[ExI] free-will, determinism, crime and punishment

[Lee Corbin]

Samantha writes

> On second consideration of a decision point I might very
> well take a road not taken before. Perhaps some of that
> is just me as I seem to often be of at least two minds on
> many things.

Do you believe in uncaused events? Unless you do, I don't
see how---under *exactly* identical circumstances---you
can choose other than you did.

>> Besides, the very wide tracts of neurons that determine
>> a decision a few seconds before you make an action are,
>> well, "deterministic" and I think that we can safely regard
>> people as very akin to programs.
> 
> They are not deterministic in the useful form or being precisely  
> predictable in macro level outcome.

True.  It is necessary to distinguish between "ontological determinism"
and "epistemological determinism"  (Barrow and Tipler, 1986).
I am making the ontological claim here that one's actions really
are physically determined, whether or not there might be any
short cut to their computation, or whether or not it's feasible to
compute them.

Lee

> That it is all physics underneath is not terribly useful in this domain.