Dennett, Herding Cats, and Free Will

I never thought I’d be agree on something with Daniel Dennett until I read this talk he gave called “Herding Cats and Free Will Inflation”. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a brilliant thinker and I agree with him on minor points, but not necessarily on the broad strokes of his theories (especially about consciousness). That’s why I was fairly surprised when I read this and thought he was pretty much right about it. One key point of interest is on degrees of freedom, which I will return to in another post comparing it with Arthur Young’s theory of process

Determined vs. Controlled

The first distinction Dennett presents is between cause or determined and controlled.

The path of a boulder dislodged by an earthquake that rolls down a mountain is determined by the laws of physics but it isn’t under the control of anything. Contrast this with an expert skier. The skier’s trajectory is determined by the laws of physics, but the skier is in control–their trajectory is determined by their decisions (with consideration of the current state of affairs: the snow, wind, skis, etc.). A skier can lose control for a while and be at the mercy of the laws of physics, but they can regain control and be self-controlling again. If we “rewind the tape” and watch it over and over again, we learn nothing new. Everything occurs exactly the same. However, if we move the initial position of the boulder slightly it will inevitably have a different ending position at the bottom of the mountain. Meanwhile, change the starting position of the skier and they will still cross the finish line within inches of the initial run again and again. (Note we are referencing an adept skier with some skill. If I were placed in a different start location I would roll down the mountain at the mercy of the laws of physics just like the boulder.)

Causation and control then, are not the same thing. Not everything that is caused is controlled, control requires an agent who is designed to control a process. This process requires feedback, Dennett says. Information about the trajectory and conditions can be used by the controller to change the action. As soon as you fire a gun you are no longer in control of the bullet. A guided missile on the other hand, can still be controlled after its launched. The bullet however, just like tossing a coin is designed to be uncontrollable. Once you flip a coin, control is lost. Coins or dice are not necessarily exempt from causation, but this has nothing to do with whether physics is deterministic or not. Dennett says that things can be out of control while still being determined and things can be controlled while being determined as well.

This leaves us with three different categories: remotely controlled things, things out of control, and things that are self-controlled (autonomous). If you want to be self controlled then you cannot be remotely controlled. There must be a barrier of sort between you and any agent that wants to control you. For example, there are parasites that can get into an insect or animal’s brain and force it to do certain things to benefit the parasite. Dennett suggests that this elucidates an interesting question about agency: who benefits? Who is the agent that is benefiting? Certainly not the host organism in the parasitic case.

Remote Control and Degrees of Freedom

Remote control, Dennett says, is a more recent phenomenon (though still ancient). Puppetry was practiced in ancient Greece. Strings controlled the puppet. Today, strings have been replaced by things like radio and infrared. Things like your wireless mouse or TV remote control are examples. Even remote control has its limitations though. One example Dennett has referred to is the Viking II spacecraft used in orbit of Mars. They were remotely controlled for three years, but when the mission was extended the engineers had to give some of the control to the spacecraft. They needed to be able to adjust their orientation on command to continue to function. The lag between communication was untenable. So these machines were given the ability to protect their supply of electricity by turning off unneeded instruments, fix gas leaks, and interpret visual data. They were given a few degrees of freedom.

This is a concept Dennett says has been neglected (and I agree with him). It is used more in engineering and physics. The basic degrees of freedom for something like an airplane are: up/down, forward/back, left/right, etc. Each degree of freedom is an opportunity for control. In the case of remote control, there must be a button or joystick for each degree of freedom that the operator controls. If you have more degrees of freedom than you have controls for then you aren’t going to control those degrees so you clamp them to remove the source of variability. A train, for example, has only two degrees of freedom: forward/backward and faster/slower. The railroad provides a clamp on the degrees of freedom. So, Dennett says, determinism doesn’t clamp degrees of freedom.

In a deterministic world some things are determined to be remotely controlled, some are to be autonomous–until they aren’t. It doesn’t say that something that isn’t controlled never will be nor does it say that something that is out of control can’t be controlled. It doesn’t prevent you from making choices. Control is an ability that is enjoyed by agents. Even bacterium are agents, though it doesn’t need to understand or represent those reasons. So, all of agency is designed either by natural selection or intelligent designers and evolution depends on “random” mutations, like coin flips. Chance, he says, is not excluded by determinism. Fair coins and dice are designed to be uncontrollable by an agent, just as we are. Autonomy is dangerous though. Autonomous agents are out of our (and every other) agent’s control. So, how do we let dangerous things roam free in the world? Well, Dennett says, we spend a lot of time and energy preparing children for this freedom (even if it is like herding cats). Even so, the world is full of agents with agendas. When you can no longer see what they are attempting to do then you are at a risk of being turned into a puppet, being remotely controlled.

Dennett then introduces Sam Harris’ book on free will where he introduces the phrase “A puppet is free as long as it loves its strings.” Consider the case of a puppet controlling a puppet and so on, just as in this image. It is conceptually easy to understand, but it is physically impossible just as predicting a coin toss. The precision is lost. All the smallest puppet could do is flop around. But what about a puppet controlling its own strings? Well, it is possible to control your legs using your arms. But how would it control its arms? With some internal strings. It controls its own strings.

There is often the claim that “if determinism is true then we’re all just puppets.” Dennett is careful to say that he is arguing that this is not the case, but we could become puppets if we don’t act carefully in order to preserve our autonomy. Our autonomy is on the line every day. People are constantly inventing puppet strings and trying to get people to attach the puppet strings to themselves. These strings clamp your degrees of freedom. Through growing up, strings are added to us. Our environment, families, cultures, etc. attach strings to us and so we aren’t born a responsible agent. We aren’t responsible for all the processes that shaped us. But we are responsible for more of them as we mature. We can become partially self made. Someone must put considerable amount of practice into reflecting, refining, and improving the strings we have been given.

Now that we are members of the Moral Agents Club, one of our obligations is to preserve our privacy. This has been inflated by some philosophers to mean we must preserve our absolute unpredictability. We don’t need for no one to know our next action. Another problematic inflation is that the only free will worth having is absolute free will or the view that we have complete control of our future selves. One classic example of preserving will is Odysseus tying himself to the mast so he can hear the sirens without losing control. These are personal technologies we develop to better control ourselves under circumstances where we would otherwise have our thoughts be not under our control. This counters any claim that our free will must be ever present at each moment, having the capability to choose at any moment in time.

Dennett concludes with saying that free will as responsible autonomy does exist but is under threat today by our abilities to read and direct minds. So we must love our strings and protect them from other puppeteers. And this is the line that he is spot on about:

Free will, in the only morally meaningful sense, is an achievement, not a birthright or a metaphysical power, and it is precious. Don’t talk yourself out of the free will you actually have.

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