> ...we __should__ be much kinder to people... This implies a choice. If there is no free will, all you can say is we will or we won't based on our current b

> ...we __should__ be much kinder to people... This implies a choice. If there is no free will, all you can say is we will or we won't based on our current brain state. Sure, we don't know what that outcome will be, but it's already determined by our own current brain state. > (they were forced to do it by their brain state, after all) Any any punishment from cruel and unusual or no punishment at all was forced by the brain states of the people in a position to decide and carry out any punishment. Again, without any free will, any talk about what "we should do" is pointless: it's determined. Your much kinder argument I also think falls completely flat because I really think you end up in a binary: either you are culpable for your actions or not. If determinism excuses your dastardly acts in part because of lack of agency, what possible argument remains for not simply pretending that no wrong ever happened? On the other side, if a society living in a deterministic world still receives benefit from deterrence and retribution, then there would be no difference than if we're living in a world with free agency: so determinism ceases to be an argument about the degree we punish. I do actually agree with you at one point: either the world is fundamentally deterministic or it isn't. I do think something approaching free will may possibly be an emergent feature of our world, much like a single hemisphere has no roll, but putting two together and rolling emerges. But even that, at the root would be fundamentally deterministic. I would also suggest this. Whether or not free will is a fundamental feature of the world we live in or simply an illusion due to our inability to follow our own brains from one state to the next: you better live your live like free will is a thing and not worry too much about how predestined your actions are: if free will is an illusion, that illusion is strong... the outcomes will be determined by states that include the influences of free will like assumptions, or the absence thereof. If free will is a thing: you're covered. Of course giving this advice presumes you have a choice in taking it or not... if there is no free will you either will or won't and the only questions arise out of our inability to project into what we call the future.