1. Daniel Dennett: Autobiography (Part 1)

Comment #221394 by IanD on July 29, 2008 at 3:20 pm

Dennett has more space to write about his view on free will in his book "Elbow Room: the varieties of Free Will worth wanting"

Much as I enjoy Freedom Evolves, it doesn't go into the reasons why Dennett picked the version of free will to defend that he has.

And yes, I first heard of Dennett when "Consciousness Explained" became available from my book club, and promptly persuaded me to track down as many of his books as possible...

2. The Stupidity of Dignity

Comment #181652 by IanD on May 17, 2008 at 7:45 pm

Re

23. Comment #179058 by Szkeptik on May 12, 2008 at 1:11 pm
I would like to direct GW Bush to this article, but on second thought he would probably be unable to read the whole thing anyway.

I think it's worse than that - whoever he paid to read it to him wouldn't be able to compress it to words of one syllable or less, and would probably be too frightened of losing their job to translate it more accurately than "Elitist Atheist Liberal Academic Pinker hates you and has no ethics or dignity"

:-(

IanD

3. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #175769 by IanD on May 6, 2008 at 2:20 am

Re: Comment #175264 by beeline on May 5, 2008 at 3:44 am

Bill Gates probably never used a computer.


I *really* wanted to click 'Strongly Agree' after that one...

Shouldn't it have read
"Bill Gates should never have used a computer"?

4. What's the Point of the Archbishop of Canterbury?

Comment #139866 by IanD on March 6, 2008 at 3:27 pm

Saerain said:

As Letts was saying around 22:40, it seems the Archbishop feels a duty to protect all time-worn superstition from the cold-hearted secularists of his 'spiritually weakened' country. I have encountered a startling number of people with this mindset. With them in mind, I would not be surprised to see religion at some point reverse its tendency to fracture, instead coming together against the likes of us as their common enemy.

Sheri S Tepper wrote a novel called "Raising the Stones" where this had happened, and the result was a planet called "Voorstad".

IanD.

5. Ben Stein Wins Intelligent Design Money

Comment #128701 by IanD on February 17, 2008 at 5:30 pm

Re Comment 58 Dicanu

There's actually a book by an Australian geologist called Ian Plimer called "Telling Lies For God"

IanD.

6. Sharia law in UK is 'unavoidable'

Comment #123894 by IanD on February 7, 2008 at 11:24 pm

I just saw this on NZ news, and there were 161 comments already. My immediate thoughts:

"Isn't it within living memory that the UK fought a bloody World War against having foreign totalitarian laws imposed on them?"

I really don't believe it.

PS: make that extremely bloody.

IanD

7. US 'doomed' if creationist president elected: scientists

Comment #108890 by IanD on January 7, 2008 at 7:51 pm

Comment #108759 by NJS on January 7, 2008 at 2:24 pm
This topic seems to have turned into a grooming session over Anna :)

If that's the case, then I'll add my $0.02 (~$0.015 US) and point out that NZ has an openly atheist woman as Prime Minister, who kept us out of Iraq. Whether we will have her services next year is unknown. The least sunny place in NZ (Invercargill or Dunedin, depending on year) has more sun that the sunniest place in the UK, if that matters to you. The South Island in particular is littered with scenery. There are no snakes and essentially no other critters poisonous enough to kill you (well, except for a statistically non-zero but hopefully numerically small number of humans, but you'd get that anywhere except perhaps Antarctica ;-).

"Flight on the Conchords" on HBO or BitTorrent has the genuine accent and relative lack of extraversion. The rest is writing and acting.

Disclaimer: I do not live in a part I would expect you to visit for any reason at all and doubt that we will ever meet.

Oh, and the last time religion was strongly linked to politics, it was blamed for losing the election for the local right-wing party (who were found to be rather too close to the Exclusive Brethren and some attack leaflets).

Anyway, make up your own mind!

IanD

8. Could there be a Darwinian Account of Human Creativity?

Comment #105417 by IanD on December 31, 2007 at 1:37 pm

Re: Comment #105298 by VanYoungman

I agree that The Mind's I has many good essays on free will, it's just that I wanted to reply on the same night as I started reading this, and if I open The Mind's I to look for relevant bits, I will end up re-reading it, and posibly not post at all ;-)

Happy New Year from NZ,

IanD

9. Could there be a Darwinian Account of Human Creativity?

Comment #105227 by IanD on December 30, 2007 at 11:57 pm

For those interested in Free Will, Dennett's 1984 book "Elbow Room" (subtitle "The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting") is a good read. Don't expect to end up with THE ANSWER, but it manages to make sense while giving a clearer picture of just how slippery a concept it is, and how difficult it is to think about.

It considers several different types of choice that could be meant by the term "Free Will", and explores what people have historically worried could be the consequence of not having that type.

It gives more background to Comment #105097 by Sturmunddrang, which I will try to simplify as follows:
(imaginary conversation)
Wegner "The laws of the physical universe prevent _This_Type_ of free will - therefore free will doesn't exist. QED."
Dennett "Sure. But nobody needs _That_ type of free will - they need _This_Other_Type_ - and we do in fact have that."

If you've always believed that free will was obviously (insert your definition here), then Dennett's reply seems strange and/or silly, but it makes more sense in context.

Anyway, that's my $0.02 (in the dollar of your choice) of gross oversimplification of a philosophical argument for tonight. ;-)

Cheers All,

IanD.