Elbow room
the varieties of free will worth wanting
by Daniel C. Dennett · first published 1984
75% recommend25% neutral
In Elbow Room, Dennett shows how the classical formulation of the problem in philosophy depend on misuses of imagination, and he disentangles the philosophical problems of real interest from the "family of anxieties" they get enmeshed in-imaginary agents, bogeymen, and dire prospects that seem to threaten our freedom.
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I recommend Dennett's review of Harris's book to people who recommend it: https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/13814 Also Elbow Room, or, better, Freedom Evolves.
on “What If Consciousness Comes First?” ↗…anticipate others' actions, the freedom to manipulate other agents with our clever words. Dan Dennett makes a better case for this than I, please look into his wonderful books on the topic. Daniel Dennett: --Elbow Room --Freedom Evolves
on “What's expected of us” ↗I recommend reading "Elbow Room: the varieties of free will worth wanting" by Daniel Dennett to get a better handle on what the term "free will" might actually mean.
on “Consciousness and the Laws of Physics” ↗Dennett did better, IMO, in "Elbow Room: the varieties of free will worth wanting"
on “Can you use your "free will"? Try your hand” ↗> The next question is: [ ... ] Dennett has you covered there too. His book "Elbow Room: the varieties of free will worth wanting" is a must-read on this topic.
on “Daniel Dennett: 'Where Am I?'” ↗I know most people here find these experiments absurd, but folks like Daniel Dennett (in Elbow Room, which I think he later retracts for a Compatibilist view) and Richard Dawkins have widely construed the result as "proof" of a deterministic universe. Indeed, a deterministic universe (or at least one…
Maybe you discovered Dennett after 1992, but he was a well-known and widely published philosopher long before. "Elbow Room: the varieties of free will worth wanting" was a landmark work and was published in 1984. "The Minds I" (w/Hofstadter) was, relatively speaking, a hugely popular work published in 1981. In 1993, the…
on “Daniel Dennett has died” ↗