[ExI] Humans losing freewill

[William Flynn Wallace]

I can say nothing about "free will" because I don't know what it means.​
 john

I do love someone who wants their words defined properly.  Yet, in everyday
conversation, I'll bet that you use words like 'instinct', 'intuition',
'gut feelings' and more and cannot give a proper, that is to say, a more
scientific definition than is usual among the insufficiently educated.

And if you don't, then welcome to my club!

bill w

On Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 3:29 PM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 3:43 PM, William Flynn Wallace <
> foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> ​> ​
>> In the absence of compelling data, we assume that a person meant to do
>> what they did, and use that as the basis for a legal decision.
>> ​ ​
>> Determinism fits in here too:  we have to assume it in criminal cases,
>>
>
> ​Well yes. Nobody is saying that events never have causes, just that they
> don't always.
> The only useful purpose for criminal law is to stop someone who hurt
> somebody else from doing it again and to deter others from doing something
> similar; that is to say criminal law causes people to behave in certain
> ways and civilization would be impossible without it.
>  ​
>>
>>
>> ​> ​
>> just like free will, even though both constructs are arguable.
>
>
> ​I can say nothing about "free will" because I don't know what it means.​
>
>
> ​> ​
>> When something better comes along, we may have to change
>> our way of thinking about people and re-write our entire legal system.
>> But for now, we have no good alternatives.
>>
>
> ​How about treating it as irrelevant if a person is a moral monster
> because he had bad genes or a bad environment and instead punish him if and
> only if doing so will prevent him from doing bad stuff again and or deter
> others. ​If you can explain why
> ​somebody is a monster that doesn't stop him from being a monster, and I
> don't care if he's insane or not.​
>
> John K Clark
>
>
>
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