

How Dumb is Daniel Dennett? - hhm
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dennettdumb

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byrneseyeview
This would be just as informative if someone else wrote a blog post called
"How dumb do you have to be to say 'How dumb is Daniel Dennett?'" and then
quoted Aaron's in full. No new information, no arguments. I know from other
posts that Aaron is a fan of John Searle (whose "Chinese room" argument
disproves a Turing Test for artificial intelligence by disproving any kind of
intelligence). So to me, this post reads like a reminder that Aaron is on a
particular side of a particular squabble.

~~~
randallsquared
If Dennett's argument (in the ordered list in that post) is stated accurately,
it _is_ obviously wrong. Having not read _Freedom Evolves_, I can't say
whether this is an accurate summary, but it's clear that "to avoid the actions
you'll deterministically take" and "to avoid objects" are not using "avoid" in
the same sense.

~~~
byrneseyeview
Sure. I get the feeling I'm not hearing an accurate summary -- like when Naomi
Klein turns something like "the pursuit of rational self-interest maximizes
collective gain" into "They're trying to convince people that by doing good
you do bad, and that by being bad -- by pursuing your most selfish desires --
you do good." (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2kTy7glZ9s>).

I've read some Dennett, and I've never found anything amenable to the
paraphrase AS quoted. I'm sure if you wanted to, you could find people who
tell you how ridiculous Dennett was by quoting him that way, just as people
have had a great time finding out what Milton Friedman said by way of Klein's
parody. I suspect that AS just hasn't bothered to consider the possibility
that he and his idol are wrong.

~~~
yters
Later on q reaffirms aaron's argument (@ 2008-01-19T10:55:30), seemingly based
on q's own read of DD's work. So, at least two seemingly smart people come to
the same conclusion independently.

~~~
hhm
Who is q?

~~~
mhb
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_>

But I don't recall seeing Dennett in any episodes.

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dusklight
How did this completely unimportant blog post make it to the top page on
hacker news?

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cglee
It seems to me that the entire study of philosophy is comprised of arguments
based on linguistic puns; how else to express our thoughts? As long as we are
limited by language, any existing language, we are constrained by its syntax
and semantics. This is analogous to the study of physics with math; we often
need to invent new math to model physical phenomenon. Likewise, until we
invent a suitable new philosophy language to model the world, we're just going
to spin our wheels.

~~~
ereldon
somebody's been reading wittgenstein

~~~
cglee
I haven't ever actually, but I may have to start now.

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axod
Why is this useful or interesting to hackers?

Seems like Aaron doesn't like Daniel. Also seems like it belongs in a soap
opera and not on ycnews.

~~~
hhm
I posted it here not for Aaron, but for Dennet. I thought that the argument
posted by Aaron (and attributed to Dennet) was silly, and if that argument was
truely Dennet's, then maybe he was right at some level. That was it.

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hugh
How dumb is Daniel Dennett? Umm, not very. From what I've read of his work he
seems to be pretty smart, which is why I suspect that this Aaron guy is
misunderstanding his argument. I note that his summary is in fact a summary of
somebody else's summary.

I haven't read Freedom Evolves, but my guess is that Dennett was actually
making an argument that it's possible to simulate, in a deterministic
universe, entities which have "free will", or at least which believe they do.
I doubt he really makes an argument based on confusing two different meanings
of the word "unavoidable".

Though I'm happy to be proven wrong if anyone can post some actual quotes from
the book.

------
jey
I haven't read Freedom Evolves, but I intend to. Judging by the list of points
that Aaron provides and Dennett's other books, I bet Dennett's actual point
was to say: 'Look, this is _plausible_ , and you can't dismiss it out of hand.
Yes, obviously the data still needs to come in to determine whether this is
the _actual_ truth, but you shouldn't consider it a foregone conclusion that
this isn't a valid option.'

Here's some "primary source" Dennett material in contrast to Aaron's angry
"tertiary source" rant: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=101017>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=101024>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=101023>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=66917>

------
DaniFong
Hark! Philosophy doesn't have the same standards of argument as 20th century
mathematics! Sound the alarm!

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WilliamLP
I like Dennett a lot precisely because he's badly behaved and disrespectful of
other philosophers.

Free Will is a completely meaningless concept. I don't know what it means in
the real world, or how I could test for it, or what would be different if it
did or didn't exist, and neither does anyone else. I don't know why people
spend so much energy squabbling about it.

At least consciousness (which Dennett might but in the same category...
something that affects _precisely_ nothing) is something I can experience.

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curi
He quotes a person whose like or dislike of Dennet is _not based on how good
Dennet's ideas are_ and instead are based on personal character:

"I used to be a rabid Dennettite [until] I started reading more widely in the
subject, and found that Dennett had been pretty (no, make that very) badly
behaved [...] And that's when the hate developed."

Aaron goes on to call Dennet "stupid" but fails to actually seriously discuss
any on-topic ideas.

