My Story, a tale of Led Zeppelin and Daniel Dennett. . .
Walking this morning I came across what I first thought was a Zeppelin Tribute act. You know, a cover band that focuses exclusively upon a certain performer or act. In this case, at least for a fraction of a second, I thought I had tripped over such a Led Zeppelin tribute act in my little hamlet.
Yep, that’s right. In the midst of suburbia, that is what one routinely encounters, a Led Zeppelin Tribute act engaged in a rehearsal. All of which was heard from the street. And no doubt, it is possible such an act might be rehearsing mid-morning on a Saturday, and yes in the midst of suburbia. Granted, 11 AM on Saturday morning is a bit early for any self-respecting Led Zeppelin act to be doing anything other than nursing a hangover, exhausted, having just gotten to bed.
Regardless, there I was walking my favorite street in Valhalla. The reservoir on my left, the Kensico Dam before me and some condos on my right. And it was there as I turned the corner and started to descend down the hill back into town, that the broadcast to the surrounding neighborhood was encountered, if ever so briefly. I, myself, recall such musical events, which ended with visitations by the Milford township police. That was a long time ago.
Again, I turn the corner, and hear the beginnings of what I suspect is John Paul Jones’ synthesizer on “In The Light”, found on Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti. Starting quietly and building before a second synthesizer chimes in. I am expecting to hear Robert Plant’s first verse, where he asks if one can continue on, but as I turned the corner I realized that this is not tribute band at all. Rather, it is a landscaping crew with several weed blowers.
Just a silly man talking a walk in a typical suburban hamlet found in central Westchester NY. Such is found anywhere in the north-east USA on a spring day in mid-April of 2024. Not Led Zeppelin tribute acts. . . Such things do exist but not here. Not at that time of the day perhaps. I chuckled at my imagination and honestly, I kind of know it was just a group of noisy landscapers with leaf blowers. Surely, I did. Honestly, I am not sure what I was thinking. . .
But I proceeded none the less. The walk continued. In fact, I almost collided with the landscapers on the street as they were quite busy. Their plan was to blow the leaves to the other side of the street, and they were mid-street when I encountered them. No sidewalk there so all of us were in the middle of the street.
I now had the song in my head, as I continued my descent down the hill into Valhalla proper. I now was trying to hit the notes in the chorus, which is pretty up there. Robert Plant could hit those notes back then. Hopefully, the folks in the few houses I passed did not hear my attempts, but hell they also had the leaf blower synthesizer intro, so it was only appropriate they got my attempts at a chorus.
As I amused myself with my false perceptions and failed efforts at the chorus, I did realize the sun was shining. I was in fact in the light, in the light of the sun and the song. It was the play of the song that made me conscious of the shining of the sun, of the light. It had pointed me to something I had up to that point largely taken for granted. When I had started my walk, it was overcast. A half hour in, the sun was now poking out. It took my mishearing Zeppelin’s “In the Light”, to take notice.
Why do I dig into all of this? I share it as a nod to Daniel Dennett, a contemporary philosopher, who passed yesterday at age 82. How does he fit into all of the above? I will explain but let me first share another recent encounter. This one between myself and a friend who I recently visited in CA. I went to school with him back in the 90s. Both of us have an interest in Dennett and especially his ideas on free will.
I bring up my friend, not only because of our mutual interest in Dennett but a particular bit of a conversation we had while walking or driving somewhere in Palo Alto where he lives on my recent visit. Specifically, I said to him in passing that a particular song had popped into my head as we were wandering. I forget what song. It does not matter. I had just thrown it out there in the course of our conversation. To which he responded that he did not experience such things.
It short, he is just not attuned to music in the way in which I am. Something in his immediate environment or something said in a conversation would not typically provoke him to think of a piece of music as it did me. With me it very much does. Earlier my friend and I were talking about a trip to San Jose from Palo Alto, and I was soon making reference to Dionne Warwick’s “Do You Know The Way To San Jose”. The same can be seen above. Two leaf blowers gearing up made me think of a Led Zeppelin tune, just as talk of San Jose made me think of Dionne Warwick’s tune.
All well and good, I have what could be an annoying habit of making reference to music from all over the place regardless of where I am, who I am engaging, and what we are doing. Now I had said above that this was all with the intention of giving a nod to Daniel Dennett, a philosopher who did quite a bit of work on consciousness, intentionality, and free will. Anyone familiar with the philosophical “problem” of free will, knows that the question or dilemma is regarding how it is possible to have free will in a world that often seems to be determined. Dennett argues you can have both free will and a deterministic world.
You see, Dennett argues that free will does not happen in the moment. He challenges that the classic image of an angel on one shoulder, and a devil on the other, both whispering into our ears, both tempting you to act in certain ways, and regardless of what you choose, you have chosen freely, and it is result of that decision made at that moment, at that time. For Dennett, the decision before us has largely been made by our past choices. It is possible we will veto our history, but largely, we are our history, and that history largely determines who we are and how we will engage. It defines or perhaps guides our actions.
The choices we consider, the actions offered by those whispering in our ears, which in fact are our own internal voices, originate in what we have chosen to do previously. No doubt, you can say those previous events were not chosen by us, but Dennett and I would both argue that to some degree we did choose many of those prior actions. And even if it is the case that we did not choose them, in our awareness now of that reality, we can reevaluate our actions going forward. In short, he provides a theory of self in the process of exploring free will and determinism, which is kind of appropriate. His theories here rely heavily upon Darwinian evolution, in that our history brings us to our present.
With that tiniest snippet of Dennett, let us return to my tale of leaf blowers and Led Zeppelin tribute acts. Unlike my buddy who I caught up with last week, I grew up listening to Led Zeppelin. I remember buying my first album in a little record store where I grew up. It was Led Zeppelin II. I remember the band I worked with for several years, the voice lessons, the rehearsals, etc. before realizing I could not sing like Robert Plant. I remember being introduced to the band Rush, which was certainly influenced by Zeppelin, and which in turn introduced me to philosophy, which I would ultimately get a degree in.
In short, the above is my story, and I would say it is nice illustration of what Dennett was attempting to point to and explore. We have his books and essays, but Daniel Dennett will be missed.
Bob Schaffer — 4/20/24
