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I agree. I think the article has its vocabulary backwards. I like the philosophy that: "if we feel it, then it's real". It's just that "free will" nothing like

I agree. I think the article has its vocabulary backwards. I like the philosophy that: "if we feel it, then it's real". It's just that "free will" nothing like we originally expected it to be (that is, it's non-magical). We can learn new things about the nature of free will by studying the brain, because that's where such things are created. To say that free will doesn't exist because of this finding isn't too different from saying that desks don't exist because they're really just collections of a bunch of molecules, arranged just so. There is no magical essence called "desk", it's made up of stuff, and we experience that arrangement of stuff accordingly. See Dennett, (2003): "Freedom Evolves" for a more lucid account. He says the same as is said in the article, but instead re-defines "free will" to fit the reality of these conclusions - a more intellectually satisfying approach, even though it's just a smart readjustment of semantics.

danielmims 17y ago
"If we feel it, then it's real." The word "real" loses all meaning once we start saying that what we feel -- any old fantasy, delusion, speculation -- is real. We also indulge one of the central fantasies of human reflexive identity -- that we are supernatural -- when we say that what we feel is therefore, ipso facto, real. As for Dennett, he is a serial question-begger and equivocator on this topic. He doesn't merely change the definition of "free will" in that book. He arbitrarily changes the definition to a trivial one; argues that that new kind of free will is possible; and then reinserts his conclusions into a debate in which the definition has not changed. Hence he has offered absolutely nothing to the issue that we're all talking about -- free will that would allow for culpability, or what I call non-trivial free will. I recommend Peter Van Inwagen and Galen Strawson instead, who offer much more rigorous good-faith arguments about free will.
- fburnaby 17y ago
  Thanks, I'll check them out next when I get the chance.

danielmims 17y ago

"If we feel it, then it's real." The word "real" loses all meaning once we start saying that what we feel -- any old fantasy, delusion, speculation -- is real. We also indulge one of the central fantasies of human reflexive identity -- that we are supernatural -- when we say that what we feel is therefore, ipso facto, real. As for Dennett, he is a serial question-begger and equivocator on this topic. He doesn't merely change the definition of "free will" in that book. He arbitrarily changes the definition to a trivial one; argues that that new kind of free will is possible; and then reinserts his conclusions into a debate in which the definition has not changed. Hence he has offered absolutely nothing to the issue that we're all talking about -- free will that would allow for culpability, or what I call non-trivial free will. I recommend Peter Van Inwagen and Galen Strawson instead, who offer much more rigorous good-faith arguments about free will.

fburnaby 17y ago
Thanks, I'll check them out next when I get the chance.