The Captain's thoughts on evil and responsibilty

[Capn' Alec]

If a person does something that should be judged as evil,( I know, I know, evil is subjective, hold on) they would have to know that it was evil before they went into it.

Now here's how I looke at it. Nobody's really responsible for doing anything, EVER. Anything anybody does is a chemical reaction in their brain to the their environment that is totally out of thier control.

Hmm....this is tough to explain. Everything is governed by rules and laws. EVERYTHING. For instance, if someone flips a coin, we usually assume there is a 50/50 chance that that coin will land heads. But then, if you knew how hard the coin was flipped, the weight of the coin, the air pressure, and whatever other variables you can think of, you would know with 100% certainty what side that coin would land on.

It's the same way with "free will". If you knew every single variable of the situation, knew precisley how chemicals move in the brain, you could say with 100% certainty what a person's actions would be. With that in mind, how can we say that anyone is responsible for anything, when if in fact thier actions are only reactions triggered by the environment? So, unless some supernatural force exists, no body is really responsible for anything.

Let's throw God into the mix.

If he gives us some sort of soul, that some how gives us free will, aren't we just as much a slave to whatever rules the soul has to follow? But then again, how can we judge rules that we know nothing about?

In any case, hopefully he'd give us some sort of real free will, otherwise we really wouldn't really have any way to choose whether we believed in him or not.

I'm sorry. This post really didn't have a point. I was just thinking out loud, but it has to stop now because I'm hungry. Time to hit the Tasty Cakes.

[Craig]

It seems that you are simaltaneously asserting determinism and free will at the same time, though from the lower part of your post, you seem to be implying that the latter of the two is the case and what you believe in. If so, perhaps you might consider offering a bit more of a forceful line of reasoning to refute your argument for determinism. All that is written at the end of your discussion is a subjunctive clause hoping that God gave us free will, which isn't particularly compelling.

[Antipathy]

If you think about the vast number of variables which affect real life decisions - and realise that each variable is influenced by all the other variables - the sheer volume of variables impacting on real life and real life decisions are so numerous, to all intents and purposes, they can be considered infinite. And with an infinite number of variables, there are an infinite number of possible reactions - so prediction remains impossible.

I also take issue with your analysis that everything we do is somehow governed - either by chemistry or God. I believe that our understanding of life and consciousness is barely scratching at the surface of what there is to know. So much so, that it is impossible, at this stage in our development, to tell whether we have free will or not. We are all so incredibly unique, whilst at the same time; so incredibly similar. With this in mind, I have come to the conclusion that we do have free will, but it has to be constrained to a very limited scope if we want to exist in harmony with our surroundings.

[Craig]

With this in mind, I have come to the conclusion that we do have free will, but it has to be constrained to a very limited scope if we want to exist in harmony with our surroundings.

Antipathy,

Is constrained free will truly free?

[el nopal]

Can't we just rely on Foucault? Everything is determined by a relationship between Sadists and masochists? ...Opps, I meant, Dominant and Opressed?

[Antipathy]

Antipathy,

Is constrained free will truly free?I would say yes, the constraints I mentioned only bind those who are willing to be bound. People step outside them all the time.