Volker.Doormann

No. The above statement is a general statement from logic, and does show, that the terms freedom and determinism must be precisly discriminated from each other.

The insight, that causality ('determinism') is not corruptible, is an awareness that is concluded in a self, from a self. But a 'self-awareness' does not mean an independence of causality/determinism in any case.

Quote:

Does this imply that consciousness creates free-will?

No. All creations are slaves of causality, and therefore not free. A consciousness is not free, it is conditioned. Will is absolutely bound to the causal process of the dynamic physical life. A 'free-will' is a contradiction itself.

I think, it is helpful to understand freedom first. Freedom is a state of the spirit beyond the space of consciousness. A conditioned consciousness never can reach this freedom; only a consciousness, which is alone, free from all conditions. From this, one can recognize, that neither there is a fatalism in general nor is a 'free-will' in general, but is an individual freedom to search/find in general, if the self is learning to be aware about it's own conditioned consciousness. It is a problem of the individual, not a problem of philosophy.

Volker

excreationist

spacer1:
I was assuming that fatalism was a synonym for my definition of determinism... i.e. that there is no random chance - that everything is predictable like clockwork or billiard balls. Maybe your definition of fatalism involves being at the mercy of nature... and the universe without consciousness obviously is, whether nature is like clockwork or partly random.

I talk about consciousness a bit in the My argument against Materialism thread. You can read "Consciousness Explained" for Daniel Dennett's view-point. There might also be some scientist-philosophers who have theories about consciousness that are compatible with a fatalistic world. I mightn't be able to explain myself very well, but remember that a large number of physicists, brain-related scientists, and AI researchers - maybe even a majority of them in some fields - would believe that we are at the mercy of physical laws, rather than us having geniune "free" will.
Anyway, read through my posts in that thread I just told you about and ask me about what you don't understand.

I said genuine *free-will* (i.e. not determined by regular physics) isn't required to explain that.

I pretty much agree.

Well we can learn to make very intelligent decisions... but remember that we have 100 BILLION neurons in our brain, each connect to thousands of others (up to about 10,000), it that it takes years for us to learn to be intelligent enough to reason about our future health, etc. (e.g. to conceive of the health problems smoking can cause us) Our neurons work in parallel, where thousands of them are firing simultaneously. I think that allows us to simultaneously be aware of many things, such as shapes, sounds, pleasures, pains, etc.
For a person to make highly intelligent decisions, they don't need to warp the physics of their brain in unusual ways somehow. Well at least that's what I think - and so do a large number of scientific-minded people.

I think the ex-smoker is just defying a *strong chemical addiction* - they were used to the pleasure chemicals from the nicotine (or something). If they have a cigarette, they know they can feel that pleasure/comfort again... even though it might only be mild. Without it they feel a void - discomfort. By associating the possible smoking of a cigarette with an even stronger negative emotion (the fear of future health, etc) their brain would determine that avoiding the cigarette is the best choice. The emotions we associate with thoughts can be just as intense as emotions that are triggered from external stimuli. e.g. the pleasure triggered from sucking (to motivate babies to suck) can be weak compared to the repulsion you might feel if you believe that you're touching a dead person. That disgust would be learnt - babies wouldn't know that touching dead people is disgusting. It would involve the food disgust emotion being projected onto other "unclean" things. The negative aspect of the emotion is still there, though it may not seem as "real" as when you have something disgusting in your mouth.
As far as an idea having physical dimensions - I think it involves neurons that you've used to learn patterns about the world. The firing neurons would be the physical side of the idea. We can translate it into spoken language and tells others about it. Though information isn't exactly physical, I think the only things that store and process it, etc, are physical and so would be subject to the rules of physics.

Primal

Lets say I line up a thousand people in front of a large wall, I then say "whoever touches that wall will be shot"....someone does so.

Now did the other 999 people lack free will?

Can you predict that most(the vast majority) will not touch the wall and if you can make such a prediction, how free is the will?

Another case:

A mouse is in a maze going after a piece of cheese, the mouse makes a left instead of a right at a juncture. Now, since the mouse made a decision: does it have free will?

Or is it the mouses genes, enviroment(past and present) that determines its movement?


If you are going to bring up consciousness to dismiss the mouse problem above substitute "mouse" with chimpanzee, dolphin or octopus, just so we can be at the borderlands. What with semi-conscious animals then, is there will free yet not? Or "partially free" in which case it is more or less predictable?

Now if we define free will as "consciousness" I think we will all agree that "free will" defined so vaguely exists. Unless of course we are eliminative materialists or Buddhists.

However does that really mean anything? Is that the actual solution to the problem that's existed between libertarians and determinists since the begining of time?

The problem of free will in fact arose because it was seen as incompatible with determinism, whereas the vague definition of "conscious decision" of course is not. So we must be dealing with a different kind of free will.

So what kind are we dealing with?

Basically one of an "indeterministic decision". Or a "no" to this question:

"Given the exact same person, in the exact same situation, will he or she make the same decision everytime this event is played out ad infinitum?"

If you answer "yes" then you are taking the determinist position. A "no" means libertarian.


In which case I'd like to point some things out:

- Determinism is not predeterminism, as in the belief in fate or predestination. The event only happens if the right causal factors are present, for example without a person to make a decision or a mind or the option to do so, of course the event never happens.

-Determinism does not necessarily downplay human decision,personal responsibility etc. Though moral rivisions may need to be made, generally the person him/her-self with his or her mind can be seen as a causal factor. Thus determinists do believe we make decisions, they just see the decisions as determined.

- Determinism does not require that something be predictable in actuality but in principle. The condition being "given all knowledge of causality you can predict any event or action." Thus that doesn't mean a determinist is able to predict every action at the moment, which is why they get surprised,ask questions etc. That's a straw man. The determinist merely says that IF he knew everything, then he'd be able to predict outcomes.

Many people unfortunately equate determinism with predictability. That is a straw man though and no serious determinist has said we can in fact predict everything just because it is determined.

I can put a clock on an unreachable hill for example, and it's movements can be completely determined. However nobody could predict which hour the hands were on, because they cannot see it.

Thus if someone asks me "why make a poll when its determined what the answers will be" I can answer with:

"I didn't know how they'd be determined"

or

"Straw man."

or

"I was determined to."

Again determined does not mean predictable.

The original libertarian position was made because people thought God knew everything, in which case how could God justify sending people to hell if He knew they would end up there before he created them, but created them anyways? Such a thing would look bad on the Almighty, hence the concept of free will and inherent(though mysertious) randomness in human actions. In which case God just "couldn't help it" (though it is wonderous how an omnipotent being would ever have His hands tied). Now I'm not saying all libertarians are theists, in fact many prestigious ones, like Jean-Paul Sartre are very much atheists who thought God would make free will impossible. And many determinists believe God underlies determinism(i.e. Spinozoa). I am merely giving some historical perspective so that one can see exactly what kind of free will is being debated over. Of course its not merely "conscious decision" or there'd be no debate at all, as such a thing can be determined. What is being debated is whether there is a noncausal, or inherently randomn aspect to conscious decision.

In any event my arguments for determinism are thus"positive" arguments)


1) Logical: This argument is mostly deductive/based on logic but with some inference:

Premise 1: All things are what they are.(Have identity.)

Premise 2: All things are in motion.(Moving through space.)

Premise 3:An object's traits are a equivalent (determined) of an object's identity.

Premise 4: How an object moves and reacts to other objects depends on its traits.

Conclusion: Thus since an objects traits are determined, the object's motion is determined.

2) Reductive:

Basically this derives from materialism:

All objects are made of physical substance(matter.)

Matter is deterministic.

Thus all object's are deterministic.

Now some may say this is a fallacy of "composition", however this is invoking a far more general principle then often times. It is only a fallacy if you can see "why" the exception would be in place: if not, then you must submit. If for example I make a claim concerning how carbon monoxide destroys certain particles in the ozone, and will thus eat away at it if introduced a lot, it'd hardly serve to say I am making a "fallacy of composition" when using that to support the global warming hypothesis.


3) Predictability in general:

Object's are in general predictable more or less in some way. When we learn new things about a certain part of reality it tends to become more predictable as well. For example, genetics allows us to understand the once "unpredictable" nature of inheritance. I trust some people more then others based on past experience....why should I though when they can change their minds at any time? If their decisions are really indeterministic and inherently unpredictable, why should I trust a friend over an enemy?

If you say on the basis of history then you are suggesting that their actions will likely mirror the past, but if their behavior is really indeterministic, there really is no reason to think this.

But if we accept that certain things in our lives can be predicted and are deterministic, then should accept that all is, as it is not parsimonous to declare one thing deterministic and another thing not, without good reason. And saying that "we cannot predict X now" is not good reason as determinism allows for such things.

5) The rise of scientific history,psychology,biology and neurology.

All the above are making human behavior more and more predictable as they advance. I see no reason for this pattern to change. Frank Sulloway for example makes a good case for birth order determining whether one is more open or closed to new ideas and this speaks very much against an inherently randomn or indeterministic viewpoint if such matters.

Note: Two of the above are only probable or provisional argument. Only the first is absolute. Thus answers from "possibility" will miss the point as they do not adress what is possible but what is likely.

"Negative" arguments:

1) Mystery over how free will arose:

By what physical process could free will have arisen? By what evolutionary step? I don't see how a causal, derterministic process could give rise to a noncausal,indeterministic one.

For example did free will evolve in a gradual manner (with semi-free beasts) or in a huge leap(saltations which are highly unlikely). How did inherent randomness in action aid a creature in survival? etc.

2) Mystery over how the determistic and indertermistic interact.

How would the randomn and non-randomn interact? It's kinda like the problem of dualism for which there seems no solid answer.

Now I note the above does not absolutely disprove free will. The process may have happened without us knowing "why" or "how". But this does make the theory somewhat incoherent and thus spurrious in the face of coherent determinist alternatives.

3) Free will in the end seems to sink into randomnism.

Or the belief that human behavior is randomn. This I believe though is at odds with everyday experience. Like I said previously, I trust some people more then others. Behavior does not seem to be 50 percent in every case, a person's character seems to be more or less continuous and shaped or told by that person's history. For example I may allow a good friend to watch my kids but not a known child molestor. However if the will was really free of all causal factors, then I'd have no reason to think this. I'd have to treat every person as if I'd met them for the first time.

Again this is only a provisional argument.

Refutation:

This is mainly directed at the argument from Quantumn Mechanics and Chaos Theory that I think is unwarranted. First off chaos theory is deterministic , it merely says things though deterministic may be hard to predict. So that's scratched off.

Introduction to chaos theory: http://www.gweep.net/~rocko/sufficiency/node10.html


As for Quantumn Mechanics, I think the objections are unwarranted. The Uncertainty Principle is deterministic for example(it is because we know how a light wave will effect an electron that we say measurement of position and velocity at the same time is not possible.)

Also the issue is not merely an empirical one and needs to be resolved at a speculative and theoretical level.

http://dogma.free.fr/txt/JB-Determinism.pdf

Basically the problem with saying that Quantumn Mechanics=randomnist is like saying that if a magician pulls a rabit from a hat he actually did a magic trick. Though there is of course a bit more to it then that. In any event: Some Quantumn Mechanic scientisist have made unwarranted leaps into philosophy.

The fact is though Quantumn Mechanical formula work, why they do is still very much a matter of debate and mystery though.

Now I admit there are indetrministic views of Quantumn Mechanics held by many scientists perhaps even most who study QM. However the science I believe is still to controversial and inconclusive to provide a solid disproof of determinism.

This especially is not enough to overturn the logical argument that I find most compelling. Overall, the evidence seems to weigh in favor of determinism, even taking into account QM indeterminism as counter-evidence(though this is very questionable.)

I will end this with a free thought poem by freethinker Barbara Smoker entitled:

Primal

As for why consciousness evolved, indeed nobody knows the specifics but my own belief sees the whole process as arising from a sort of competitive arms race.

In short: human beings are complex social creatures. When one member got smarter, he or she now had a competitive edge over other humans. They in turn, to compete would need to increase their intelligence. This would simply raise the bar, for further competition. Continuing so on, driven by the social ramifications of more intellect. Being more intelligent allowed one to lie better, to spot liars better, to learn who in the group needed what resources, to learn who would trade for what resources, to learn if an enemy tribe was going to attack, to plan better attacks as a tribal leader etc.

In short its the sort of system that once in complex enough social animals reaches a certain breaking point, spirals rapidly upward in a reciprocal, accelerating manner.

spacer1

excreationist,
My definition of fatalism does involve being at the mercy of nature. This is what I took your definition of determinism to mean. However, when you say, "whether nature is like clockwork or partly random," I have no idea what you mean. Randomness is not an actual aspect of reality. Randomness denotes that there is no law-like behaviour. The recognition of laws (or patterns) and law-like behaviour ("like clockwork") is dependent upon a mind. Just because our minds may be unable to determine the actual relationships among physical objects doesn't necessarily mean that there is no pattern to be found in those relationships. I see it as more of a limitation of our knowledge at any given time, rather than that no regularity exists.
My thought experiment intended to show that a small degree of consciousness may allow for some small degree of free-will. By free-will, I did not intend to mean that you could defy all physical laws and do whatever you willed yourself to do, such as flying (which is what I take you to mean when you say "genuine" free-will). I started from the position of fatalism in an attempt to show that there is no need for consciousness, or that consciousness could not exist, if you were just reacting like an inanimate object; if you were "at the mercy of nature". Perhaps "free-will" is just a misleading term, since it suggests total freedom. It might be better to say that we have a degree of control over our will, or that our will is not entirely "at the mercy of nature," if we are conscious of the possible consequences of our actions.
Here's what I believe: The brain is physical and the mind is a process which is fully dependent upon that brain (and its body). I am not trying to introduce some mystical element to explain consciousness. Even though this implies that the brain must be determined by physical laws, we should still be able to distinguish between objects which react "mindlessly" to physical actions, and those that react "like us" (since this is how we define "consciousness"). We can roll a rock down a hill, but the rock doesn't show signs of trying not to break, nor apparently does it care if it does break. These are attributes we afford to conscious beings; beings with a will-to-survive.

Our current physical theories, as far as I am aware, speak only of the laws believed to exist in the relationships among mindless objects. And, even though such laws would play their part in the workings of the physical brain, I am fairly sure there is no decent theory, as yet, as to the physics of mindful objects. My intuition is that many of the problems raised by quantum mechanics relate more to the observer(s), rather than being actual properties of reality.

spacer1

Primal,
I agree. Thanks for your comments. I enjoyed reading them.

excreationist

spacer1:
No, by deterministic physics I meant one where there is one definite outcome... like in Newton's or Einstein's physics. It doesn't really matter though... I can use your definitions.

It can still involve laws. e.g. say there is a game where you need to flip a coin. The outcome will either be heads or tails (assuming that it doesn't land on its side)... but you can't predict what the outcome will be. Things like radioactive decay seem to work in a similar way... each isotope has an equal chance of decaying - whether it is a million years old or a day old. But on average, half of the isotopes will decay in their half-life. (Like how on average, half of the coins flipped will come up heads - though you can't predict which specific coins will come up heads) Many people believe that things like radioactive decay are fundamentally random - i.e. it is like a coin toss with a non-predictable outcome (though there is a limited set of possible outcomes).

Still, many think that quantum physics involves true randomness. People like Einstein disagreed - "God does not play dice with the universe".

No, by genuine free-will, I simply mean that your decision-making processes aren't completely determined by the everyday physics your neurons follow. i.e. that you aren't totally at the mercy of physical laws - that *you* are really the one who is making the decision rather than it just being a result of complex interactions of ordinary matter.

Read my posts in that other thread for some of my views on what consciousness is all about. (read all the pages) There are also some other materialists who have explained their views there.

Just because something is at the mercy of normal physical laws, it doesn't mean that it needs to react like an inanimate object. e.g. ants aren't inanimate... do you think their molecules only follow normal physical laws? (There are also robots with intelligence comparable to insects in some ways, but you'd probably say they are "inanimate")

I know what you mean by free-will. Anyway, knowing about the possible consequences of our actions just involves having a short-term memory where we create a model of the world in. In toddlers, this model of the world can be quite flawed, but over time, we tend to model the behaviour of the world (and other people) in a fairly accurate way. I don't see why that is incompatible with everyday physics. Though of course, the processes are much, much more complex.

Rocks don't have a power source (like computers and brains) which allows them to extract data from their environment, process it, learn things, make decisions, avoid some things, seek other things, etc, using partly learnt intelligent goal-seeking strategies... so of course it reacts in a mindless way. The structure of a rock isn't set up so that it operates in a way that tries to make it "survive". What about a thermostat though? It is set up so that the temperature of an environment remains at a certain level. If it gets colder that the ideal temperature, heat is applied, or the coldness is turned down (if it is a freezer). If it gets hotter, the heat setting could be lowered (if it is an oven) or the coldness could be increased (if it is a freezer or an airconditioner). The thermostat is compelled or forced to maintain the temperature - in a similar way to how I think we are forced to carry out whatever behaviour we think will result in the greatest pleasure or least pain. This is often translated into us being compelled to avoid death, although this isn't necessarily so. (We might believe that life involves too much pain, and death results in a lesser pain and so is preferable).

Try reading about things like "cognitive science". And neuroscience is related to that - it is more grounded in biology rather than information processing. (BTW, information processing can be done using physical systems - like calculators)

Ok.

spacer1

ex,
With the explanation of actual randomness that you introduce later, I understand what you mean here.
My original view was that, if we knew all the environmental and physical factors involved in flipping the coin, we would theoretically be able to determine what the result of that coin toss would be every time. It is only the limitations of our knowledge which would restrict us from knowing this. However, this concept of actual, physical randomness has blown my mind just thinking about it (and it was your last post which alerted me to the importance of the concept of randomness in quantum mechanics, so thank you). Actual randomness suggests to me that all of existence is like flickering on a television screen, or the flickering of a candle, spreading its probabilities here and there, underpinning all of reality, but averaging out to, what appears (to us) to be, very definite objects in the macro world. I am not fully conscious of my reasoning, but I get the impression that, if there is actual randomness, then the external world is no more than a product of our minds. And this hardly seems parsimonious. However, without the reasoning, I have no case, so I'll give it some more thought.

Also, I still see a strong logical objection in the comment I made in my last post, that the recognition of law-like behaviour (or a pattern) is dependent upon a mind.
That's very encouraging, since it's Einstein, but I feel like I'm just starting out, with this new perspective, despite having read a few relevant books and articles. Back to the books!
Understood.
Agreed. I was going to raise this point in my last post.
Why would they? (or why do we? )
I see your old, creationist views creeping through, with your suggestion that we are "set up" to "operate in a way". What (who?) does the "setting up" of conscious beings?
Perhaps, but I wouldn't attribute consciousness to it, nor would I consider it as having a desire to survive.
I strongly disagree. If we were to take the path of least resistance via pleasure-seeking/pain-avoidance, then (since the path of least resistance is the path of determinism), we would react no differently than an unconscious object. Obviously, the difference is that we have a desire to stay alive (or desires at all). Can we still say, then, that mindful and mindless objects are bound by the same laws of physics? Let's say somebody pushes you hard against your chest. You would reel back, but attempt not to fall down by pushing back against the direction of the force. If you did this to a mindless object, then (disregarding environmental factors), that object would continue in its direction of motion from the force acted upon it, until it were acted on by another force. The difference between mindless and mindful objects, therefore, is that we are able to create our own force, willfully.

Can you offer a possible explanation for this? It appears to me that something must have sparked this competition over resources, but I cannot see how mindless chemicals could develop into desiring beings. (Perhaps "desire" is too subjective?)

Peter Soderqvist

TO PRIMAL

Soderqvist1: Wrong!
Heisenberg 's uncertainty principle is intrinsic in the quantum world!
Take the Bohr atom as illustration, the more we know about an electron's momentum the less we know about its position, and vise versa! An electron orbiting the atom in a standing wave of probability distribution of Eigenstates, when this electron emits energy of quanta, and thus jumping down to a lower energy level, the electron doesn't exists between these two orbits, or levels, hence we know about two positions, the higher, and the lower energy levels, or orbits, but we doesn't know about its momentum between these levels, because the electron doesn't exist there, it is a discontinuous transfer of energy!

Einstein was wrong in 1927 about " god does not play dice" Experiments with bell's inequality theorem has been made in the 60 by Bell himself, and by Alain Aspect in the 80s, bell's inequalities was violated in these experiments which has ruled out Einstein's local realistic hypothesis. You must reject locality if you select reality (reality in the sense that the universe exists independent of our observation) and admit that signals which can travel faster than light, or alternatively; select locality (no signal can travel faster than light). But reality is instead rejected! Heisenberg 's theory is a local unrealistic theory! Experiments later than Aspects' has been made in order to pin down the electron's momentum and position in a closed box, but the electron begins to bounces like crazy more, and more as the space decreases. That confirms that Heisenberg 's uncertainty principle is intrinsic in the quantum world!

Quote from Heisenberg 's home side
But a basic assumption of physics since Newton has been that a "real world" exists independently of us, regardless of whether or not we observe it. (This assumption did not go unchallenged, however, by some philosophers.) Heisenberg now argued that such concepts as orbits of electrons do not exist in nature unless and until we observe them. http://www.aip.org/history/heisenberg/p08c.htm

Quotations by Werner Heisenberg: Thus, the more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known, and conversely. The "path" comes into existence only when we observe it. I think that modern physics has definitely decided in favor of Plato. In fact the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense; they are forms, ideas which can be expressed unambiguously only in mathematical language.
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~...eisenberg.html

The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene Chap 4: Microscopic Weirdness
If an electron is confined to a space of decreasing size, its motion (momentum) increases wildly due to "quantum claustrophobia"
http://www.mcgoodwin.net/pages/elegantuniverse.html

Soderqvist1: Thus, the standing wave of probability distribution of Eigen states in the Atom is more correct interpreted as, a wave of possibility which collapses into actuality (one Eigenstate) when it is measured!

Soderqvist: Yes, our measurement disturbs quantum objects!

Soderqvist1: The wave equation is probabilistic; the description is not like a bullet from a gun moving in a well-defined trajectory to its target! An electron fired from a measurement apparatus will be found in the target, only in average, with the rest of the fired electrons distributed, more or less around the target. Before and after measurement, the electron spreads out as a wave of probability, this wave of probability has no well defined trajectory like football has, nor does it jibe with ordinary waves. It is a wave of information about where the probability is as highest to find the electron, there distortion, or amplitude is as highest, there is the highest probability to find the electron too, it is analogous to a crime wave in say; New York, where the distortion is as highest, there is the highest probability for a felony too!

It is a very well known fact that the electron interferes with itself in the double slit experiment, evidence from this experiment indicates that the unmeasured electron is both multivalent and claustrophobic, and the only way I know about to circumvent this, is to introduce the many world interpretation into the equation, and interpret that the electron bounces off from interaction with other electrons from parallel universes. But this interpretation has its own difficulties, because the universes are close to infinitely many, and they decoherence when measured, but the problem is that, they should decoherence like the domino effect if they are real, but they don't do so according to math, these close to infinitely many electrons acquire decoherence instantaneously, this kind of nonlocal phenomenon is not consistent with realistic theories, because it happens without signals travel between universes, according to John Gribbin, in his book, Schrodinger 's Kittens and the search for reality!

Peter Soderqvist

Soderqvist1: The whole point with free will and consciousness etc, can be summed up to; is thought potent or not? The point has been covered in various popular science books, an analogue has been made there between thoughts, steams, shadows, as follows; when we make our decisions in our life, in example, shall I go to sleep, or work? Our thoughts has no casual power, it is like our shadow on the street, or steams from a steam engine, our body or steam engine can influence the steam, or shadow, both not the other way around, our brains can influence our thought, but our thoughts are impotent, since our thought is only decoration without any casual power to influence the brain, it is known as the "user's illusion"!

But the crux is that, it require lot of energy to build up a brain, which is waste of resources which could otherwise be used to improve survival necessities, in short, "genes for lesser brains" must have a huge survival advantage over "genes for bigger brains" so brains without casual power doesn't fit the Darwinian description!

have some of you read Daniel Dennett 's new book, Freedom Evolves?

Matt Ridley reviews Freedom Evolves by Daniel C. Dennett
"Either our actions are determined, in which case there is nothing we can do about them, or our actions are random, in which case there is nothing we can do about them."

Daniel Dennett to the rescue. The ebullient, pugnacious and ever pithy sage of Boston has written books on free will, consciousness and Darwinism. He now returns to free will with a remarkably persuasive new idea derived from Darwinism: that freedom of the will is something that grows, that evolves. The greater the sophistication of an organism, the greater its knowledge of the world and of itself, so the greater its ability to take charge of its own destiny. A rock has no freedom to choose; a bacterium has very little; a bird has some; a conscious primate has much more; a conscious primate inheriting a rich lode of cultural knowledge has the most of all.

Determinism - the idea that a cause automatically produces an effect - is not, says Dennett, the same as inevitability. This is a surprising assertion which he spends several chapters justifying, and I think he succeeds.
http://www.arts.telegraph.co.uk/arts...09/bomain.html

Freedom Evolves by Daniel Clement Dennett
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...462240-0235337

I have 7 books by Dennett; namely, The Mind's I with Hofstadter, The Intentional Stance, Consciousness Explained, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Kind of Minds, Brainchildren, and Freedom Evolves! I have also all Richard Dawkins books, including his last one, namely, The Devils Chaplain. I have also, The Volitional Brain, Towards a Neuroscience of Free Will, Edited by Benjamin Libet, Anthony Freeman and Keith Sutherland is listed in the bibliography of Daniel Dennett's "Freedom Evolves! http://www.imprint.co.uk/books/volitional_brain.html