On Feb 8, 10:45 am, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 7, 2012 at 8:00 PM, Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> > If it were completely dependent though, there would no experience of
> > decision at all.
>
> I don't understand why people insist on infusing great mystery and
> significance and resort to mystical crap like "free floating glow" to
> explain the commonplace observation that you don't know what the result of
> a calculation will be until you've finished the calculation and you don't
> know what you will decide to do until you have decided to do it.

That supposes there is a 'you' to not know but to care about the
calculation one way or another. To ascribe a 'you'-ness to a room or a
rule book is where you would need to resort to some metaphysical
pseudosubstance (not me, but defenders of comp).

>
> > This is why US law
>
> And there is no better place to seek answers to existential questions than
> to ask a lawyer.

Lawyers exist too, last time I checked.

>
> > includes a continuum of possibilities of intention, like premeditated
> > murder, second degree murder, voluntary manslaughter, involuntary
> > manslaughter, criminally negligent manslaughter, and not guilty.
>
> And that's why US criminal law makes absolutely no sense. You are not
> responsible for your crime, that is to say you should not be punished, if
> you did the crime because you had bad genes or because you had bad potty
> training when you were a baby, or because of random circumstances and were
> just unlucky; so you should not be punished if you did it for a reason or
> if you did it for no reason, and yet US laws nevertheless finds millions of
> people worthy of punishment. Idiotic!

I agree that the particular laws and their enforcement is often
corrupt and barbaric, but that's not what I'm talking about. I only
mention the law to point out that we do indeed make not only a
distinction between intentional and unintentional, but that it is
widely understood that there is a broad range of mitigating factors,
shades of guilt and innocence. If you are going to hold all citizens
harmless for their offenses, then why not hold the government, which
is just an organized group of citizens, as blameless for their actions
as well? The US government was traumatized by various wars and
depressions...it's lonely and misunderstood. How can you blame it if
it puts millions of people in prison for trivial reasons and rewards
the privileged for high crimes?

>
> > If artistic and scientific genius isn't an example of free will, what is
> > the point of recognizing it?\
>
> No point whatsoever, I said it before I'll say it again, free will is a
> idea so bad it's not even wrong.
>

Oh, problem solved then. No point in trying to do anything new or
interesting, because new or interesting can't exist. In comp Bizarro
world.

Craig

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