Interestingly on the topic of free will, while we do have a significant build up to making a decision (though I swear it wasn't as long as six seconds) we can cancel the making of that decision almost instantly.

I dont think free will is really an issue here.  When a loving grandma or a child molestor think about doing bad things, they utilize the same part of their brain to come to a decision.  Primarily, what matters is their perception of the cost-benefit ratio of their action (chance they will be punished, empathy towards the victim, what society will think of them, and so forth).

Is the cost-benefit ratio random?  I think not, but even so there are too many variables for us to think that it isnt random.  If you are playing a game, the roll of dice is considered random because there was no means to accurately explain the outcome, but if you had a computer that utilized calculus and physics to accurately predict the outcome of the dice, then there is no use to think of it as random.  Similary, computers cannot do random things, they use a complex equation based on time to give outputs that make us think they are random, but if you changed the equation and made it less complex (say the roll of the dice was decided by the minute and not the millisecond) it wouldnt take long for us to realize that it is not random.  I would always roll a 5 at 5:05 so the concept of randomness is gone.

As Slimebeat says, the same may go for quantum physics.  Quantum physics may not be random, but for all intensive purposes we might as well think of it as random.

Well quantum has been proven to be probabilistic as much as it is possible to prove anything is not deterministic.

Under your set of rules you could claim anything non-deterministic is caused by hidden variables, as such proving that anything is non-deterministic would be impossible. The burden of proof is actually on you to prove that quantum is not probababilistic.

I still don't get your point about criminals. Mentally ill people go to a mental hospital when they murder, because they weren't responsible for their action. A normal person will go to jail, because he is responsible. But if there is no free will, that person didn't choose to murder, it was chosen for him; therefore he isn't responsible. Should he be sent to a mental hospital as well?

If we don't have free will, then the conditions are pre-determined for us as well. The conditions are a direct result of the choices you must've made (or were made for you) earlier. Cause and effect. And this would mean that our future decisions are pre-determined as well. I hope that makes sense.

I really don't know where you got that "unknown factors cause the seeming randomness in observed particles".

And randomness is very real. For example, when a radioactive atom will decay is completely random. Approximations can be made, but the range of possible scenarios is from right now (non-inclusive) to an infinite amount of time from now, no matter what the half-life is.

I suppose given my opinions, criminals, like the mentally ill are not responsible for their actions. However, as ManusJustus said, that is almost irrelevant as they are still a threat to society (whether ultimately responsible or not) and therefore must be dealt with. I would argue that criminals are able to comprehend the risk factor in undertaking a crime and so the threat of jail acts as a deterrent to their decision on whether to commit the crime or not. The same would not be true of a mentally ill person who may not understand the crime/punishment system of jail and so it is not factored into their decision making process. Therefore they should not be submitted to the same level of punishment.

On the pre-determined issue I would say that many of my views lead me to believe that everything may be pre-determined but there are other factors which I don't fully understand that could affect this. This is where randomness, if i exists, comes in. If there is a degree of chaos in physics (and I would tend to believe there isnt but im not well read on the subject) then there are cause and effects that will happen in the future that are by the definition of random, impossible to predict thus making nothing completely pre-determined.

Well, I don't believe in the concept of probabilism either. Like stuff being 'random' it's just an observation.

Lots of phenomenons can be described as probabilistic from one level of observation (like discussed in this thread, for example different outcomes of neuron activity) but from another level of observation they usually have some cause that doesn't reveal itself in the first level of observation.

Of course on the level of observation of quantum physics as we are doing it now the behaviour of the particles is probabilistic. But just like the neurons that doesn't say there's not a concrete cause on another 'hidden' level. I believe there's a concrete cause.

What's the title of this episode, I want to see if I can find it online

Yeah where can I find this? Sounds extremely interesting..

@puffy and Avinash_Tyagi

The program is part of a series called Horizon and this episode was "The secret you". It's available online on BBC iPlayer although I don't know if you can watch it outside the UK but here's a link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00nhv56/Horizon_20092010_The_Secret_You/