Well, no one said that stuff is predetermined based only on experience, right? But the argument is that everything, including our thoughts, looks to be predetermined based on the combo of biology and experience, and the question is if there's also an independent external 'free will' or 'soul' or not, in addition to biology + programming (experience).

The misfired or misread neuronal signals are still based on biological or physical mechanisms and not on any 'randomness'.

I'll see if I can torrent it, thanks

Well, I probably read too much into certain comments that could be read that way but probably weren't meant to be so.  

But even if quantum physics turns out to be deterministically derived from some even more fundamental thing, that doesn't mean that the randomness isn't there -- it just means that quantum physics isn't itself the source of the randomness.   

"Contrary to classical physics, quantum physics is fundamentally random. It is the only theory within the fabric of modern physics that integrates randomness. This fact was very disturbing to physicists like Einstein who invented quantum physics. However, its intrinsic randomness has been confirmed over and over again by theoretical and experimental research conducted since the first decades of the XXth century."

"Until recently the only quantum random number generator that existed were based on the observation of the radioactive decay of some element. Although they produce numbers of excellent quality, these generators are quite bulky and the use of radioactive materials may cause health concerns. The fact that a simple and low cost quantum random number generators did not exist prevented quantum physics to become the dominant source of randomness.

"Optical quantum random number generator 

"Optics is the science of light. From a quantum physics point of view, light consists of elementary "particles" called photons. Photons exhibit in certain situations a random behavior. One such situation, which is very well suited to the generation of binary random numbers, is the transmission upon a semi-transparent mirror. The fact that a photon incident on such a component be reflected or transmitted is intrinsically random and cannot be influenced by any external parameters. The figure below schematically shows this optical system."
http://www.randomnumbers.info/content/Generating.htm

This shows that devices on the macro scale can show effects of quantum level randomness.  Are you positive that misfiring neurons aren't another example?  

I can be wrong, but mentally ill aren't thrown in jail not because they wouldn't understand that they're being punished, but because it's not fair to punish them if they can't be held responsible.

As for randomness, how exactly would it factor into something like this? I mean, you're born because your parents decided on it, you're on the computer because you decided on it, etc. And if all of these decisions were pre-determined, there's no room for randomness.

I suggest you dig up Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. I don't want to believe in randomness myself, it's unsettling to know that there are things we can't express mathematically with certainty, but the evidence is there...

Yes I'd say you're correct with your first point, however, when we put into the context of this debate and compare the mentally ill to criminals then even though they are both not responsible for their actions (if we assume there is no free will for the sake of the argument) there is a difference in their decision making process. The brain of a mentally ill person may not be able to factor in the threat of punishment when making their decision where as a criminals brain would be capable of doing this. Therefore that punishment should be applied to the criminal and not the mentally ill person. In other words, jail acts as a deterrent for criminals but not for the mentally ill and you can't have a deterrent if you aren't going to act on it. I understand the point you're making in that the criminal is still not responsible even given the deterrent (and in principle I agree with you) but the punsihment has to remain in place for the good of society to reduce crime. As others have said, even though the criminals thought process may be pre-determined it's still so complex, involving so many parameters that we may just as well consider it random.

If there is some sort of randomness in physics/biology then this would make some events unpredictable. Even though these events would likely be extremely small (e.g some particle randomly coming into existence or changing its properties) then it would create a chain of events that are unpredictable in everything that it reacts with. So something random that happened billions of years ago may have now lead to a chain of evens large enough that it somehow now effects a moment in your life thus making that moment non pre-determined. Again, I'd have to say I don't know enough about this as it's been a while since I did any physics so I'm largely just speculating here.

@ultima. He's claiming that Heisenberg's Uncertainty is in fact not uncertain. It is possible but entirely without evidence.

All the evidence right now points to a non-deterministic universe.

But as the quote I gave says, there is randomness.  Whether the specific outcomes are determined by some other thing that is actually the source of the randomness is irrelevant to the fact that the randomness exists and in the end emanates from those occurrences in quantum physics.  

Am I wrong?   

What slimebeast is saying is that it isn't random, it just appears random because we can't see what is causing it. Like how a coin flip appears random but is in fact if you look at the underlying details it is bound to end up one way from the moment it is flipped.

I disagree with him, but that is his what I think he is saying.

"Contrary to classical physics, quantum physics is fundamentally random. It is the only theory within the fabric of modern physics that integrates randomness. This fact was very disturbing to physicists like Einstein who invented quantum physics. However, its intrinsic randomness has been confirmed over and over again by theoretical and experimental research conducted since the first decades of the XXth century."

(I suppose the following is hardly news to you but I feel the need to elaborate)
The "randomness" of classical physics, e.g. rolling dice or flipping coins, is merely determinism behind a veil of uncertainty (values we cannot reasonably calculate).  This is very different from the true randomness found in quantum physics, which (from what I gather) has actually been proven in the math and in the lab.  
(end recap)

The only argument slimebeast can really make IMO is that this randomness is not part of quantum physics itself but some more fundamental thing(s) (presumably fundamental only to QP and not CP) and QP's randomness is deterministically derived from those fundamentals.  But IMO this possibility ultimately does not change the situation at all for the purposes of this discussion.