Dear Dan— I’d like to begin by thanking you for taking the time to review Free Will at such length. Publicly engaging me on this topic is certainly preferable to grumbling in private. Your writing is admirably clear, as always, which worries me in this case, because we appear to disagree about a great many … Continue reading The Marionette’s Lament : A Response to Daniel Dennett : : Sam Harris
Day: February 13, 2014
Free will? It’s a no brainer
Imagine that you cannot see or hear and have no sense of smell, taste or touch. Imagine that you have no arms or legs or mouth. Imagine that you have no brain. How would you find food? How would you survive?
On his blog, Matt Russell tells the story of how bacteria manage to survive and thrive despite not having any of the basic tools that we would consider essential for living. It’s a story of survival against the odds that can perhaps teach us something about ourselves.
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SMBC: A fable
As is often the case, Zach Weiner hits it out of the park with this observation. I've read a lot of history, and I'm struck by how often this type of pattern emerges. Click through to see the full sized version. via Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.
The scope of objective facts and morality
Our recent discussions, particularly on the thread about Jonathan Haidt's response to Sam Harris's challenge, left me thinking about the various scopes of objective facts. In retrospect, it's a bit obvious to me now that a key question in moral philosophy is, if morality is objective, at what scope is it objective? Haidt used the … Continue reading The scope of objective facts and morality
