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| 3798 | An overexamined life is as bad as an unexamined one |
| Full Idea: The unexamined life may not be worth living, but the overexamined life is nothing to write home about either. | |||
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §4.2) | |||
| A reaction: Presumably he means a life which is all theory and no practice. Compare Idea 343. |
| 3801 | Rationality requires the assumption that things are either for better or worse |
| Full Idea: We must assume that something matters - that some things are for better and some things are for worse, for without that our assumed rationality would have nothing on which to get a purchase. | |||
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §7.1) | |||
| A reaction: It does seem that rationality wouldn't exist as an activity without some value to motivate it. |
| 3802 | Why pronounce impossible what you cannot imagine? |
| Full Idea: You say you cannot imagine that p, and therefore declare that p is impossible. Mightn't that be hubris? | |||
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §7.3) |
| 3795 | Causal theories require the "right" sort of link (usually unspecified) |
| Full Idea: In causal theories of knowledge and reference, the causal chain between object and thought must be of the "right" sort - the nature of rightness to be specified later, typically. | |||
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §3.3 n14) | |||
| A reaction: This is now the standard objection to a purely causal account of reference. Which of the many causal chains causes the meaning? Knowledge of maths is a further problem for it. |
| 3797 | I am the sum total of what I directly control |
| Full Idea: Control is the ultimate criterion of the self: I am the sum total of the parts I control directly. | |||
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §4.2) | |||
| A reaction: This looks awfully like a flagrant self-contradiction, and I think it is. It seems pretty obvious that there is at least a distinction between the bit or bits that do the controlling, and the bits that get controlled. |
| 3803 | Can we conceive of a being with a will freer than our own? |
| Full Idea: Can I even conceive of beings whose wills are freer than our own? | |||
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §7.3) |
| 3800 | You can be free even though force would have prevented you doing otherwise |
| Full Idea: If a brain implant would compel you to perform an action which you in fact freely choose, then you are free, but couldn't have done otherwise. | |||
| From: report of Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §6.1) by PG - Db (ideas) |
| 3791 | Awareness of thought is a step beyond awareness of the world |
| Full Idea: The creature who is not only sensitive to patterns in its environment, but also sensitive to patterns in its own reactions to patterns in its environment, has taken a major step. | |||
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §2.2) |
| 3794 | Foreknowledge permits control |
| Full Idea: Foreknowledge is what permits control. | |||
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §3.2) |
| 3796 | The active self is a fiction created because we are ignorant of our motivations |
| Full Idea: Faced with our inability to 'see' where the centre or source of our free actions is,…we exploit the gaps in our self-knowledge by filling it with a mysterious entity, the unmoved mover, the active self. | |||
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §4.1) | |||
| A reaction: I am convinced that there is no such things as free will; its origins are to be found in religion, where it is a necessary feature of a very supreme God. I don't believe for a moment that we need to believe in free will. |