Dennett on free will

As I mentioned previously, I went to a talk this evening by Daniel Dennett, Is science showing that we don’t have free will, wherein he argued that determinism is not incompatible with the concept of free will, and is in fact irrelevant. He puts forward the (on the surface convincing) case that determinism, being a function of physics, is independent of free will, which is a function of evolution.

I won’t even attempt to analyse his arguments here, as I only made very sporadic notes through the hour and a half presentation, although in general I thought that he made quite a good case, but I will refer back to the recording when it becomes available.

This was the first time that I’ve seen Dennett in person (he’s much taller than I imagined) having previously only ever heard audio recordings and seen brief video interviews. As I’d hoped, he was thoroughly engaging, humorous, straightforward and a joy to listen to.

The only thing that someone who didn’t have any exposure to philosophy in general, or Dennett in particular, was his single use of the term “skyhook”, although the context would have given the listener an idea of to what he was referring.

My choice of quote of the evening (paraphrased as I didn’t have a pen and paper to hand at that precise moment):

There’s a technical term for that period of time between a decision and regret: the onosecond.

I’ll post a link to the podcast (it was also video recorded, so it may even be a video podcast) as and when it’s made available on the University of Edinburgh podcast page.

For Tales, here’s the video showing the motor proteins in action (as on the front cover of Nature 27 June 2003) (1m15s in).

And two books to buy: I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter and The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. As if I don’t already have enough to read…

And finally, congratulations to Professor Dennett on his honourary DLit (and to Michael Palin too!) from the University of Edinburgh.

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