No soul? No free will and no responsibility then, yet the latter's essential...

[possibletarian]

Interesting topic inst it, seems to me the debate has moved on from 'do we have free will' to 'is it better to believe in free will even though it may not be true'

On one side we have those who believe without free will (or at least the belief in free will) we will become monsters, not a belief i personally hold.
On the other that moving forward in our understanding of will (free or not) is vital to understanding ourselves.

I'm really interested where the science and observation on this debate goes

---

We don't require brains to be able to do that to prosecute someone for assault - and even though we know that there are factors and circumstances which strongly correlate with future crime - we don't have to drop charges if we happen to find out that the defendant was mercilessly beaten as a child.

We think that this might have an effect on their free will™ just like so many other things does...right down to being hungry or having low blood sugar, but none of them save for a complete lack of fitness to stand is relevant to questions of guilt.  

Not having any free will, at all, might absolve a person of moral guilt, as another poster mentioned..but legal guilt is not moral guilt, and our system runs on legal guilt.  It's not necessary for our system to work as-is...but if we insist and if we want to consider it when we determine things like sentencing...that's fine.   I love desert.

I tend to agree, we still need to protect society from peoples harmful decision making, like someone who is constantly making poor driving decisions and causing accidents, we still need to take away the right to drive a car.

[brewer]

Release the kraken will now be replaced with Release the amoral determinist.

[Duty]

Because determinists have no concept of the difference between right and wrong? Why/how? Show your working, @brewer

[brewer]

Because determinists have no concept of the difference between right and wrong? Why/how? Show your working, @brewer

What??? I said amoral. Humor impaired?

It would probably take a psychiatrist and fMRI to show my work.

[Duty]

I wonder if stand up comics who can't make their audience laugh think of that audience as being "humor impaired"...anyway:

amoral
[eɪˈmɒr(ə)l]
ADJECTIVE
lacking a moral sense; unconcerned with the rightness or wrongness of something.

[brewer]

I wonder if stand up comics who can't make their audience laugh think of that audience as being "humor impaired"...anyway:

amoral
[eɪˈmɒr(ə)l]
ADJECTIVE
lacking a moral sense; unconcerned with the rightness or wrongness of something.

What's your point? Morals, free will and responsibility is what you're in a twist about.

Or do you think that Kraken's are moral, or maybe nondeterministic.

[Duty]

I'm not in a twist about anything; you're the one acting all "toys out of the pram" about this topic, from your first post. AAAAAnyway: your post above implied you think determinists are amoral. Do you think that or not?

[brewer]

I'm not in a twist about anything; you're the one acting all "toys out of the pram" about this topic, from your first post.

Many mother Krakens have been know to tell their offspring "You are what you destroy".

[Sal]

Interesting topic inst it, seems to me the debate has moved on from 'do we have free will' to 'is it better to believe in free will even though it may not be true'

On one side we have those who believe without free will (or at least the belief in free will) we will become monsters, not a belief i personally hold.
On  the other that moving forward in our understanding of will (free or not) is vital to understanding ourselves.

I'm really interested where the science and observation on this debate goes

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...ll/480750/

I think it's likely that we experience a sense of free will because of Theory of Mind, this coupled with an experience of Self makes us able to envision other people with thoughts and desires, different from oneself. This in turn gives us a deep connection to others so much so we have a word for it: Empathy, the ability to create a "minds eye" of how experience, a sort of model of the others perspective, within your own perspective. What I'm getting at is that our intuition about free will is intricately connected to our social evolution as a species. I wouldn't be surprised that other animals, that are able to recognize themselves in reflections, have a rudimentary Theory of Mind and ability to empathize, especially so for social animals.

That the notion of free will being illusory making people less ethical and more pessimistic is probably a result of them being steered towards a fatalistic conviction. Determinism itself has no say in how people behave, convictions and beliefs steer actions and behavior. I think people with incomplete ideas & broken framework about determinism leads to fatalism. A more rigorous understanding of determinism and how our brains work will also make people appreciate the lives lived, their own and others, and enhance an empathic worldview. The example that Sam Harris in the article gives, comparing the 9/11 attacks fraught with intentionality & hatred with the more focused and dispassionate approach after the Katrina hurricane (because we're not waging a War against Weather), enables people to really think deeply and with aim on how to react to the actions of other people, focused and without hatred.

I'm reminded about the idea about mystery contrasted with knowledge, in a tangential vein. If you know how a flower grows & reproduces, how it photosynthesises, why it has the color that it does, its whole life cycle and contrast that with the experience of awe and mystery of its beauty when you don't know the former, doesn't detract from it your sense of awe and beauty. I'd argue knowing how a flower is put together enhances your appreciation and experience of its awe and beauty.

[Paleophyte]

If there were some kind of ethereal supernatural "soul" in the picture (for which there is, of course, zero evidence) then perhaps some from of free will would be possible...

Nobody ever seems to care to demonstrate that the soul is responsible for free will in any manner. It's simply a bald assertion.

For society to function in any kind of moral way people need be held responsible for their actions (eg - crime).

As a purely deterministic entity I am incapable of allowing what I perceive as injustice to go unpunished. Do not pass "Go". Do not collect $200.

You frequently hear the line "they did it of their own free will" etc.

You're mixing philosophy and law here. Don't. It tends to go boom. In the legal sense, the term "of their own free will" is typically used to indicate that the perpetrator was sane, not impaired by chemicals or other means, and not coerced or forced.

If you deliberately shoot somebody "of your own free will" then you're likely facing murder charges.

If you are strapped into place, a gun taped to your hand, and electrodes wired to your arm in such a way that your muscles contract and cause your finger to pull the trigger then the guilty party is clearly whoever wired you into this murder machine.

Yup, it's the mother of all paradoxes, but there we have it, it's....inescapable.

This paradox only appears when you mix free will and determinism, which is clearly an error. Using either system alone produces no paradox.