Can someone tell me what I'm missing here?

I'm in the second chapter of Dennett's Freedom Evolves, and either I'm misreading him completely, or his argument is embarrassingly weak.

Freedom Evolves is Daniel Dennett's explanation of how evolved organisms (like us, he claims) could have true freedom of will. It's a question that's actually far older than the evolution issue. (A few days ago I posted an item on C.S. Lewis's related question: how can purely physical creatures have a rational capacity?)

The free will question is crucial, for if we are purely determined by mechanical processes (including chance) over which we have no free control, then all of our choices, our values, our loves, our fears, our responsibilities, are nothing but a cruel illusion. Dennett recognizes and states the importance of the matter well.

Here's my problem. I'm assuming, on the basis of his educational credentials, that Dennett is far smarter than I, yet he seems to be mishandling his argument badly. I'm not finished with the book, and I'm still studying what I've read so far, so I know I'm still in process; that's why I'm asking if you've read the book and can offer a different view.

Here's how I see it so far. He takes several pages to describe a computer program that runs according to very strict, deterministic rules (Conway's Life World). This program can simulate moving creatures on-screen with very complex behaviors. Some of them can "eat" others. Some, called "avoiders" develop skills of avoiding these "eaters," and thus persist. This is all completely designed into the initial conditions and rules of the program. The program is strictly deterministic and mechanical: with the same initial conditions and rules, the result is always exactly the same.

On page 56 he runs this argument (first explaining that "evitable" is used as the antonym of "inevitable"):

In some deterministic worlds there are avoiders avoiding harms.
Therefore in some deterministic worlds some things are avoided.
Whatever is avoided is avoidable or evitable.
Therefore in some deterministic worlds not everything is inevitable.
Therefore determinism does not imply inevitability.

He goes on to answer several potential objections to this argument, but not the most plain one. Just because suffering a particular harm is not inevitable does not mean that the entire behavior of this computer creature is not inevitable. All of the actual behavior of the computer creature is absolutely inevitable, and therefore his conclusion that "determinism does not imply inevitability" does not follow--not even close.

If we were to define avoidance as Dennett does here, you could say that it is always possible for a rock to avoid landing in the grass if I drop it. Landing in the grass is not inevitable. But this would be because in this case, I am dropping it over concrete. (This is simply setting the initial conditions, just as the computer programmer does.) So what does that prove about the rock's freedom? Nothing whatsoever.

Dennett's argument is far too reminiscent of this dumb little logic game I used to pull on my friends in middle school:

"I can prove you're not here."
"You can? How"
"Well, you're not in California, are you?"
"No."
"And you're not on the moon?"
"Right."
"And you're not in Hawaii?"
"Okay, go on..."
"Well, if you're not in California or Hawaii or on the moon, you must be someplace else, right?"
"Right..."
"And if you're someplace else, you're not here! See, I proved it."

In this little schoolboy ditty, I equivocated on "someplace else." (That is, I used the same term in two places, treating it as if it had the same meaning both times, while actually placing a different meaning on it the second time.)

Dennett equivocates on "inevitable," and it's about as logically impressive as my old game. In one line, "inevitable" refers to avoiding a particular threat. In the next line it has a global reference. The Socratic-style dialogue that follows says nothing about this question, as far as I can tell.

I'd like to think Dennett would have seen that and dealt with it, but I don't see it. I'm either giving up on him prematurely or misunderstanding something he said--or he really made this elementary error. I recognize that I may be sounding rather unsure of myself here. Actually, I'm quite sure I read it correctly--except, with Dennett's reputation, it just seems he wouldn't have made such a basic error. That's what confuses me.

I was disappointed by Dawkins's Blind Watchmaker--what I had expected to be a rousing good argument against God turned out just to be several hundred pages of simple circular reasoning. I'd like to see this one turn out better. These supposedly powerful writers on evolution really hadn't ought to be so simple. It takes all the fun out of it!

Posted: Fri - June 3, 2005 at 08:08 PM |

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson getCategoryName("<$CategoryUUID$>");

Can someone tell me what I'm missing here?

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson