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Product Details. Inspired by Your Browsing History. Labyrinths of Reason. Sleight of Mind. AI Ethics. Mark Coeckelbergh. Simply Philosophy. The Turning Point. Fritjof Capra. The Duck That Won the Lottery. Julian Baggini. Consciousness, Function, and Representation, Volume 1. A Logical Journey. Consciousness Revisited. Michael Tye. Sweet Anticipation. David Huron. Margaret Cuonzo. The Outer Limits of Reason. Noson S. Cognitive Pluralism. Steven Horst. What Is the Argument? Maralee Harrell. The Matrix and Philosophy. The Story of Philosophy. Dennett concludes by contemplating the possibility that people might be able to opt in or out of moral responsibility: surely, he suggests, given the benefits, they would choose to opt in, especially given that opting out includes such things as being imprisoned or institutionalized. Daniel Dennett also argues that no clear conclusion about volition can be derived from Benjamin Libet 's experiments supposedly demonstrating the non-existence of conscious volition. According to Dennett, ambiguities in the timings of the different events are involved. Libet tells when the readiness potential occurs objectively, using electrodes, but relies on the subject reporting the position of the hand of a clock to determine when the conscious decision was made. As Dennett points out, this is only a report of where it seems to the subject that various things come together, not of the objective time at which they actually occur. Suppose Libet knows that your readiness potential peaked at millisecond 6, of the experimental trial, and the clock dot was straight down which is what you reported you saw at millisecond 7, How many milliseconds should he have to add to this number to get the time you were conscious of it? The light gets from your clock face to your eyeball almost instantaneously, but the path of the signals from retina through lateral geniculate nucleus to striate cortex takes 5 to 10 milliseconds—a paltry fraction of the milliseconds offset, but how much longer does it take them to get to you. Or are you located in the striate cortex? The visual signals have to be processed before they arrive at wherever they need to arrive for you to make a conscious decision of simultaneity. Libet's method presupposes, in short, that we can locate the intersection of two trajectories:. Dennett spends a chapter criticising Robert Kane 's theory of libertarian free will. Kane believes freedom is based on certain rare and exceptional events, which he calls self-forming actions or SFA's. Dennett notes that there is no guarantee such an event will occur in an individual's life. If it does not, the individual does not in fact have free will at all, according to Kane. Beyond Good And Evil. The Shepherd's Life. Guns, Germs and Steel. Great Ideas. Julian Baggini , Antonia Macaro. The Black Swan. Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The Book of Joy. The Sunday Times Bestseller. Dalai Lama , Desmond Tutu. The Soul Of The Marionette. The Righteous Mind. The Universe Within. Beyond Human Nature. Is God Happy? Freedom Evolves by Dennett Daniel - Penguin Books Australia

Revision history. Download options PhilArchive copy. This entry has no external links. Add one. Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server Configure custom proxy use this if your affiliation does not provide a proxy. Configure custom resolver. Nathan Cofnas - - Foundations of Science 21 3 Nonreductive Physicalism and the Limits of the Exclusion Principle. Orly Shenker - - Iyyun Oxford University Press UK. Skepticism About Moral Responsibility. Gregg D. Caruso - - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Compatibilism Evolves? Manuel Vargas - - Metaphilosophy 36 4 Dennett on Freedom. Alfred Mele - - Metaphilosophy 36 4 John Martin Fischer - unknown. Freedom Evolves is a popular science and philosophy book by Daniel C. Dennett describes the book as an installment of a lifelong philosophical project, earlier parts of which were The Intentional Stance , Consciousness Explained and Elbow Room. It attempts to give an account of free will and moral responsibility which is complementary to Dennett's other views on consciousness and personhood. As in Consciousness Explained , Dennett advertises the controversial nature of his views extensively in advance. He expects hostility from those who fear that a skeptical analysis of freedom will undermine people's belief in the reality of moral considerations; he likens himself to an interfering crow who insists on telling Dumbo he doesn't really need the feather he believes is allowing him to fly. Dennett's stance on free will is compatibilism with an evolutionary twist — the view that, although in the strict physical sense our actions might be pre-determined, we can still be free in all the ways that matter, because of the abilities we evolved. Free will, seen this way, is about freedom to make decisions without duress and so is a version of Kantian positive practical free will, i. To clarify this distinction, he uses the term 'evitability' the opposite of 'inevitability' , defining it as the ability of an agent to anticipate likely consequences and act to avoid undesirable ones. Evitability is entirely compatible with, and actually requires, human action being deterministic. Dennett moves on to altruism , denying that it requires acting to the benefit of others without gaining any benefit yourself. He argues that it should be understood in terms of helping yourself by helping others, expanding the self to be more inclusive as opposed to being selfless. To show this blend, he calls such actions 'benselfish', and finds the roots of our capacity for this in the evolutionary pressures that produced kin selection. In his treatment of both free will and altruism, he starts by showing why we should not accept the traditional definitions of either term. Dennett also suggests that adherence to high ethical standards might pay off for the individual, because if others know your behaviour is restricted in these ways, the scope for certain beneficial mutual arrangements is enhanced. This is related to game theoretical considerations: in the famous Prisoner's Dilemma , 'moral' agents who cooperate will be more successful than 'non-moral' agents who do not cooperate. Determinism implies that given a particular configuration of particles in the universe including the states of the neurons in our brains there is only one possible state that the system can advance at the next tick of the cosmic clock. How can the absolute inevitability of all things be reconciled with the sense of free will that we all experience? It's a tricky question, and one that Dennett does not shy away from confronting in this book. It's a question that makes some people very nervous - if we don't have free will then what is the point of anything? Dennett likens this to Dumbo the elephant who believes that he can only fly when holding his magic feather until a pesky crow points out that the feather is not needed - stop that crow! Needless to say, Dennett sees himself in the role of the crow questioning the magic feathers that we insist on clinging onto. He squares the circle by first explaining exactly what determinism is and what it implies, beginning with simple mathematical models such as Conway's Life game and chess playing computers, and then shown how rational agents can develop 'evitability' within such systems. He then argues that natural selection of both our brains and the cultural memes that govern our lives have given rise to consciousness and free will, as well as concepts such as morality and altruism that initially seem at odds with 'red in tooth and claw' style Darwinism. If the book has any faults, it is that Dennett spends quite a lot of the time trying to anticipate the arguments that will be raised in objection to his thesis, thus making some of the early chapters somewhat convoluted in their presentation as he defines what determinism and free will are not before moving on to give his own ideas. Absolutely fascinating, and full of optimism for our ability to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps of our own consciousness. Jun 03, Dylan rated it really liked it Recommends it for: Jonathan. I was interested in this book because of the hypocritical inconsistency exhibited by many secular types who, reasonably enough, deny the existence of "God" but bristle at the prospect that we all live in a completely determined universe. They and I include myself here reflexively feel that while science rightly treats the entirety of the natural world as subject to the same universal deterministic laws, they must preserve an idea of human free will as an exception to the laws of physics, in I was interested in this book because of the hypocritical inconsistency exhibited by many secular types who, reasonably enough, deny the existence of "God" but bristle at the prospect that we all live in a completely determined universe. They and I include myself here reflexively feel that while science rightly treats the entirety of the natural world as subject to the same universal deterministic laws, they must preserve an idea of human free will as an exception to the laws of physics, in exactly the same way that theists allow for intervention by "God". As Dennett puts it, this indeterminism insists that human beings are little godlets, or miracle workers, able to defy the otherwise universal laws of physics. Dennett understands that we want to believe that we are always "able to choose otherwise" in a given situation because, if we're not, there seems to be no basis for moral responsibility: praise and blame only make sense in relation to free choices, and why care about anything if we can never deserve praise or blame for whatever good or bad we do? His thesis, in short, is that it is unnecessary to invoke miraculous powers to solve this apparent problem. Thanks to natural selection, humans have more freedom than has ever existed in the history of the universe. Although this freedom is not exempt from the physical laws governing every particle in the universe, and is hence determined, it is only determined in the same sense that a coin toss is determined. That is to say our choices are determined by so many intervening variables that no observer can possibly know their outcomes. Dennett's view is that in the important sense of everyday life, humans make free choices. The key distinction here is between the physical level, the fundamental variables that determine the outcome of the coin toss, versus the design level, what agents are actually able to observe and experience. The latter is what matters to all of us, and the observable operation and evolution of freedom on that level--in our everyday experience--gives us a sufficient Dennett argues, more well-founded basis for moral responsibility. All of this makes pretty good sense to me, despite my ingrained aversion to determinism. My only problem with Dennett, and I am still mulling whether I think it taints his whole philosophical outlook, is that he is utterly uncritical of his own implicit mainstream views of technological progress which he presumes even now to be an inevitable, unstoppable impulse of human culture and the state which he presumes to be the only solution to organizing human society. He reaffirms these positions in his pejorative use of the terms "anarchy" and "Luddites" and in his praise of "civilization". It should not be a surprise then that they aren't in question here. What remains to be answered for me is, what is the benefit of a scientific deterministic worldview when we have concluded that the state system and the technological progress that created it and that it demonstrably perpetuates in return were not, are not, and cannot be desirable? Early in the book, with none of his characteristic well-reasoned argument Dennett parodies postmodern critics of science who characterize it as "just another in a long line of myths". But he proves himself, disappointingly, to be an equally simple-minded partisan of "science"; he sees history and the future going in only one direction, that of more elaborate guns, memes, and steel for which our "freedom" is evolving to help us to be prepared. The book leaves me more worried about the possibilities of a future with more science than about the question of my own free will. Personally, I hope that imperialistic science eventually becomes a detour, albeit an informative one, from which a freer, wiser humanity was able to return, instead of the dead end of absolute control which is its inexorable instinct. View all 3 comments. Shelves: philosophy , evolution , non-fiction. A book combining many ideas from Consciousness Explained and Darwin's Dangerous Idea , and pushing them into their logical follow-up questions: If materialism is so true, what are we to do about determinism and free will? A more in-depth look at determinism, what freedom really is, why quantum physics has no place in arguments of free will, and why we have nothing to fear from deterministic worlds. Discusses issues in possibility, causality, possible futures versus determined futures, possible pa A book combining many ideas from Consciousness Explained and Darwin's Dangerous Idea , and pushing them into their logical follow-up questions: If materialism is so true, what are we to do about determinism and free will? Discusses issues in possibility, causality, possible futures versus determined futures, possible pasts versus determined pasts just read it! Mar 11, Edward rated it liked it Shelves: philosophy , audiobooks , , nonfiction , science. I had heard that Dennett held some sort of compatibilist view, whereby he argues that true, non-deterministic free will arises through evolution from a basis of determinism at the lower physical level. I was looking forward to be challenged and even swayed to this position by good arguments. In this respect his arguments for evolved free will though they are largely informal and often not logically argued do provide some perspective for such people and may cushion the blow, or at least promote further thought. What I do respect about the work is that it is for once! Dennett draws from examples in psychology and neuroscience, and while his conclusions are sometimes tenuous and often speculative, they are at least grounded in physical fact. For me though, the ideas presented are not really that profound. The conclusions are often pushed past the point that they have been established through the argumentation, and to the extent that they have been demonstrated, they are often fairly obvious. The ideas and examples given can often be found elsewhere in his own work and the work of popular authors like Richard Dawkins. I would therefore only recommend this to someone with an interest, but who has not read many other works on these topics. Dec 17, Socraticgadfly rated it it was ok Shelves: philosophy. Not much new here, which is truer and truer of Dennett's later works The biggest problem, other than this book largely recycling "Elbow Room"? Dennett refuses to take his ideas on free will to their logical conclusion, and stops at a brink. That "logical brink" would be that, if there is no "Cartesian Meaner," no central controller of consciousness, then logically there is no "Cartesian Free Willer," no "central meaner," either. But, Dennett, as he did in Elbow Room written before he fully formula Not much new here, which is truer and truer of Dennett's later works The biggest problem, other than this book largely recycling "Elbow Room"? But, Dennett, as he did in Elbow Room written before he fully formulated his ideas of consciousness vs. Dennett rejects the philosophical label of "compatibilist" re his ideas on free will; nonetheless, any quibbles he has with the label are minor and ultimately, differences that make no difference. He claims that there are varieties of free will that do exist and are worth having. I would say, instead, "worth believing in," as I don't believe his case is proven. Dennett uses more of his famous "intutition pumps" to elucidate his ideas on free will in a quasi-Socratic manner. Daniel Wegner, among others, is a better read than Dennett. View all 7 comments. Jan 31, W Geoff rated it it was amazing. Having read a lot in the area of consciousness and free-will and being a researcher in neuroscience, I can say that Dennett has a good grasp of the most important aspects of this field. For anyone not in the field, they can get an excellent review of the many sides of the debate. In addition to reading the scientific and philosophical journals, out of professional interest, I was also reading Wegner's "The illusion of Conscious Will". I can't be completely objective, because both authors were pr Having read a lot in the area of consciousness and free-will and being a researcher in neuroscience, I can say that Dennett has a good grasp of the most important aspects of this field. I can't be completely objective, because both authors were preaching to the choir. But as far as the writers out there who are in the field and trying to simultaneously get their latest theories out there while making them somewhat accessible to anyone interested, Dennett does a good job. I liked this as much, maybe more than Breaking the Spell, his book on explaining religion and his position on atheism. All in all a highly recommended read for anyone wondering how anyone could believe we don't have free will. Jan 27, P rated it it was ok. It's not that I would disagree with Dennett on his main points. It's that I despise his writing. All the space he uses to ridicule those who don't get his views, the overall condescending tone, the superfluous use of block quotes - sometimes only to show that he's famous: "hey, I was referenced to in this novel, in which there's a fictitious character who happens to be wrong about free will! Frankly, I expected better, and those expectations were probably why I ended up finishing the book: I h It's not that I would disagree with Dennett on his main points. Frankly, I expected better, and those expectations were probably why I ended up finishing the book: I held on to the hope that it would get better towards the end. Writing pop science is a tricky job. But as many other writers demonstrate, it is possible to be clear without being condescending, to be conversational without rambling, and to disagree with views without ridiculing them. All the same, I probably did get something out of this, although I'm rather unsure what it was I got. I award the second star in honor of that mysterious take-off. Oct 12, Paul Ataua rated it liked it. I have never been a Daniel Dennett fan. His occasional arrogance and sometimes stodgy style don't help, but he does provide the reader with lots of very stimulating arguments, and on several occasions, I found myself stopping to put the book down and spend time mulling over the points made. It was worth the three stars just to experience that. Sep 28, Xander rated it it was ok. I'm glad I did; the books make a lot more sense on a second reading and I have acquired a lot more background information and knowledge meanwhile. Each book contains a set of original ideas or new approaches to old problems, and for this Dennett deserves credit - a lot. A major drawback of his books is tha After re-reading Consciousness Explained and Darwin's Dangerous Idea recently, I decided to go all-out and re-read Freedom Evolves and Breaking the Spell as well. A major drawback of his books is that he easily gets bogged down in philosophical issues that a lot of readers will not like let alone follow. In this light, Freedom Evolves is a breath a fresh air, compared with Consciousness Explained and Darwin's Dangerous Idea - two amazingly difficult, dense works of pages Basically, Dennett applies the theory of evolution an algorithmic process to the notions of consciousness and free will. Does consciousness exists? Are we free? Dennett gives these questions his best shot and comes up with a coherent, convincing model of consciousness and somewhat less convincing human freedom. Here are some short steps that outline his main argument I'm sure I missed some important details. We - including our mental faculties - are products of natural selection, just like the rest of life on earth. Some steps are not yet clear and scientists are currently working on promising theories e. Even so, the broad outlines from millions of years of evolution are clear: from prokaryotes to eukaryotes to multicellular organisms to the diversity of life we witness. No skyhooks, cranes all the way! There's a path up to Mount Improbable - via 'situation-action machines', 'choice machines', 'Popperian hypothesis-generating intellects' - leading to our own mental world: 'Gregorian creatures'. In other words: there's an immense variety of degrees of freedom, all according to the 'need-to-know-principle' that economically minded Mother Nature endorses. Human consciousness and intelligence are adaptations, shaped by gene-meme coevolution. The origin of language led to an environment where humans communicate their mental states to each other and via this means learned to 'talk to themselves' i. Not only this: consciousness itself is a tool that we use in our everyday communication: our 'self' is a point of reference in dealing with others. This leads to the illusion of consciousness. We think there's a centre a Cartesian Theatre where the 'buck stops' - a sort of control centre where we observe our bodies as machines under our control. This is simply not true according to Dennett. In reality there are many simultaneous, parrallel processes going on inside our brains: consciousness is nothing else but our noticing of some processes - the ones that are most important for our functioning. So, you don't notice the neurological processes regulating your heartbeat; you will notice changes in your visual area though. Towards the end of his book - after dealing with consciousness - Dennett plunges into the debate of free will. Well, according to Dennett, freedom is gradual. In general, we are more free than human beings were years ago; some individuals are more free than others; human beings come equipped with more degrees of freedom the maximum possible? This doesn't solve the issue though: does it make sense to ask: could I have done otherwise at time t in situation X? If determinism is right, I could have done nothing else, therefore I am not free. Dennett doesn't solve the puzzle, he just asks us to not be too narrow in defining the options at time t - minor variations are allowed "If you make yourself really small, you can externalize everything". In other words: it is not useful to take a dive into the quantum world atom for atom comparisons or the mis use of quantum indeterminacy , just ask yourself if you could have achieved the thing you value in a range of similar circumstances. This still sounds fishy to me, it smells like a cleverly disguised evasion. But luckily Dennett comes to the rescue: determinism is not related to freedom. In other words: whether we live in a deterministic or an indeterministic universe is completely irrelevant to the question about free will. Dennett argues that only a deterministic world offers the stability and predictablity for nature to 'design' organisms that can use their intelligence to interact with the world to accomplish goals. This is entirely convincing and I personally don't see why so many people who fear determinism flee into obscure quantum indeterminacy. In essence, they claim that we are guided - in all our decisions - by complete randomness. Is this free? It seems to me we would be just bouncing balls of random happenings: where's the freedom in this? In all, this was an amusing book to read - food for thought - even though at some moments the main story became bogged down in intricate philosophical debates. I realize that this is a necessary inconvenience, but still found it tiresome at some points. In all, it's an interesting book that offers some original insights and is written in a clear and concise way. It's certainly one of Dennetts easier-to- follow books. For example, I found his treatment of consciousness one chapter much more enlightening than his treatment of consciousness in Consciousness Explained a whole book! There's still a nagging question after closing the book though. I'm not a philosopher, I'm just an interested onlooker, but it seems to me that Dennetts treatment of freedom is ultimately a retreat into obscurity. Do we have freedom, or not? Maybe that's not the right way to ask it, indeed. But saying that freedom is the 'capacity to achieve what we value in a range of circumstances' leaves a lot of questions unanswered. I think Dennett is right in claiming that freedom is gradual and that it is a product of gene-meme coevolution. He convinced me on these points. But that still leaves open the question of exactly how free the murderer is when he commits his act. According to Dennett, we should ask if this person can honestly acquiesce in his punishment; if not, then either this person is not rational and therefore not responsible for his crime or else this person is fully responsible for his self-control. Does Dennett claim that at least in jurisprudence freedom is a political construct? It seems so. It seems to me that Sam Harris' answer is much more coherent and convincing cf. Freedom Evolves by Daniel C. Dennett: | : Books

Plato Plato , Plato. Beyond Good And Evil. The Shepherd's Life. Guns, Germs and Steel. Great Ideas. Julian Baggini , Antonia Macaro. The Black Swan. Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The Book of Joy. The Sunday Times Bestseller. Dalai Lama , Desmond Tutu. The Soul Of The Marionette. The Righteous Mind. The Universe Within. Beyond Human Nature. Is God Happy? The Beginning of Infinity. Our top books, exclusive content and competitions. Straight to your inbox. Sign up to our newsletter using your email. Enter your email to sign up. Thank you! Your subscription to Read More was successful. And with such groundbreaking, critically acclaimed books as Consciousness Explained and Darwin's Dangerous Idea a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist , he has reached a huge general and professional audience. In this new book, Dennett shows that evolution is the key to resolving the ancient problems of moral and political freedom. Like the planet's atmosphere on which life depends, the conditions on which our freedom depends had to evolve, and like the atmosphere, they continue to evolve- and could be extinguished. According to Dennett, biology provides the perspective from which we can distinguish the varieties of freedom that matter. Throughout the history of life on this planet, an interacting web and internal and external conditions have provided the frameworks for the design of agents that are more free than their parts-from the unwitting gropings of the simplest life forms to the more informed activities of animals to the moral dilemmas that confront human beings living in societies. As in his previous books, Dennett weaves a richly detailed narrative enlivened by analogies as entertaining as they are challenging. Here is the story of how we came to be different from all other creatures, how our early ancestors mindlessly created human culture, and then, how culture gave us our minds, our visions, our moral problems-in a nutshell, our freedom. Compatibilism in Philosophy of Action. Edit this record. Mark as duplicate. Find it on Scholar. Request removal from index. Revision history. Download options PhilArchive copy. This entry has no external links. Add one. Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server Configure custom proxy use this if your affiliation does not provide a proxy. Configure custom resolver. Nathan Cofnas - - Foundations of Science 21 3 Nonreductive Physicalism and the Limits of the Exclusion Principle. Orly Shenker - - Iyyun Oxford University Press UK. Skepticism About Moral Responsibility. Gregg D. Caruso - - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Compatibilism Evolves? Manuel Vargas - - Metaphilosophy 36 4

Freedom Evolves - YES24

According to Dennett, biology provides the perspective from which we can distinguish the varieties of freedom that matter. Throughout the history of life on this planet, an interacting web and internal and external conditions have provided the frameworks for the design of agents that are more free than their parts-from the unwitting gropings of the simplest life forms to the more informed activities of animals to the moral dilemmas that confront human beings living in societies. As in his previous books, Dennett weaves a richly detailed narrative enlivened by analogies as entertaining as they are challenging. Here is the story of how we came to be different from all other creatures, how our early ancestors mindlessly created human culture, and then, how culture gave us our minds, our visions, our moral problems-in a nutshell, our freedom. Compatibilism in Philosophy of Action. Edit this record. Mark as duplicate. Find it on Scholar. Request removal from index. Revision history. Download options PhilArchive copy. This entry has no external links. Add one. Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server Configure custom proxy use this if your affiliation does not provide a proxy. Configure custom resolver. Nathan Cofnas - - Foundations of Science 21 3 Nonreductive Physicalism and the Limits of the Exclusion Principle. Orly Shenker - - Iyyun Oxford University Press UK. Skepticism About Moral Responsibility. Gregg D. Caruso - - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Compatibilism Evolves? Manuel Vargas - - Metaphilosophy 36 4 Dennett on Freedom. Alfred Mele - - Metaphilosophy 36 4 John Martin Fischer - unknown. I had heard that Dennett held some sort of compatibilist view, whereby he argues that true, non-deterministic free will arises through evolution from a basis of determinism at the lower physical level. I was looking forward to be challenged and even swayed to this position by good arguments. In this respect his arguments for evolved free will though they are largely informal and often not logically argued do provide some perspective for such people and may cushion the blow, or at least promote further thought. What I do respect about the work is that it is for once! Dennett draws from examples in psychology and neuroscience, and while his conclusions are sometimes tenuous and often speculative, they are at least grounded in physical fact. For me though, the ideas presented are not really that profound. The conclusions are often pushed past the point that they have been established through the argumentation, and to the extent that they have been demonstrated, they are often fairly obvious. The ideas and examples given can often be found elsewhere in his own work and the work of popular authors like Richard Dawkins. I would therefore only recommend this to someone with an interest, but who has not read many other works on these topics. Dec 17, Socraticgadfly rated it it was ok Shelves: philosophy. Not much new here, which is truer and truer of Dennett's later works The biggest problem, other than this book largely recycling "Elbow Room"? Dennett refuses to take his ideas on free will to their logical conclusion, and stops at a brink. That "logical brink" would be that, if there is no "Cartesian Meaner," no central controller of consciousness, then logically there is no "Cartesian Free Willer," no "central meaner," either. But, Dennett, as he did in Elbow Room written before he fully formula Not much new here, which is truer and truer of Dennett's later works The biggest problem, other than this book largely recycling "Elbow Room"? But, Dennett, as he did in Elbow Room written before he fully formulated his ideas of consciousness vs. Dennett rejects the philosophical label of "compatibilist" re his ideas on free will; nonetheless, any quibbles he has with the label are minor and ultimately, differences that make no difference. He claims that there are varieties of free will that do exist and are worth having. I would say, instead, "worth believing in," as I don't believe his case is proven. Dennett uses more of his famous "intutition pumps" to elucidate his ideas on free will in a quasi-Socratic manner. Daniel Wegner, among others, is a better read than Dennett. View all 7 comments. Jan 31, W Geoff rated it it was amazing. Having read a lot in the area of consciousness and free-will and being a researcher in neuroscience, I can say that Dennett has a good grasp of the most important aspects of this field. For anyone not in the field, they can get an excellent review of the many sides of the debate. In addition to reading the scientific and philosophical journals, out of professional interest, I was also reading Wegner's "The illusion of Conscious Will". I can't be completely objective, because both authors were pr Having read a lot in the area of consciousness and free-will and being a researcher in neuroscience, I can say that Dennett has a good grasp of the most important aspects of this field. I can't be completely objective, because both authors were preaching to the choir. But as far as the writers out there who are in the field and trying to simultaneously get their latest theories out there while making them somewhat accessible to anyone interested, Dennett does a good job. I liked this as much, maybe more than Breaking the Spell, his book on explaining religion and his position on atheism. All in all a highly recommended read for anyone wondering how anyone could believe we don't have free will. Jan 27, P rated it it was ok. It's not that I would disagree with Dennett on his main points. It's that I despise his writing. All the space he uses to ridicule those who don't get his views, the overall condescending tone, the superfluous use of block quotes - sometimes only to show that he's famous: "hey, I was referenced to in this novel, in which there's a fictitious character who happens to be wrong about free will! Frankly, I expected better, and those expectations were probably why I ended up finishing the book: I h It's not that I would disagree with Dennett on his main points. Frankly, I expected better, and those expectations were probably why I ended up finishing the book: I held on to the hope that it would get better towards the end. Writing pop science is a tricky job. But as many other writers demonstrate, it is possible to be clear without being condescending, to be conversational without rambling, and to disagree with views without ridiculing them. All the same, I probably did get something out of this, although I'm rather unsure what it was I got. I award the second star in honor of that mysterious take-off. Oct 12, Paul Ataua rated it liked it. I have never been a Daniel Dennett fan. His occasional arrogance and sometimes stodgy style don't help, but he does provide the reader with lots of very stimulating arguments, and on several occasions, I found myself stopping to put the book down and spend time mulling over the points made. It was worth the three stars just to experience that. Sep 28, Xander rated it it was ok. I'm glad I did; the books make a lot more sense on a second reading and I have acquired a lot more background information and knowledge meanwhile. Each book contains a set of original ideas or new approaches to old problems, and for this Dennett deserves credit - a lot. A major drawback of his books is tha After re-reading Consciousness Explained and Darwin's Dangerous Idea recently, I decided to go all-out and re-read Freedom Evolves and Breaking the Spell as well. A major drawback of his books is that he easily gets bogged down in philosophical issues that a lot of readers will not like let alone follow. In this light, Freedom Evolves is a breath a fresh air, compared with Consciousness Explained and Darwin's Dangerous Idea - two amazingly difficult, dense works of pages Basically, Dennett applies the theory of evolution an algorithmic process to the notions of consciousness and free will. Does consciousness exists? Are we free? Dennett gives these questions his best shot and comes up with a coherent, convincing model of consciousness and somewhat less convincing human freedom. Here are some short steps that outline his main argument I'm sure I missed some important details. We - including our mental faculties - are products of natural selection, just like the rest of life on earth. Some steps are not yet clear and scientists are currently working on promising theories e. Even so, the broad outlines from millions of years of evolution are clear: from prokaryotes to eukaryotes to multicellular organisms to the diversity of life we witness. No skyhooks, cranes all the way! There's a path up to Mount Improbable - via 'situation-action machines', 'choice machines', 'Popperian hypothesis-generating intellects' - leading to our own mental world: 'Gregorian creatures'. In other words: there's an immense variety of degrees of freedom, all according to the 'need-to-know-principle' that economically minded Mother Nature endorses. Human consciousness and intelligence are adaptations, shaped by gene-meme coevolution. The origin of language led to an environment where humans communicate their mental states to each other and via this means learned to 'talk to themselves' i. Not only this: consciousness itself is a tool that we use in our everyday communication: our 'self' is a point of reference in dealing with others. This leads to the illusion of consciousness. We think there's a centre a Cartesian Theatre where the 'buck stops' - a sort of control centre where we observe our bodies as machines under our control. This is simply not true according to Dennett. In reality there are many simultaneous, parrallel processes going on inside our brains: consciousness is nothing else but our noticing of some processes - the ones that are most important for our functioning. So, you don't notice the neurological processes regulating your heartbeat; you will notice changes in your visual area though. Towards the end of his book - after dealing with consciousness - Dennett plunges into the debate of free will. Well, according to Dennett, freedom is gradual. In general, we are more free than human beings were years ago; some individuals are more free than others; human beings come equipped with more degrees of freedom the maximum possible? This doesn't solve the issue though: does it make sense to ask: could I have done otherwise at time t in situation X? If determinism is right, I could have done nothing else, therefore I am not free. Dennett doesn't solve the puzzle, he just asks us to not be too narrow in defining the options at time t - minor variations are allowed "If you make yourself really small, you can externalize everything". In other words: it is not useful to take a dive into the quantum world atom for atom comparisons or the mis use of quantum indeterminacy , just ask yourself if you could have achieved the thing you value in a range of similar circumstances. This still sounds fishy to me, it smells like a cleverly disguised evasion. But luckily Dennett comes to the rescue: determinism is not related to freedom. In other words: whether we live in a deterministic or an indeterministic universe is completely irrelevant to the question about free will. Dennett argues that only a deterministic world offers the stability and predictablity for nature to 'design' organisms that can use their intelligence to interact with the world to accomplish goals. This is entirely convincing and I personally don't see why so many people who fear determinism flee into obscure quantum indeterminacy. In essence, they claim that we are guided - in all our decisions - by complete randomness. Is this free? It seems to me we would be just bouncing balls of random happenings: where's the freedom in this? In all, this was an amusing book to read - food for thought - even though at some moments the main story became bogged down in intricate philosophical debates. I realize that this is a necessary inconvenience, but still found it tiresome at some points. In all, it's an interesting book that offers some original insights and is written in a clear and concise way. It's certainly one of Dennetts easier-to-follow books. For example, I found his treatment of consciousness one chapter much more enlightening than his treatment of consciousness in Consciousness Explained a whole book! There's still a nagging question after closing the book though. I'm not a philosopher, I'm just an interested onlooker, but it seems to me that Dennetts treatment of freedom is ultimately a retreat into obscurity. Do we have freedom, or not? Maybe that's not the right way to ask it, indeed. But saying that freedom is the 'capacity to achieve what we value in a range of circumstances' leaves a lot of questions unanswered. I think Dennett is right in claiming that freedom is gradual and that it is a product of gene-meme coevolution. He convinced me on these points. But that still leaves open the question of exactly how free the murderer is when he commits his act. According to Dennett, we should ask if this person can honestly acquiesce in his punishment; if not, then either this person is not rational and therefore not responsible for his crime or else this person is fully responsible for his self-control. Does Dennett claim that at least in jurisprudence freedom is a political construct? It seems so. It seems to me that Sam Harris' answer is much more coherent and convincing cf. Harris, Harris claims that if you would trade places, atom for atom, with this murderer, including his personal history, you would do exactly the same thing - is this freedom? But then again, if you would trade places, you wouldn't be you anymore This is another famous, excruciatingly tiresome philosophical thought experiment: If an evil neurosurgeon would take your brains out of your body and put it in someone else body - ofcourse under anaesthesia - would you be this other person? Or would you be your old self? These sorts of philosophical thought experiments are excruciatingly tiresome: if this evil neurosurgeon would do the things explained, you would simple be dead. What if an evil brain surgeon anaesthesizes you and puts your brain in vat and Practically impossible! Maybe I'll just wait another 25 years to await the advances in neuroscience and cognitive psychology instead of reading more books of philosophers on free will, consciousness and mind. I don't necessarily read his books for the information, but more for the way they get me to think about things I haven't considered. Imagine a library of books with every possible combination of letters and numbers and symbols. Every book ever written or that ever will be written would be contained in this library. What exactly is the point of such an imaginary library? To distinguish between large numbers and infinite? I think it had something to do with showing what is possible using DNA, but there's more contained in the idea than just that. Or less. Philosophy is more about ways of thinking and justifications than reality, exactly. Or something. So in this book, Dennett defends the existence of free will. And he says it's consistent with determinism. Perhaps he is successful, I don't know. But what he did do, throughout this book, is make me really consider what the concept of free will means to me. And what determinism means. And what it might mean for me to say something like, "I wish I had done such and such. My head starts hurting and maybe I miss a few lines of the text as I read past them, too quickly, still considering an idea that he brought up paragraphs earlier. But it's a good kind of hurt and I'm glad I read it. That being said, if you gave me a test on this book, I don't think I'd pass. Aug 23, Daniel Hageman rated it liked it Shelves: owned , harris-recommended , free-will , audiobooks-owned. The problem, however, is that he drastically underestimates the adherence to libertarian free will that continues to permeate society, particularly across religious cultures. May 05, Wayland Smith rated it it was ok. A lot of philosophy about whether or not we have free will, or if everything is fated beforehand. I know there was a reason this was on my to-read list, but looking back at it, I really can't remember why. A bit dry in places. Oct 27, Jason rated it liked it. Some people worry about free will. They worry in particular about not having it. If our universe is deterministic, a hypothetical being who knows all the physical properties of the universe at one point in time - where all the particles are, and where they're moving - and possesses sufficient computing power, knows the entire history and future of the universe. He knows, for example, what you're going to choose for breakfast tomorrow - and the day after, and the day after that, and all your futur Some people worry about free will. He knows, for example, what you're going to choose for breakfast tomorrow - and the day after, and the day after that, and all your future breakfast choices until you die and he knows the date and cause of your death. If the whole world, including our brains, works like clockwork then, I may worry, "I'm" not really deciding anything I think or do. The laws of the physical universe have decided everything already: my initial makeup, my external environment, and how I will respond to it. So how can we be responsible for what we do, and how can we be praised or blamed? Feeling uncomfortable about this, but unwilling to abandon a universe ruled by physical laws, some have argued that we might be able to escape the problem if our universe is not deterministic. Happily enough, quantum mechanics shows indeterminacy exists in the physical world. That is, reality appears to have a degree of randomness about it, which appears mainly at the subatomic level. There are many possible future universes, and so even an omniscient being doesn't know for sure what the future looks like. But is this relevant to how much control you have over your own decisions? Dennett argues, though it is an aside to his main thesis, that it does not. If what happens in the universe at a subatomic level is based entirely on impersonal physical processes, "you" don't obviously have more free will if those processes are non-deterministic. Dennett's view seems to be that all attempts to argue that what happens in your brain is not the result of impersonal subatomic interactions seem to involve postulating explicitly or - more commonly these days - implicitly, some kind of immaterial soul or mind that is distinct from your body the idea known as Cartesian dualism. Dennett refutes arguments that try to derive free will from indeterminacy, in particular those of Robert Kane. Dennett sees free will at a subatomic level as both unattainable and - equally provocatively - not even desirable. Dennett is by no means a skeptic about free will. The first main point of his book is that morally significant free will, the kind that most if us want to have, has got nothing to do with what happens at a subatomic level, or whether or not our universe is deterministic. This is called the "compatibilist" version of free will, held by many philosophers from Hobbes and Hume onward. If you zoom right in on me, or on you, we're just an assembly of particles behaving according to physical laws. If you look at in any particular neighbourhood of molecules, you can't tell if you're looking at a human being or a lump of coal. But as you zoom out, you start to see patterns and structures - cells, tissues, organs, and eventually animals. What's more, those structures are not just a chance grouping at one instant: they are persistent, and self-replicating and evolving over time. Dennett holds that it is at this level that notions of avoidance, will, and choice emerge. They are innate "designed" capabilities. We are natural born choosers. We constantly receive information from the environment, process it both "consciously" and otherwise and then make decisions to cause particular things to come about, or to avoid things from coming about - to the extent that we foresee or anticipate them. Many animals, in fact, exercise some degree of choice, but we have evolved this capability to an extremely sophisticated and qualitatively greater extent. In Dennett's example, if we're at bat in baseball and the ball is pitched at our body, we may choose to avoid it to escape pain and injury as many animals would or we may avoid avoiding it in service of some other uniquely human goal we have in mind gaining a walk to first base, winning the game, etc. At this level, we have a kind of free will, so long as no one else is actively coercing us to do one thing or another. Dennett, in common with other compatibilists, thinks this everyday version of free will is much more important and relevant to autonomy and morality than the subatomic or metaphysical sort. Much of the rest of the book is speculation about how this kind of free will might have evolved. This discussion was, for me at least, less compelling. Nevertheless, I found the book as a whole highly worthwhile. View 2 comments. If you like what Daniel Dennett calls "toy universes" or "toy worlds," you will love this book. If, like me, you question the validity of contrived analogies between "toy" mental constructions and the actual human world, you will find the book less endearing. Interspersed among lengthy digressions on toy mental constructions in the first half of this book are comments that sometimes appear to be germane to the issue at hand: scientific determinism versus free will. Dennett is a self-acknowledged If you like what Daniel Dennett calls "toy universes" or "toy worlds," you will love this book. Dennett is a self-acknowledged "compatibilist"—one who takes a middle road between the "hard determinists" and the advocates of free will. Dennett, Freedom Evolves , Kindle ed. How Dennett can take such a position without violating the principle of non contradiction is the central mystery of this work. He tries to accomplish it by utilizing semantic legerdemain: changing the historical meanings of such terms as "determinism," "inevitability," and "free will" so that they signify something other than what they have classically meant in the millennia of philosophical, scientific, and other debate on these issues. In Dennett's universe, "determinism" does not imply either inevitability or causation, and "free will" does not mean free will but rather something like free will. Nevertheless, like the impossibility of following the ball in quantum mechanics, I still don't understand his exact position even after two readings of this book. The judgment of Dennett's hard-determinist friend Sam Harris whose book on free will I have otherwise critically reviewed here may be on point: "As I have said, I think compatibilists like Dennett change the subject: They trade a psychological fact— the subjective experience of being a conscious agent—for a conceptual understanding of ourselves as persons. This is a bait and switch. About half-way through his book, Dennett transitions from an obsession with game theory to a preoccupation with genetic and cultural evolution. This change in focus was welcome to the present reader. At least here we are dealing with empirical fact or, more precisely, Dennett's interpretation of empirical fact through more analogical reasoning. But the relevance of this large digression to the issue of determinism versus free will is less than apparent. Although the last two chapters delineate a picture of evolved human life that implies free will, he nevertheless maintains until the end of the book that scientific determinism remains valid. The entire book juggles these inconsistent concepts as though they are somehow compatible, but in the end Dennett never resolves the contradiction. Alan E. Johnson April 29, Jul 21, Gary Beauregard Bottomley rated it it was amazing. I enjoy the author's approach to our deterministic universe and the perspective of free will with moral responsibility for our own actions. As always, the author is never in your face with his beliefs and practices the art of critical reasoning better than anyone. He puts others contrary viewpoints in their most effective forms and systematically shows why they are not right and are not as effective as they might seem at first glance, and then goes on to build a coherent consistent system. For me I enjoy the author's approach to our deterministic universe and the perspective of free will with moral responsibility for our own actions. For me, I enjoy the author's writing style, but I realize it can be dense for others and the author himself refers to some of his previous writing as "obscure and difficult". I guess I like obscure and difficult when I know at the end I'll understand the subject matter better than I have ever before. He says that "if you make anything small enough than everything will be external". By making the role of the individual insignificant you will make free will outside of the person and free will belongs within us not outside of us. Also, he says that "we all want to be held accountable for our own actions", both at the individual and societal level. That makes free will within us. As the author steps the reader through the development of freedom, he also gives the listener some of the best takes on why homo sapiens are so different from any other species known in the universe. Most of what is in this book seems to be covered in his other books I've read, Consciousness, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, and Intuition Pumps. For those who don't have the time to read those three books 2 of which are fairly long listens , this book would act as a great surrogate for them. Mar 18, Richard Rogers rated it really liked it. Daniel Dennett is a brilliant explainer. He takes a blend of science and philosophy and makes it accessible to the casual well, non-scientist reader. He certainly does that in this book, though I can't claim to understand big chunks of his logic, for which I blame myself.

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