<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">And what if you had voices in your head saying things, urging you to do things that you would never even dream of, much less do? There is a clear history for the supposed validity of demon possession. Do you think that you would feel that those voices were yours? That the actions urged were ones you'd like to do? If we truly had free will we could turn those voices off, eh? Only drugs might do that. bill w</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Aug 17, 2020 at 1:52 PM John Clark via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">On Mon, Aug 17, 2020 at 11:56 AM SR Ballard via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:</span><br></div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"></blockquote><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">></span> <i>If free will is real and you think it is not,</i></blockquote><div><br></div><div><font size="4">I think God is real, unless declared <span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">an integer. </span> </font></div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><i><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span>you can and will excuse all manner of immorality, sloth, and cruelty because they couldn’t be avoided.</i></blockquote><div><br></div><div><font size="4">Well<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span> I think <span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">f</span>ree<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> </span>will is pure gibberish <span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">and yet</span> I don't excuse all <span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">manner of </span>immorality, sloth, and cruelty<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">.</span><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> And I think the insanity defense, the legal argument that murderers should be let go because they have bad genes or a bad upbringing or because of a smudge that can be seen on a MRI scan of a murderer's brain, is utterly ridiculous. Far from concluding that people are never responsible for their actions I would say people are <b>always</b> responsible for their actions.</span></font></div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><i><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span>You probably put murderers in jail, but it’s kind of stupid because from your perspective they never decided to kill anyone. Killing someone was something they would be completely unable to prevent.</i><br></blockquote><div> </div><div><font size="4"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Dr.</span>Hannibal Lecter<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> or any other </span>prolific murder in <span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">fiction or reality</span> wouldn't be killing anyone if he was dead, or if there were<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> other </span>environmental restraints<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> that kept him from engaging in his hobby.</span></font></div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span><i>If free will is not real, then your belief in it does not change your actions.</i></blockquote><div><br></div><div><font size="4">Of course they do!<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> If my belief, which is the end result of the interaction between my genes and my environment, is that I am going to be severely punished if I commit murder then I am less likely to commit murder even if I would very much want to.</span> </font></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">><i> </i></span><i>If free will doesn’t exist, it doesn’t matter because it changes nothing, and I will have whatever belief I will have regardless of my own “agency”, so it’s pointless to try to change my mind.<br></i></blockquote><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><font size="4">People, even murderers, change their minds all the time and they do so based on environmental factors<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">. When conditions change people's behavior changes too.</span> </font></div><div><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font size="4">John K Clark</font></div><br>
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