Who is Malcolm Gladwell? (Part 2)

He's a writer for The New Yorker and is the author of THE TIPPING POINT, BLINK, and, now, OUTLIERS.

...And, damn, is he good.

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[Obzcuraa]

If anybody is interested, Malcolm Gladwell has a new book out called 'What the Dog Saw'. I think it's basically a collection of his best works from the New Yorker.

[TheLogicJunkie]

Yeah, I got the book last week -- it's great. I wasn't wild about the first chapter about Ron Popeil and Ronco, but the chapters about Late Bloomers was great.

[jb2134]

Gladwell is excellent, havent read Outliers.

Another similar book is "Influence" by Robert Cialdini. Similar to Gladwell in that he digs to find out why things happen, he talks about these pyschological influence principles. Sort of a companion to the phenomenon Gladwell discusses.

[TheLogicJunkie]

I haven't heard of Cialdini before... I'll have to add that to my reading queue.

[TheLogicJunkie]

Well, what the writer, Jeff Hawkins, does is to explicitly uncover and characterize what intelligence actually is. After reading it, you can decide for yourself if it represents "free will".

[sadunkal]

Alright, I'll check it out, seems interesting. Does it somehow indicate that there is some kind of a free will though? Why exactly did you bring it up now?

[TheLogicJunkie]

Okay... good, good...

Here's what I'd like to ask of you, then. If you would pick up a copy of the book "On Intelligence" and give it a read, and then come back and give me your opinion on the book. Because there are ideas in there that completely blew my mind on just what intelligence really is, assuming it really exists at all.

[sadunkal]

What I think is that there is no way a piece of meat can have any more free will than... a piece of meat. The brain may be an interesting piece of meat, but a piece of meat nevertheless.

What reason did we really have to assume there is a free will in the first place? The default assumption should be that humans don't have a free will, just like we assume rocks and water and viruses etc. don't have a free will.

I don't see the need for making an exception just because it feels like WE choose.

[TheLogicJunkie]

I'm glad you asked. More increasingly, I think that even the things we're inclined to think and choose, from moment to moment, are the product of the psychological conditioning that our circumstances compel us toward, until they are sated and resolved.

...If we truly have any "free will", it only exists around those options that circumstance conditions us to feel we have and need.

That's what I think, at this point in place and time.

[sadunkal]

Well... once you go back enough and zoom in close enough you'll have no reason to blame anyone for anything. What do you think about the concept of 'free will'? Are you a believer?