Year: 2006

Selection from a competition by kids writing thank-you letters for Christmas gifts, with meanings completely reversed by alternative punctuation. [via BBC] Creative. Made me smile.

Just started reading Dan Dennett’s 2003 “Freedom Evolves”. I’ve had it quite some time, but I’m not sure why I’ve only just picked it up.

First off, it slays any doubts that Dennett is one of those who believes consciousness and free-will are illusory and in any sense non-existent. I always knew he was too common-sensible to think that, whatever his detractors implied. (Sue Blackmore on the other hand does really seem to say free-will is completely illusory – see her Edge 2006 Response – and everything totally pointless. I still harbour the hope she’s just being provocative on the former, even if the latter is certainly true on any over-arching teleological sense.)

I’ve only just started Dennett – but the confusion is in not making any distinction between “determinism” and the “what if” (in another possible world) I did this instead of that. The illusory intuition is in the possible worlds, not in the fact that in the actual world that does happen, it’s the actions we do take that determine the actual outcomes (determine that is, along with all the other causes and effects that actually do happen.) If A, then B happens. The inevitability is in the “then”, the free-will is in the “if”. Fundamentally the world is deterministic, but that doesn’t preclude free-will. Our will’s are applied at quite different higher levels of ontological abstraction and language, from the fundamental deterministic level. It’s one of those level-switching or “category errors”.

Interestingly all roads lead back to “if” – ie the varieties of possibility (metaphysical, conceivable, logical, physical) and to good old causation and time themselves. A promising start.

OK, I’m pretty liberal when it comes to “But is it art ?” issues. If the artists art says something, anything, that’s OK by me whatever it is. But where exactly is the artist here ?

Two links thanks to Sam at Elizaphanian.

A two part interview in Der Spiegel with Dan Dennett about the ID-Creationism vs neo-Darwinism debate. [Now read through completely. Nothing new. Just Dennett’s Darwinian put-down of any need for a super-natural causal god. Inlcudes the memetic argument for the self-preserving evolution of religions themselves. Also inlcudes the warning about mis-application of pan-Darwinist evolutionary mechanisms in inappropriate situations – neo-Darwinism is such an attractive idea it can be mis-applied. Quite tersely and clearly stated, thanks to the interview style. Worth a read if you’ve not already read and accepted “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea”.]

A U-Penn paper from 2000, on the subject of memes generally, what they are and how useful the Darwinist parallel really is. [Now read through fully. Well researched detail with many references. Dawkins, Dennett, Blackmore obviously, Schank surprisingly, but no Midgley. Again nothing really new. Main message is that warning about the woolly edges in defining memes, and that users of the memetic ideas in social anthropological spheres are unlikely to be experts in detailed bio-genetic mechanisms, so precise parallels will rarely be drawn. Practical conclusion – this stuff is only useful in so far as you make use of it – the metaphor doesn’t stand up to too much “navel gazing”. Agreed.]

I mentioned in the recent post on Dennett and Blackmore, that neither seemed to be majoring on the memetic angle (or at least use of the word meme) in their current consciousness work. Intriguing.

The Edge annual question (and answers) for 2006 is up on their site. (My post header is from the BBC quote about The Edge.) This year’s theme is “Dangerous Ideas” – things that might actually be true.

I’ll post more when I’ve distilled a few of my favourite answers from the great and the good.