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Neuroscience, Psychology Eroding Idea of Free Will
pragueexpat writes "Do we have free will? Possibly not, according to an article in the new issue of the Economist. Entitled 'Free to choose?', the piece examines new discoveries in the fields of neuroscience and psychology that may be forcing us to re-examine the concept of free will. The specifically cite a man with paedophilic tendencies who was cured when his brain tumor was removed. 'Who then was the child abuser?', they ask. The predictable conclusion of this train of thought, of course, leads us to efforts by Britain: 'At the moment, the criminal law--in the West, at least--is based on the idea that the criminal exercised a choice: no choice, no criminal. The British government, though, is seeking to change the law in order to lock up people with personality disorders that are thought to make them likely to commit crimes, before any crime is committed.'"
Innocent until proven guilty is U.S law, not common law from England. If they decide they want to lock your ass up, they can.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Except that it IS determined that far in advance, it's just that we presently have no way of knowing these things that far in advance. Weather is a perfect example, but you're looking at it the wrong way. We currently have only limited ways to watch fault lines, to examine the physical impact of a giant explosion on the sun. There're far too many unaccounted variables, and so we can't be expected to predict with any real degree of certainty the weather.
The Political Programmer
Minority report was a PKD short story. Your slashdottian obsession with 1984 notwithstanding, don't disparage my Dick.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
You have little to no understanding of the topic of discussion, which is not surprising since you say you don't care and consider it all "mental masturbation".
Where do our desires come from? If they come from the our bodies and ultimately the universe, then that's determinism. If they come from nothingness, then you have free will. It is not a false dichotomy. There is either causality or there is not.
If you research this topic you will see that the poster was right. It is not a matter of where our desires come from, it is a matter of how we choose to react to them. It is indeed a false dichotomy. There is a well-established school of thought called the 'Compatibilists' (including the modern philosopher Daniel Dennett) who claim that free will and determinism can exist together.
\Nobody with the slightest knowledge of science has ever done this. You can't logically disprove the *existence* of God anyway, although you can make a very convincing logical argument that it doesn't matter if he exists or not. The existence of God, as something which by definition cannot be tested, measured, or understood is outside the limits of science. It's the domain of philosophy and mythology.
Information theory says information can not be created, only lost. Entropy is forever increasing. So where did the original order and information come from?
It says no such thing. It'd be trivially wrong if it did, as order emerges from chaotic systems constantly.
Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. "Gone through to the other side" means to go throught the void, where you have nothing solid on which to make any kind of a stand or statement about anything. Once you are through to the other side, things become clear again, in a new way. But you still have to get up in the morning. ;)
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
My friend's uncle had all of a sudden gone batshit crazy and eventually suicidal. One day, he attempted to take his life. He shot himself in the face.
He lived. While in care, they discovered that he had a tumor. Most of it was blown away when he shot himself in the face. They finished the job, attempted to reconstruct his face and he's mentally A-OK today.
So yes, tumors will make you do things that are not really 'you'.
Since you decided to question my facts, I'll go ahead and point to my sources. Perhaps, I'll also use this opportunity to buttress the arguments. Not wanting to have your movements recorded when you are in public places is not indicative of criminal behavior. Again, you are in a public place. Privacy (or at least the feeling or privacy) is a basic psychologic need. There is a reason that people feel nervous when they are on stage. Many teenagers feel embarrased when they in public. There is other evidence to point out to the fact that lack of privacy causes distress. Knowing that you will be constantly recorded increases this level of distress. Why should the people who comitted no crimes feel this level of discomfort in public places? They are not on someone else's property. Being in public in a free society means that you are in a space which you partially own. Why should that come with distress. As for the "you would only want to hide information that is criminial from the investigators" argument, you should always have the freedom not to testify against yourself. The information could embarassing rather than incriminating. You should have the right to make a statement that you are assumed innocent until proven guilty and the burden of proof is not on you. Hiding your encryption keys would be one of the ways to make that statement. Ok... now for the references: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/21/20 24242
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/10/16 50256
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/04/17 50246
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/15/165 9233
The last one specifically mentions a BBC reference that shows that it is illegal to deny investigators access to you encrypted information (i.e., to deny them decryption keys). Are we still arguing?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
The legal system isn't based on the assumption of free will. It's based on the assumption that people are agents, and as such, can be responsible for actions. The distinction is very fine, so an example is useful.
Let's consider a feral cat. One day, it sees a bird. It's hungry, so it chases it and kills it. The cat is responsible for (that is, acted as an agent to cause) the death of the bird. The matter whether the cat has free will or not (and many people will say the cat doesn't) does not enter into that consideration.
You might interject that there is a disanalogy here. After all, laws seem to stop most people from breaking (the heinous) crimes, which might indicate that people have free will. But on closer inspection, it doesn't indicate anything of the sort. Whether or not free will exists, it is clear that laws are a force guiding people's actions. But this is compatible with both claims. People might choose to obey the law, coming to this decision in a rational manner. Or they might just be motivated by vague fears stemming from environmental factors, just as the cat was motivated by hunger.
There's a reason why modern philosophical ethics are hard. It's specifically because the free will and determinism issue cannot be settled, so discussions about ethics and to be phrased in terms of responsibility and other analogous terms.
After all, I am strangely colored.
Okay, maybe it was a weak joke, but "Troll"?!? Didn't anyone read the next story down on the front page? "Republican Aide Attempts to Hire Hackers"??
It's been shown in the past that physical conditions can have a definitive affect upon mental processes. Super/subsonic noises, electromagnetic fields or even various varieties of music can in some ways affect the moods/personalities of people. I'm not sure how this would pertain to paedophilia though, as most of the prior cases affect what is more an emotional state (angry, frightened, paranoid, etc) whereas paedophilia could be constued as a specific thought pattern.
In reference to the parent, though, my dad once mentioned that his good friend's mom had a similar case. She was the nicest woman in the world, until one day when she suddenly became a horrible bitch. Nobody understood why, but a few months later she died suddenly. An operation unveiled a brain tumor which they figured has started putting pressure on various areas of her brain around the same time as her personality suddenly changed. She hadn't complained of headaches or anything similar, so I'm assuming it wasn't a pain response, but rather a reaction to the physical damage done to her brain by the tumor.
I belive this idea dates back to at least ancient Rome.
I would like to see a citation or an explanation for that allegation, or even an example. I'm pretty sure you're trolling, and it's rather depressing that you've been moderated so highly. "Innocent until proven guilty" is as much a tenet of the British legal system as the American one (more so, perhaps -- America has Guantanamo Bay...). The police are allowed to arrest people if they having convincing evidence that a crime has been committed, and bring them to trial, but they certainly cannot lock a person up for prolonged periods without passing him through the court system -- and, until he is found guilty, he is regarded as innocent in the eyes of the law.
The British government is mentioned in only a couple of sentences in the article. The amount of data that it plans to catalogue is certainly disturbing, but to accuse it of wishing to lock people up without trial (thus making them "guilty until proven innocent") is to distort the truth. The article is extremely speculative.