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That there is no free will. (and a few things deducted from that, like how anyone is innocent in some way and how this relates to criminal justice (protect soci

That there is no free will. (and a few things deducted from that, like how anyone is innocent in some way and how this relates to criminal justice (protect society, resocialize, but never revenge)).

ddorian43 8y ago
Some people with ASPD (antisocial personality disorder) can't (don't want to) be fixed.
- nils-m-holm 8y ago
  "Don't want to be" assumes free will, which I reject. "Can't" is still no justification for revenge. Even if we assume that the "can't" is absolute, re-socialization should be attempted for the rest of the life of the individual. See it as an analogy to medicine: we don't say, "this guy cannot be helped, so we'll just let him die."
  - anotheryou 8y ago
    Exactly, locking someone away might be unjust to this person, but can be necessary for the greater good of protecting the society. The conclusion should be to lock such persons away in a reasonably humane way¹ (and not to sentence him/her to death). ¹ something in this direction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halden_Prison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halden_Prison
nils-m-holm 8y ago
I agree completely! It is my experience also that things just happen without anybody being in control. Given the same circumstances, all individuals would act in exactly the same way. Of course, "the circumstances" include a lot of hard-to-describe factors, like the mental model of an individual, as it was created during their life so far. Naturally, this point of view attracts a lot of criticism, most of all from people who think they would achieve better results in the same situation, e.g. not resorting to crime when faced with social exclusion and hardship. The assumption, in my experience, comes from lack of reflection, though. What enables one individual to perform "better" than the other? I would say, it's their mental model, created solely by their previous experiences. The "you" that allegedly makes all those "right" decisions is merely an automaton that was programmed by past experiences. So you are performing better because you learned to perform better or, in other words, you were lucky to live in an environment that fostered those traits. Indeed, there is no achievement and no guilt. They are both purely social constructs without any substance, and all they do is create a gap between those people who were lucky and those who were not.
- derrikcurran 8y ago
  Achievement and guilt help regulate those environments. A person who is successful because they live in a place that has plenty of food might work to bring food to places that don't in order to feel a sense of achievement. That would improve the environment of others. Likewise, someone destroying a place's food stores would damage that environment but guilt makes it less likely for that to happen. The exact things that cause feelings of achievement and guilt are defined by consensus (like you said, social construct). Also, if there's a genetic factor in how we come to that consensus, those genes are more likely to survive multiple iterations if the consensus results in more survivable environments, so there is substance in the sense that these rules are well tested and proven.
ManlyBread 8y ago
I wondered a lot about this in my teenage years; everything happens because of physics and chemical reactions, so why would humankind be any different? I tried to finf the answer to the question and my final conclusion was that regardless of whether this is true or not it would simply be too boring for a world to be like this.
- anotheryou 8y ago
  I simply optimize for personal bliss. Luckily this includes not causing pain to others and the good feeling of doing good. Also be amazed at the complexity of these random swirls of reality and the weird dip in entropy mankind exists in.
ramblerman 8y ago
If there is no free will why even think about how to organize criminal justice. Surely the outcome of that is also predetermined, as it's formed by people without free will.
- anotheryou 8y ago
  There is some paradox about it, but that doesn't make it untrue. I long for a society without suffering. It's probably a drive caused by evolution: protecting my kind.
- nils-m-holm 8y ago
  > If there is no free will why even think about how to organize criminal justice What you are asking is, "if there is no free will, then why are you thinking about criminal justice out of your own free will?" None of us is "doing" anything, it just happens. Here is a little experiment: next time you talk to someone, try to find out what you will be saying before you actually say it. Maybe, there will be a surprise.
reitanqild 8y ago
My belief that I have free will has huge benefits for me ;-)
- anotheryou 8y ago
  Yes, the illusion of free will is crucial for many things.
  - reitanqild 8y ago
    I'd rather say that free will is given to those who claim it.
    - anotheryou 8y ago
      as an agnostic I have to agree to some degree

That there is no free will. (and a few things deducted from that, like how anyone is innocent in some way and how this relates to criminal justice (protect society, resocialize, but never revenge)).

ddorian43 8y ago

Some people with ASPD (antisocial personality disorder) can't (don't want to) be fixed.

nils-m-holm 8y ago
"Don't want to be" assumes free will, which I reject. "Can't" is still no justification for revenge. Even if we assume that the "can't" is absolute, re-socialization should be attempted for the rest of the life of the individual. See it as an analogy to medicine: we don't say, "this guy cannot be helped, so we'll just let him die."
- anotheryou 8y ago
  Exactly, locking someone away might be unjust to this person, but can be necessary for the greater good of protecting the society. The conclusion should be to lock such persons away in a reasonably humane way¹ (and not to sentence him/her to death). ¹ something in this direction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halden_Prison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halden_Prison

nils-m-holm 8y ago

I agree completely! It is my experience also that things just happen without anybody being in control. Given the same circumstances, all individuals would act in exactly the same way. Of course, "the circumstances" include a lot of hard-to-describe factors, like the mental model of an individual, as it was created during their life so far. Naturally, this point of view attracts a lot of criticism, most of all from people who think they would achieve better results in the same situation, e.g. not resorting to crime when faced with social exclusion and hardship. The assumption, in my experience, comes from lack of reflection, though. What enables one individual to perform "better" than the other? I would say, it's their mental model, created solely by their previous experiences. The "you" that allegedly makes all those "right" decisions is merely an automaton that was programmed by past experiences. So you are performing better because you learned to perform better or, in other words, you were lucky to live in an environment that fostered those traits. Indeed, there is no achievement and no guilt. They are both purely social constructs without any substance, and all they do is create a gap between those people who were lucky and those who were not.

derrikcurran 8y ago
Achievement and guilt help regulate those environments. A person who is successful because they live in a place that has plenty of food might work to bring food to places that don't in order to feel a sense of achievement. That would improve the environment of others. Likewise, someone destroying a place's food stores would damage that environment but guilt makes it less likely for that to happen. The exact things that cause feelings of achievement and guilt are defined by consensus (like you said, social construct). Also, if there's a genetic factor in how we come to that consensus, those genes are more likely to survive multiple iterations if the consensus results in more survivable environments, so there is substance in the sense that these rules are well tested and proven.

ManlyBread 8y ago

I wondered a lot about this in my teenage years; everything happens because of physics and chemical reactions, so why would humankind be any different? I tried to finf the answer to the question and my final conclusion was that regardless of whether this is true or not it would simply be too boring for a world to be like this.

anotheryou 8y ago
I simply optimize for personal bliss. Luckily this includes not causing pain to others and the good feeling of doing good. Also be amazed at the complexity of these random swirls of reality and the weird dip in entropy mankind exists in.

ramblerman 8y ago

If there is no free will why even think about how to organize criminal justice. Surely the outcome of that is also predetermined, as it's formed by people without free will.

anotheryou 8y ago
There is some paradox about it, but that doesn't make it untrue. I long for a society without suffering. It's probably a drive caused by evolution: protecting my kind.
nils-m-holm 8y ago
> If there is no free will why even think about how to organize criminal justice What you are asking is, "if there is no free will, then why are you thinking about criminal justice out of your own free will?" None of us is "doing" anything, it just happens. Here is a little experiment: next time you talk to someone, try to find out what you will be saying before you actually say it. Maybe, there will be a surprise.

reitanqild 8y ago

My belief that I have free will has huge benefits for me ;-)

anotheryou 8y ago
Yes, the illusion of free will is crucial for many things.
- reitanqild 8y ago
  I'd rather say that free will is given to those who claim it.
  - anotheryou 8y ago
    as an agnostic I have to agree to some degree