Comment author: MaxNanasy 30 July 2015 06:59:28PM *  0 points [-]

Our attitudes toward people with marginal conditions mainly reflect a deontologist libertarian (libertarian as in "free will", not as in "against government") model of blame. In this concept, people make decisions using their free will, a spiritual entity operating free from biology or circumstance. People who make good decisions are intrinsically good people and deserve good treatment; people who make bad decisions are intrinsically bad people and deserve bad treatment. But people who make bad decisions for reasons that are outside of their free will may not be intrinsically bad people, and may therefore be absolved from deserving bad treatment. For example, if a normally peaceful person has a brain tumor that affects areas involved in fear and aggression, they go on a crazy killing spree, and then they have their brain tumor removed and become a peaceful person again, many people would be willing to accept that the killing spree does not reflect negatively on them or open them up to deserving bad treatment, since it had biological and not spiritual causes.

Assuming souls exist, what's the difference between a brain tumor and an evil soul in terms of who "deserves" suffering (disregarding the argument that they deserve suffering because God said so)? At the moment of birth, neither one is chosen by the agent. If anyone was born with the same genetics, environment, and soul, they would make the same decisions throughout life.

Therefore, even if souls exist, that doesn't change any conclusions about consequentialist versus retributive justice IMO.

Comment author: pnrjulius 09 April 2012 05:33:52AM 0 points [-]

So it's guilt by association.

Comment author: MaxNanasy 26 June 2015 02:01:05AM 0 points [-]

I'd call it ad hominem

Comment author: Vulture 21 January 2014 04:06:08AM 3 points [-]

I thought the "never read the comments section" rule could be safely ignored on that post, since comments were turned off. After following two of the pingbacks, I wanted to throttle two separate people and demand of them the ten minutes of my life that they wasted.

Lesson learned: Never read the comments section. No exceptions.

Comment author: MaxNanasy 25 June 2015 10:12:16AM 0 points [-]

Never read the comments section. No exceptions.

... says a post in a comments section

In response to comment by [deleted] on Three Worlds Decide (5/8)
Comment author: rkyeun 10 February 2015 05:18:29AM 0 points [-]

They can't be. Their thoughts are genetic. If one Superhappy attempted to lie to another, the other would read the lie, the intent to lie, the reason to lie, and the truth all in the same breath off the same allele. They don't have separate models of their minds to be deceived as humans do. They share parts of their actual minds. Lying would be literally unthinkable. They have no way to actually generate such a thought, because their thoughts are not abstractions but physical objects to be passed around like Mendelian marbles.

Comment author: MaxNanasy 17 June 2015 02:32:44AM 0 points [-]

... assuming they aren't lying about how their biology works

Comment author: MTGandP 05 October 2012 04:41:57AM 2 points [-]

Given my current mental capacities, I think that any "proof" of God would be more easily attributed to hallucination. However, it should still be possible for God to prove His existence. If He is omnipotent, then he can increase my mental capacity to the extent that I can distinguish between divine intervention and a hallucination of divine intervention.

Comment author: MaxNanasy 01 February 2015 11:45:16AM 0 points [-]

But what if you're hallucinating the increase in mental capacity and resulting discernment?

In response to Rationality Quotes 5
Comment author: dextre 24 January 2008 03:48:00PM 1 point [-]

Nominull : there may exist more than one completely accurate description of the universe, i.e accounting for all known, or even possible observations that can be made about this universe. These descriptions may be mutually exclusive. Which is true then ? Which is most likely to be true ? Historically, compare epicycles to heliocentrism. Think about Kolmogorov complexity, and occam's razor.

Comment author: MaxNanasy 03 June 2012 09:47:39PM 1 point [-]

I was reading "accurate" as "describes what is true", not "describes what is observed".

Comment author: Will_Newsome 22 July 2010 09:57:05PM 0 points [-]

TAWME, but I'm not sure if it is a consciously learned introspective behavior or something that I just picked up or developed without effort. FWIW I've only really noticed and acted on it for the last year or two.

Comment author: MaxNanasy 20 May 2012 08:34:37AM 1 point [-]

What does "TAWME" mean?