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JanetK comments on Separate morality from free will - Less Wrong
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Comments (84)
Right on. Free will is nonsense but morality is important. I see moral questions as questions that do not have a clear cut answer that can be found be consulting some rules (religious or not). We have to figure out what is the right thing to do. And we will be judged by how well we do it.
"Free will is nonsense"
It's not nonsense.
http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Free_will http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Free_will_(solution)
I have been pointed at those pieces before. I read them originally and I have re-read them not long ago. Nothing in them changes my conviction (1) that it is dangerous to communication to use the term 'free will' in any sense other than freedom from causality, (2) I do not accept a non-material brain/mind nor a non-causal thought process. Also I believe that (3) using the phrase 'determinism' in any sense other that the ability to predict is dangerous to communication, and (4) we cannot predict in any effective way the processes of our own brain/minds. Therefore free will vs determinism is not a productive argument. Both concepts are flawed. In the end, we make decisions and we are (usually) responsible for them in a moral-ethical-legal sense. And those decision are neither the result of free will or of determinism. You can believe in magical free will or redefine the phrase to avoid the magic - but I decline to do either.
"that it is dangerous to communication to use the term 'free will' in any sense other than freedom from causality"
Why is that? There are many things that can keep your will from being done. Eliminating them makes your will more free. Furthermore, freedom from causality is pretty much THE most dangerous definition for free will, because it makes absolutely, positively no sense. Freedom from causality is RANDOMNESS.
"Therefore free will vs determinism is not a productive argument."
We don't have this argument here. We believe that free will requires determinism. You aren't free if you have no idea what the hell is about to happen.
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Tango Yankee.
Does that mean we should stop exonerating people who did bad things under duress? (iIOW, your stipulation about FW would change the way the word is used in law).
Does that mean we should stop saying that classical chaos is deterministic? (IOW, your stipulation about "deterministic" would change the way the word is used by physicists).