Rex Allen wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 2:37 PM, Brent Meeker<meekerdb.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>>> Either way, there is only the epiphenomenal experience of making my
>>> mind up...not the actuality of doing so.
>> I'd say there was the epiphenomenal experience of making up your mind AND the actuality of
>> doing so. Your formulation divorces "you" from from everything and leaves "you" as a kind
>> of ghost.
>
> Well, that's physicalism for you. I'm not saying that it's my
> view...which is why I said "assuming physicalism".
>
>
>> Brent
>> "If you make yourself small enough you can avoid responsibility for everything."
>> --- Daniel Dennett, in Elbow Room
>
> Yeah, Dennett just redefines words in new ways so that he can say
> something like that and have it mean something entirely different than
> it would under common usage. The goal being to convince people that a
> deterministic world-view doesn't drastically change anything, and
> therefore they shouldn't be alarmed by it. "All the moral and ethical
> beliefs you had before are still basically true! (IF you redefine all
> the words so that they mean something different than what you took
> them to mean before.)"
>
> Every word in your quote, except "for", has to be considered in the
> context of Dennett's special terminology.
Seems prefectly straightforward to me. If you define yourself as something apart from the
physical processes that move your arms and legs then you avoid responsibility for what
your arms and legs do.
Brent
>
> It's all just sophistry, to advance his "Bright" agenda. Which I have
> nothing against per se...a world full of Brights would be an
> improvement over the current situation I think.
>
> But his Bright propaganda isn't at all helpful in trying to understand
> the underlying nature of reality.
>
> >
>
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Received on Mon Aug 31 2009 - 13:01:45 PDT