Free Willy

[Baron Max]

Baron Max: .... You can't punish someone for an action that they were 'forced' to commit.

Why not?

I would also ask why you consider it a "forced" action? I.e., he may have wnated to rape and murder that pretty little girl, but he was also taught that to do so wasn't very nice and that he'd be executed for it.

See? Once again we're up against the ideal of "free will" in conflict with the realities of the world. He's been taught since childhood that to exercise that "free will" means that he must accept the consequences of his actions.

See? Just the words alone, "free" will, are all wrong! We ain't got no "free will", it's all pretty damned expensive!

Baron Max

 

[mountainhare]

Baron Max:

Why not?

Because you can only punish someone who had free will. For example, you can't 'punish' a lion for killing a child, since it's action are essentially pre-determined and programmed into it.

However, you can remove the troublemaker from society, either through death or imprisonment, in order to make the community safer. However, that isn't being done in the spirit of PUNISHMENT. It's PROTECTION. Punishment implies wrong-doing, but wrong-doing requires free will.

Quite simply, I'm all for imprisoning/killing dangerous animals/people, but I don't think it's fair to claim that it is 'justice', or 'fair punishment'. No, it's just removing a threat from society.

 

[Baron Max]

For example, you can't 'punish' a lion for killing a child, since it's action are essentially pre-determined and programmed into it.

Strange that you say that ...when they do it all the time in Africa! And they kill tigers who attack humans in India, too. Now why would you say something like that when it's so fuckin' obvious that it is NOT true??? (Oops, sorry ...I didn't read the whole post before leaping to the response. But you should make things like that clear at the start of your posts ...it makes it easier for others to understand and respond.)

However, you can remove the troublemaker from society, either through death or imprisonment, in order to make the community safer. However, that isn't being done in the spirit of PUNISHMENT. It's PROTECTION. Punishment implies wrong-doing, but wrong-doing requires free will.

So now we're gonna' get into a big, psycho-babble session about words and their meanings?? For me, you can call it whatever the fuck you want to call it, but it means the same thing.

...I'm all for imprisoning/killing dangerous animals/people, but I don't think it's fair to claim that it is 'justice', or 'fair punishment'. No, it's just removing a threat from society.

Well, I agree with the sentiment, but I don't know why we have to make a distinction about terminology? It just clouds up the original issue and gives rise to even more arguments and disagreements.

Personally, I think we make a big issue out of "free will" in order to expand our own ego even further ...to make humans seem even better than all the other animals on Earth. It's just simple ego, that's all. We're just animals and we do what animals do ...why is that such a downer for so many people?

Baron Max

 

[James R]

Baron Max:

Well, sure ...perhaps not "morally" responsible (psycho-babble bullshit!), but you still murdered someone, so you should be removed from the society so you don't murder someone else!

If there's no free will then there is no "should". What "should" and "shouldn't" be done relies on a sense of morality, and as I just explained if there is no free will then morality doesn't apply. Without free will, there's no "should" and "shouldn't". There's only "is" and "isn't".

Those who are "pre-determined" to murder should still be executed for the crime ...even if the psycho-babble-ists want to argue their nonsensical bullshit!

Whether they are executed or not would be predetermined. There's no "should" about it.

...because nothing you've said proves or disproves the notion of "free will".

You missed the point again. I didn't set out to prove or disprove the notion of free will.

At that point, if you brough him into the existing world of humans and turned him loose, he might, just maybe, actually have "free will" for a few moments ...but only for a few moments! He'd learn quickly what he should and shouldn't do, wouldn't he? And once he did, he'd no longer actually have "free will".

You're confusing two possible meanings of "free will". One is the very simple concept of being constrained by society or even physical laws so that you can't do something. I don't have the free will to flap my arms and fly up into the sky, for example. You don't have the free will to murder somebody in a crowded street and not be imprisoned for it. That's all very simple.

The philosophical question of free will is the more complicated and interesting one. I presume you are unaware of it. That question asks whether ALL human action is predetermined or not. In other words, are the apparent choices that humans make real, or just an illusion?

Hope this helps you understand.

 

[mountainhare]

Baron:

So now we're gonna' get into a big, psycho-babble session about words and their meanings?? For me, you can call it whatever the fuck you want to call it, but it means the same thing.

*shrugs* If that's the way you want to be.

I'm merely distinguishing between killing someone to protect society, or to enact 'justice'. Can you enact justice against a killer lion or shark? Of course you can't...

 

[Baron Max]

The philosophical question of free will is the more complicated and interesting one.

Ahh, yes ...that's the ones where people just continually argue back n' forth in psycho-babble language and never, ever agree upon anything about the actual issue being discussed, right?

If a person has a choice to make, and he's influenced in that decision by any outside forces, can anyone, including the chooser, actually say that his choice was/is his own "free will"?

Baron Max

 

[Baron Max]

Can you enact justice against a killer lion or shark? Of course you can't...

Of course you can! "Justice" is whatever a society, however small, claims it to be. If that society claims that it's "justice" to kill the lion, then it's justice and trying to make out that "justice" is some universal concept is foolish and ridiculous in the extreme.

Baron Max

 

[James R]

Baron Max:

Ahh, yes ...that's the ones where people just continually argue back n' forth in psycho-babble language and never, ever agree upon anything about the actual issue being discussed, right?

Yes, that's right.

Do you realise that most of the law and structure of the society you live on is based on the "psycho-babble" you so disparage? I guess you've never thought about it.

 

[Mephura]

My view on free will is that it is an illusion. However, this illusion is one that we are unable to escape. Because we are limited in the scope of what we can know, we can never have a full grasp on every interaction that goes into any given event within a system as large as reality as we know it.

However, I would disagree in saying that this removes the ability to punish. While it is true (at least in my opinion) that we have no real "choice" in what we do, the illusion that we are trapped in would have us believe otherwise. In much the same way that our societies and laws are based on the ideas that we can chose to live in a socially acceptable fashion or be punished, fields such as neurology, psychiatry, and the very idea that we can "rehabilitate" those who have chosen to do wrong would lead us to believe otherwise: That our thoughts and emotions are controlled by chemicals or that behaviors can be altered through positive or negitive reinforcement. That we can, in essence, be programed, or have a preexisting program altered.

So. Free will? No more so than any other "assemblage of particles" as Laika put it. Does this remove the onus or morality and choice? Not at all. Despite that the choice might already be determined, the making of that choice is still part of the process. It is the illusion that is consciousness. This cause and effect relationship is far too complicated for any to understand on any but the most rudimentary level.

Consciousness is an illusion. The reality we exist in is only a shadow of a truth that we are incapable of grasping. Calling the state we exist in free will is akin to calling a physical process we don't understand magical. Yet, it is the reality we know. The only we are capable of grasping. It's the rules by which the game is played. We can only act out the parts already written for us. We've never seen, or ever will see the script, but we'll all play our parts as written, flawlessly.

 

[Baron Max]

Do you realise that most of the law and structure of the society you live on is based on the "psycho-babble" you so disparage?

Oh, yeah, I agree. But the difference is, while the psycho-babbilists were still babbling happily, the realist took what they needed and build the society, made the laws, designed the governments and the law enforcements, created the legal courts and judges and attorneys, built the schools, trained the teachers, built the housing for the citizens, brought in the necessary utilities and food supplies, ..............and left the psycho-babbilists in the little rooms, still hard at the arguments, with no resolution whatsoever. And, James, they're still at it ...still haven't answered one single, solitary thing to their own satisfaction.

I guess you've never thought about it.

Oh, c'mon, James, you should know by now that I never think of anything worthwhile, and seldom of things that are NOT worthwhile!

Baron Max

 

[vslayer]

it may seem as though we have free will, in that we can think as we like, but its all at the will of the particles that make us up. in human terms have free will, but to look at it in a universal sense, free will and even life are just continuos atomic movements.

 

[lixluke]

What guides human action?

 

[Baron Max]

What guides human action?

Everything!

Baron Max

 

[baumgarten]

Free will is a defining characteristic of humanity. It doesn't matter what you believe the ultimate truth to be; in daily life you must assume it the very moment you are faced with a decision. Not knowing the outcome of a situation or all its preconditions and yet coming to a conscious decision implies the perception of free will in the mind of the one who decides. Wherever there is subjectivity, therefore, there is also free will.

 

[James R]

Oh, yeah, I agree. But the difference is, while the psycho-babbilists were still babbling happily, the realist took what they needed and build the society, made the laws, designed the governments and the law enforcements, created the legal courts and judges and attorneys, built the schools, trained the teachers, built the housing for the citizens, brought in the necessary utilities and food supplies, ..............and left the psycho-babbilists in the little rooms, still hard at the arguments, with no resolution whatsoever.

Again, you attempt to create a false dichotomy. You assume that deep thinkers and those "book educated" folks you so despise, aren't also the "realists" you compare them to. You assume the two groups are mutually exclusive.

To take just one example, some of America's greatest statesmen were realists and great thinkers.

You can't build a great society without great thinkers.

 

[Baron Max]

You assume that deep thinkers and those "book educated" folks you so despise, aren't also the "realists" you compare them to. You assume the two groups are mutually exclusive.

I think, for the most part, and for the great majority, the two groups ARE mutually exclusive.

To take just one example, some of America's greatest statesmen were realists and great thinkers.

A couple of isolated examples ain't never proved nothin', James, and never will.

You can't build a great society without great thinkers.

Yeah, they can sit around in their own filth and dream up great societies! But it takes the realists, the engineers, the "lowly" workers to build what the dreamers can't do.

Baron Max

 

[Baron Max]

Free will is a defining characteristic of humanity. It doesn't matter what you believe the ultimate truth to be; in daily life you must assume it the very moment you are faced with a decision. Not knowing the outcome of a situation or all its preconditions and yet coming to a conscious decision implies the perception of free will in the mind of the one who decides.

Don't most, if not all, animals do exactly the same things every day of their lives? If animals didn't make decisions, how could they possibly survive?

Baron Max

 

[Prince_James]

James R.:

It is a given that regardless of whether we have free wills or determined wills the world will remain as it is, yes? So why then think we must get rid of moral responsibility? For if we are determined, the world is no less than what it is, and moral responsibility is an intimate part of society and ethics.

 

[Roman]

No.

 

[baumgarten]

Don't most, if not all, animals do exactly the same things every day of their lives? If animals didn't make decisions, how could they possibly survive?

Baron Max

Basically, if it has a mind, then it perceives itself to have free will. If it perceives itself to have free will, then in all meaningful ways it has free will.