Popular Science Review - Freedom Evolves

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Review - Freedom Evolves - Daniel Dennett

It's a fascinating subject - does free will exist? Can there be such a thing in a scientifically organized, deterministic universe? And Dennett does it every justice, though retaining his hallmark irritating features of never using five words when 100 will do, being unforgivably smug, and making personal attacks on anyone who disagrees with him.

This works much better than his Darwin's Dangerous Idea, because here Dennett is on his home ground of philosophy with just an appropriate veneer of science (the only problem being for this website that this inevitably downgrades the book as a popular science title).

He occasionally reuses the traditional method in an explanatory book of having a fictional character to argue with, here the rather irritable Conrad. Galileo used such a format throughout his best books, and it does give a chance to put opposing views up and ask difficult questions, then knock them down. The only thing is, in the 21st century it also seems very stilted and artificial.

Dennett's thesis is (approximately - you need to read the book to get it in all its depth) that free will does exist, but it isn't an inherent somehow spiritual quality, but rather a product of evolution, a survival trait like intelligence that (so far) has served humanity well. He makes good use in one chapter of the old computer 'Life' models that so fascinated a generation, and allows for everything from the impact of the uncertainty principle to the basics of genetic 'programming'.

So a fascinating subject and a fascinating book, if you can avoid being irritated by the little quirks that make Dennett a very individual (dare we say free?) writer.

Also in hardback:

Reviewed by Brian Clegg

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