Joined: 6 Feb 2005 Age: 44 Gender: Male Posts: 24,195 Location: 28th Path of Tzaddi
11 Nov 2016, 5:44 pm
This is a conversation he got in with Daniel Dennett over the summer outside a TED conference at Banff.
From listening to this, I have to say it, it sounds like Dennett's losing his edge. The closest thing I can gather from the case he's making is that he's in favor of the proverbial noble lie which is rephrasing determinism as compatiblism while rabidly denying that it's determinism - that he agrees with Harris but comes to the conclusion that most people will either completely misunderstand the significance of determinism or molest it to their benefit and that we'd have rule of law collapse if this were commonly accepted.
To me that take on it makes no sense because there's a very firm sense of utility in what Sam Harris is saying which nullifies that - ie. that if there's no free will then you have software interacting with hardware. Most of our society's problems are related then to bad/faulty software and by taking societal software injects seriously you could greatly improve culture as well as expediting the rehabilitation of those who are legal offenders of one type or another. Actually with the case he makes it seems not just practical but even immoral to bring solely punitive aspects into legal verdicts.
Regardless let me know if any of you come to the same conclusion.
_________________ “Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace - not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” - James Baldwin
11 Nov 2016, 5:44 pm
