A perfect intro to the philosophical question of Free Will.

me reading this proves that i dont have free will

Very precise writing-- a clear headed examination of free-will.

Do we have free will? Does the book really answer this question? Through 98% of the book I was on board with Daniel Dennett. So much so that I found his ideas a bit pointless. Determinism is true. There's no free will! It seems more like a takedown of any argument FOR free will. It seems to frequently deviate away from that idea into tangents that don't really seem related but it actually seems like he was making a case for free will. Often not really stating it, but ultimately railing against the "free will is an illusion" crowd and suggesting compatibalism. I'm not really convinced.

Based on the fact that we seem to agree with all of the premises, I don't think we fundamentally disagree on how the universe works or how causality works. Dennett clearly believes in determinism. He clearly believes we are comparable to meat robots of some kind. He simply feels that the elaborateness of our decision making is something which we should call free will. Is it? This almost seems like a semantic disagreement.

When I disagree with someone about free will it's usually one of two camps. The first is a person who hasn't really thought about what determinism means and assumes we aren't bound by it. The second is a person who does, and understands the causal fabric of the universe, but still thinks there is room for free will.

You couldn't have done it another way. It's that simple. If you don't change the original conditions, the result is the same. Practically this has little bearing on us, as we are never the same person twice, so we learn from our mistakes and correct are behaviour. So what? Determinism is still true and to me it is incompatible with what I consider to be free will.

Daniel Dennett appear to be making a mountain of arguments against free will, and somehow comes to the conclusion that it is a real thing. Okay.

I was interested in this book, written in 1984, just one year before the Libet experiment that would be quoted from there on in the discussion of free will (Dennett’s own words reading foreboding: “Modern science isn’t making determinism true, even if it is discovering this fact, so things aren't going to get worse, unlesss it is believing in determinism rather tan determinisn itself that creates the catastrophe.”) The whole text isn’t as clear as some later works by the author. Most arguments are hidden within examples and metaphors (or, as Dennett calls them, intuition pumps) and many direct quotes by various other authors.

I was warned by Harris on the position of Dennett, but didn’t want to make myself an opinion until I read it myself. But alas, I could not agree with the last few pages of Elbow Room. He ended up saying “free will doesn’t exist” and adding a huge “BUT…” at the end in what appears a step backwards. Still, I'm now going to read Freedom Evolves, to see how the discussion continues in a post-Libet epistemological world.

My ratings of books on Goodreads are solely a crude ranking of their utility to me, and not an evaluation of literary merit, entertainment value, social importance, humor, insightfulness, scientific accuracy, creative vigor, suspensefulness of plot, depth of characters, vitality of theme, excitement of climax, satisfaction of ending, or any other combination of dimensions of value which we are expected to boil down through some fabulous alchemy into a single digit.

Good but not completely convincing.

I found this book almost impenetrable. Couldn’t tell when he was undercutting others’ arguments vs making his own. The book assumes a more than passing familiarity with the field

I am not philosophically trained, but I have been exposed to the work of philosophers often enough in trying to explore questions that interested me as a psychologist, and as a scientist. Of course, they have never given me definitive answers to my questions - only an appreciation of how difficult traditional philosophical problems are, and how interesting and sometimes beautiful the approach to these questions is. Here Dennett excels, by rigorously exploring whether determinism is incompatible with any of the forms or implications of free will we believe we want/have. He finds none, but of course does not abandon his belief in free will, instead urging us to continue the exploration. His form of compatibilism is one suffused with optimism.

Daniel Dennett recommended his treatise on free will to me when I approached him about some ideas on the topic. It turns out, Dennett gave birth to the brainchildren first, and got the printing rights to them. Despite my bitterness over the older, wiser, more publicized man beating me to the punch, it is a wonderful book full of ideas that will challenge the way you think about thinking and thought. It is truly a worthwhile test for the modern thinker.

Does away with the pernicious myth of incompatibalism (the view that Freewill and determinism are incompatible). It gets bogged down by a bit too much fluff but, overall, does a great job of explaining why the versions of Freewill that we care about are perfectly within our grasp.

Thank you Mr. Dennett. Dear readers, this one isn't evitable!