On Tue, 11 Feb 2003, "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Keith Hudson wrote:
>> Hi Harry and Brad,
>>
>> If I may break into the interesting discussion, a recent book by Daniel
>> Dennett may be food for thought for both of you. It's "Freedom Evolves"
>> published over here by Allen Lane/Penguin.
>>
>> His thesis concerns the dilemma:
>>
>> "Either our actions are determined, in which case there is nothing we
>> can do about them, or our actions are random, in which case we can do
>> nothing about them."
>
>This Mr./Dr./Prof. Dennett is a lovely example of the
>superficial obliviousness of the artificial intelligentsia
>or whatever persons who get paid to do philosophy but
>have not absorbed the lessons of Kant's "transcendental turn"
>may be called or call themselves. Just say no to these
>people's words, books, courses, etc.
>
>The point of entry into the appropriate conversation is
>not "free will", but *the meaningfulness of discourse*. If
>our words have meaning instead of just position and velocity
>(but even to say they have that is to already to answer the
>question in the affirmative) -- if our words have
>meaning, then this whole puzzlement about free will and
>determination must somehow find its place in our
>conversation abouit it, and not the other way around.
>
>Unfortunately, the market is not competent to
>judge this matter.
>
>
>>
>> To try and cut through all the verbiage of philosophers hitherto,
>
>Like: Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Cassirer, Habermas....
>
>Dennett would probably do less damage if he was simply a computer
>programmer. I'll be glad to trade jobs with him so he can be more
>determined.
>
>\brad mccormick
Bang on. Many years ago, I when the internet was brand new, I used to
inhabit a usenet philosophy group, whose participants included several
reductionists, including Dennett and Marv Minsky, along with some
acute modern thinkers, like Jeff Dalton of U Edinborough, and David
Chalmers. It was always fascinating to me that you could never
succeed in getting the lightbulb to come on for the reductionists.
They never seemed to get a visceral acquisition of the distinction
between syntax and semantics. It really underlined for me the hierarchy
of insight. Without the personal illumination to work from, all
the words you could assemble would still just slide past them.
They could understand the principle of Goedel's regression
of hierarchies, but could not discover that the heart of their
own being has the capability to run down that infinite regression
past its end, to a simple transcendance. If they would only not publish
and confuse the masses with their half completed understanding, they could
be left alone to push the problem around, and maybe they would eventually
assemble the necessary attention to achieve the little satori they need to
"get it".
-Pete Vincent
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