<div dir="ltr">"Instinct", "intuition" and "gut feeling" can be defined quite easily. They are not logically problematic, even if they are wrong. For example, a "gut feeling" is a belief not fully based on rational evidence. We can argue that we should, or should not, follow a gut feeling, we can do research to see whether following a gut feeling leads to a good outcome, speculate on whether people have access to subconscious information that manifests in a gut feeling, and so on. But "free will" is nonsensical unless you use it in the trivial sense of "I choose to do what I want to do, if I wanted to do otherwise I would have chosen otherwise, and I'm not sure what I'm going to do until I've actually done it". That definition works, but it's not what most people have in mind when they use the term.<div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 21 November 2016 at 09:52, William Flynn Wallace <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:foozler83@gmail.com" target="_blank">foozler83@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span class=""><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:large;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">I can say nothing about "free will" because I don't know what it means.</div></span><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:large"> john </span><br></div><div style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:large"><br></span></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34)"><font face="comic sans ms, sans-serif">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.</font></span></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34)"><font face="comic sans ms, sans-serif"><br></font></span></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34)"><font face="comic sans ms, sans-serif">And if you don't, then welcome to my club!</font></span></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34)"><font face="comic sans ms, sans-serif"><br></font></span></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34)"><font face="comic sans ms, sans-serif">bill w</font></span></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div><div class="h5">On Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 3:29 PM, John Clark <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:johnkclark@gmail.com" target="_blank">johnkclark@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br></div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div class="h5"><div dir="ltr"><span><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">On Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 3:43 PM, William Flynn Wallace </span><span dir="ltr" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><<a href="mailto:foozler83@gmail.com" target="_blank">foozler83@gmail.com</a>></span><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"> wrote:</span></div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><br></span></div></span><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34)"><div style="display:inline"><font face="comic sans ms, sans-serif"><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">> </div>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.<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div></font></div><span style="font-family:'comic sans ms',sans-serif">Determinism fits in here too: we have to assume it in criminal cases,</span></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div></span><div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"><font size="4">Well yes. Nobody is saying that events never have causes, just that they don't always. </font></div><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font size="4">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. </font></span></div><span> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"> <span style="font-family:'comic sans ms',sans-serif"> <div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">> </div></span><span style="font-family:'comic sans ms',sans-serif">just like free will, even though both constructs are arguable. </span></blockquote><div><font size="4"><br></font></div></span><div><font size="4"><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">I can say nothing about "free will" because I don't know what it means.</div> </font></div><span><font face="comic sans ms, sans-serif"><br></font><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34)"><div style="display:inline"><font face="comic sans ms, sans-serif"><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">> </div>When something better comes along, we may have to change </font></div><span style="font-family:'comic sans ms',sans-serif">our way of thinking about people and </span><span style="font-family:'comic sans ms',sans-serif">re-write our entire legal system. But for now, we have no good alternatives.</span></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div></span><div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"><font size="4">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 </font></div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"><font size="4">somebody is a monster that doesn't stop him from being a monster, and I don't care if he's insane or not.</font></div></div><div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"><font size="4"><br></font></div></div><div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"><font size="4">John K Clark</font></div></div><div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"><br></div></div><div><br></div></div></div></div>
<br></div></div><span class="">______________________________<wbr>_________________<br>
extropy-chat mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a><br>
<a href="http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.extropy.org/mailm<wbr>an/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat</a><br>
<br></span></blockquote></div><br></div>
<br>______________________________<wbr>_________________<br>
extropy-chat mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a><br>
<a href="http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.extropy.org/<wbr>mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-<wbr>chat</a><br>
<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">Stathis Papaioannou</div>
</div></div>