I don't know if free will is real or not. It certainly feels real, but I also understand the arguments against it-- although I believe quantum physics' uncertainty provides a place for free will to hide.
Scott Adams has repeatedly said he doesn't believe in free will, but he believes "we" have to pretend it's real so "we" can punish criminals and maintain civilization. Why? That is only necessary if you imagine that revenge ("punishment") is necessary for justice, and it isn't. Government-supremacism can cloud your thinking as badly as any other mental problem.
Self-defense and restitution don't depend on why someone does something, only that they did. Their action created a debt; justice requires this debt to be paid (or payment to be attempted).
If you have no free will to avoid archating, it's the same as your having no free will to choose to fall upward into the clouds. There are still consequences. You've still become part of a chain of events, one of which could be restitution or death at the hands of your intended victim. The lack of free will doesn't change this.
If you do have free will and you used it to choose to archate, you chose to create a debt. Even if you pretend you didn't choose this debt, your actions created it. Again, free will is irrelevant to the outcome.
Thank you for helping support KentforLiberty.com.
Check out my TeeSpring shop
I hope I add something you find valuable enough to support. If so... Donations and subscriptions are always appreciated!
It is amusing that our legal system is so messed up from the ground up. From the very definition of words we chose to use.
What? Do we think criminals are children and spanking them would work?
Now caning, which could be considered a grown up version of spanking, is a well known deterrent... to not get caught.
The problem is we cannot punish criminals.
The money they stole is gone. And if they could earn the money they stole, then why did they steal in the first place?
Getting a criminal to repay society is a fool's errand.
Currently, we punish the society by stealing more, so that we can say that we are punishing the criminal.
It is a very strange system we have.
Now free will and Scott Adams.
He doesn't believe in a higher power, and that really makes discussing free will difficult. In fact, it may be stated that free will exists outside of Mr. Adams' allowed reality box.
However, it is easy to prove free will.
"Do you believe in God?"
If you can answer yes or no to the question, you have free will.
If God needed you to believe in God, you would be unable to do anything but. And i don't mean something like forcing you to believe, where you feel constrained, if you could just break free... But, he could turn you into someone, who at their very core believed in God. He could show up and do Godly things. Whatever would convince that person, God would do that... to each and every person.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I have noticed that those who believe in the Abrahamic God are much more likely to strongly believe in free will. It's possible they have to for their belief to have any meaning.
On free will, I'm agnostic. As I say, it certainly feels like I have free will, but I accept that it could be an illusion-- not that it has to be.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit