ultima said:
CrazyHorse said:
ultima said:
OK, I understand now. Thanks for clearing that up.
What makes you think that people don't have free will? And if free will doesn't exist how can you possible hold anyone responsible for their actions? By that way of thinking, murderers murder and thieves steal because they don't have a choice...
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It depends on how you view free will. I don't think we are controlled by any external forces but I do think we are constrained by our selves into always making a particular choice in a given set of circumstances. If our consciousness and therefore our decision making is all just a factor of purely biological processes driven by the brain then the choices we make are governed entirely by our biology. Therefore when you make a choice under a specific set of circumstances your brain makes a judgement controlled by biology (which in the case of the brain is governed by DNA and passed experiences). If those circumstances were identically repeated you would always make the same judgement and therefore you don't have the 'free will' to choose differently.
An unfortunate consequence of this is, as you point out, that people are therefore not truly responsible for their actions. That said, they should still be punished as punishment acts as a detterent and would be factored in to your decision making process even though you perhaps have no real control on its outcome.
Hope that makes some sort of sense!
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I think I kind of understand what you're trying to say... But what if, say two twins at an early age, with identical past experiences were faced with a decision, would the two always choose the same option? Twins are, after all, biologically very similar...
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If they were completely identical with exactly the same past experiences then I think they would definately make the same decision. As this would never happen in reality then I think the chance of them making the same decision would reflect on how different their circumstances have been. In other words, the better you can replicate the situation the more likely they are to make the same choice.
