"Defending Free Will & The Self"
Frank S. Robinson in
Philosophy Now magazine
...an amoeba has a body without ‘knowing’ anything, especially not in the self-reflective way you do. I think the answer to the mystery of our selves instead lies in our layering of representations – unlike an amoeba, not merely knowing things, but knowing we know them.
Still, we don't really know for certain if what we know we know is not just another manifestation
of nature unfolding only as it does...only as it can...only as it must.
The amoeba is just further down the line when -- somehow! -- mindless matter became living matter became self-conscious living matter became you and I.
How, exactly, on a biological, genetic, chemical and neurological level did this "layering of representations" tumble over into having actual options to act on this...freely?
And then part where all the memes come in.
But there’s more to Dennett’s thesis. He says we bootstrap our way to (self-)consciousness by a process of interactions between our brains/bodies and our social environments, with back-and-forth communication about reasons for actions, which develops the mind to think in such terms.
Sure, those autonomous aliens could look down at us and describe this communication by noting the things that we choose to do. But then noting in turn that we only think that we are choosing freely to do what we do because nature/matter has evolved into a human brain able to create the psychological illusion of actual volition.
But: How would they go about communicating
that to us?
He also cites a Harry Frankfurt essay, ‘Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person’ (1971), which says, “A person can want one thing but want to want something else – and act on that second-order desire” – like your desire to eat that chocolate cake versus your desire to lose weight. Dennett argues that this capacity to reflect on and mediate among one’s desires is the essence of personhood. But this seems at odds with Schopenhauer’s saying that one can’t choose one’s desires.
Which merely demonstrates that very, very intelligent people grapple with this and come to differing conclusions. Conflicting wants and desires seem to suggest [if only "intuitively"] that "I" am there as more than just another mechanical component ever in sync with the laws of matter. But how is that then established as in fact true? Or that the establishing of this itself is just another manifestation of nature's inevitable march into the future.
In the end, Dennett insists that we can and do use deliberation to resolve such internal conflicts, and that there is somebody home – the self – after all, to take responsibility and be morally accountable.
Dennett insists!
Well, I guess that settles it then. Unless, of course, other very, very smart folks insist that it is something else entirely.