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No, I think the point made above is that you can still choose punishment because even with no free will involved, the future decision calculations need to obser

by ericb 7y ago

No, I think the point made above is that you can still choose punishment because even with no free will involved, the future decision calculations need to observe a strong penalty to deciding yes for murder. This doesn't require free will any more than an if-then I write in code requires it.

bena 7y ago
But your if-then exhibits no independent action. It just is. It can't "choose", it just takes input and gives a predetermined output based on that input. If free will does not exist, you do not have a choice. It's disingenuous to both argue that free will does not exist and to proclaim that we should do anything. Or that we can make any sort of choice.
- ericb 7y ago
  > It's disingenuous to both argue that free will does not exist and to proclaim that we should do anything. Not at all. Maybe you are a free-will-lacking if-then bot that takes whatever suggestions someone says we should do and executes them, and maybe I am a free will lacking robot that periodically burps out suggestions. No disenguity or "true choice" required.
  - bena 7y ago
    But if free will does not exist and you believe that, then you would know that whomever you're making the suggestion to is incapable of changing whatever path they were going on in the first place. By suggesting a course of action, you are implying there is an actor with agency out there. Now, while the actor itself may not actually have agency, that does not absolve you. Any attempt to persuade is an implicit acknowledgement of free will.
    - ericb 7y ago
      > Any attempt to persuade is an implicit acknowledgement of free will. > But your if-then exhibits no independent action. Attempts at persuasion don't imply free will, they just change the input to the if-then in a downstream deterministic process. If bash script A calls bash script B with a command line flag to make it follow an alternate behavior, nothing is implied about the free will of either bash script.

by ericb 7y ago

bena 7y ago

But your if-then exhibits no independent action. It just is. It can't "choose", it just takes input and gives a predetermined output based on that input. If free will does not exist, you do not have a choice. It's disingenuous to both argue that free will does not exist and to proclaim that we should do anything. Or that we can make any sort of choice.

ericb 7y ago
> It's disingenuous to both argue that free will does not exist and to proclaim that we should do anything. Not at all. Maybe you are a free-will-lacking if-then bot that takes whatever suggestions someone says we should do and executes them, and maybe I am a free will lacking robot that periodically burps out suggestions. No disenguity or "true choice" required.
- bena 7y ago
  But if free will does not exist and you believe that, then you would know that whomever you're making the suggestion to is incapable of changing whatever path they were going on in the first place. By suggesting a course of action, you are implying there is an actor with agency out there. Now, while the actor itself may not actually have agency, that does not absolve you. Any attempt to persuade is an implicit acknowledgement of free will.
  - ericb 7y ago
    > Any attempt to persuade is an implicit acknowledgement of free will. > But your if-then exhibits no independent action. Attempts at persuasion don't imply free will, they just change the input to the if-then in a downstream deterministic process. If bash script A calls bash script B with a command line flag to make it follow an alternate behavior, nothing is implied about the free will of either bash script.