a great time finding out what Milton Friedman said by way of Klein's parody. I suspect that AS just hasn't bothered to consider the possibility that he and his idol are wrong.
- yters 19y agoLater on q reaffirms aaron's argument (@ 2008-01-19T10:55:30), seemingly based on q's own read of DD's work. So, at least two seemingly smart people come to the same conclusion independently.