A thing about religious (and other) people and the illusion of free will

[The Grand Nudger]

Secular theology is an oxymoron, at least as far as I understand those terms. Our dog pissed the bed last night. My wife was giving her the disappointed voice as I was typing this. She knows what she did, she messed up. The wife, still talking to the dog but also to me (honestly, not much of a difference) says this. Then implicates our kids. They forgot and/or refused to walk her last night. The dog is in trouble because she pissed the bed and she pissed the bed because the she didn't get her walk when she was supposed to. Causal chains and determinism in a simple form. No gods required, just one dog and some kids.

Unless "enough" means all then I can't see how we could build a machine like that. "Enough" must mean more information than we currently possess - because we can't do that. If the bookends of "enough" info are us and all - it seems like there's quite a bit of distance between that machine and the light of day. Still, there wouldn't be anything magical about it, if it were possible. It would be mechanical. Both the machine itself and the means of discovery purported.

Do you think that seeming paradox or pseudo paradox or intuitive paradox could be better than paradox for those examples? There's no actual paradox between the earth revolving the sun and an observer on earth apprehending the sun revolving around the earth. That's what the sun revolving around the earth -or- the earth revolving around the sun looks like.....either way, the effect for an observer on earth is the same. Just trying to make sure we're on the same page. If it's like that, then yeah, I'm also fine with that. I'd say the whole free will thing is a bit like the sun. What do we expect decision making with/without free will to look like from the inside of the decision maker?

Not being free to meet a date? It's happened to me many times in life, and I've not been free to make many dates myself. If someone tells me they are not free to make a date I take them at their word. It might be a birthday or a funeral. I know what you mean, though. Not every missed date was a birthday or a funeral or whatever it is amounts to a cant miss for them, literally, as in they are compelled to attend and cannot fail to attend. Sometimes we get blown off and not being free is just an easy let down. I'd prefer it to "You're trash, not coming" though I'm sure that's at the heart of at least a few..... Madness down that road. So, like I said, as a general rule I'm content to take people at their word because a- I think that does happen...that it's a thing ; and b - I prefer that version of rejection.

That's why we're here, right, uncomfortable questions with even more discomforting answers. So how about those people that aren't unfree, or at least not unfree in the way that they're leveraging to blow us off? Did they freely decide that my face was ugly..and on second thought...? Did they freely decide what sort of ideological upbringing they had which views me as abhorrent, do they freely decide to continue seeing things in that way? Another poster already brought up a beautiful quote to that effect. Can we will what we will?

If not - then it does seem to stand to reason that at least some of what we do or why we do it in response to the things some people will is without any objective or effective or rational or fair basis. Underneath it all, I think you actually agree with the proposition you're criticising more than you disagree. Sopalsky and you both think that, if x were true, then this invalidates some whole shebang. Baby, bathwater. I think, generously, that Sopalsky had a more limited set of legal outcomes or practices in mind - those specifically referenced in the quote. I don't think that he would say that because we do not have free will, we should not prevent arsonists from starting fires, even if that meant forcibly detaining them. If some people or all people truly are bundles of compulsion that lead inexorably to burning down houses that is a strong case for a compelling interest in the same.

I think that, lacking a free will, an arsonist is not to blame for being an arsonist in the sense that we then decide that an arsonist is morally evil because arson, and as a morally evil person they are subject to or even need harsh punishment. That we must go beyond holding them accountable and exact revenge in one form or another. Hurt them..until they do right, or even if they wont do right, or simply can't. Maybe to scare some other guy who hasn't...as yet...committed arson....or any other crime come to think of it. That we must make examples of bad people, or that their suffering must satisfy society or even the victims of their crimes. I think this is indefensible whether we have free will or not. What do you think?

As to personal accountability - or the purported loss thereof....my dog pissed the bed last night. I don't think she freely willed to do it. She seemed as surprised as I was. She is not personally wholly accountable for it. My kids didn't walk her, I didn't notice...I didn't walk her..and more broadly we're the ones that lock her in this fartbox every night. Big pup, small bladder. Sometimes...you just gotta go. So I don't blame her. I didn't call her a Bad Dog, I've not put her in a cage...but I did put the gate back up in the hallway. She did it, she doesn;t get access to the bed anymore. The kids were reprimanded, and we're going to add an extra layer of oversight and accountability to dog walking before bed time. Now she wont piss in it, and I won't have a cause to be pissy about that, and the kids won't get themselves implicated in pee crime, and I wont feel like a Bad Dad. Justice.

Now go piss on a real estate office downtown and see what that looks like in our legal system for humans, right?