Sam Harris.org Reader Forum

Old solutions cannot solve 21st Century problems

2013-06-02T14:59:44Z

There was a time when this country was mostly rural, and approximately 60% of workers were employed in agriculture. After the industrial revolution began, the majority of the workforce began shifting to manufacturing, while mechanized farming, began to replace many of the more labor intensive aspects of farming, (currently, less than 2% work in agriculture). Technology kept on the march, manufacturing jobs have either been mechanized, or moved offshore to take advantage of cheap, unskilled labor. As a result, now our workforce is primarily engaged in service industries. Many service jobs have also been made unnecessary by advances in technology. Cashiers, clerks, bank tellers, photo labs, phone operators and television repairmen, are no longer needed as machines have become more efficient, less expensive, and more reliable than people. Machines don’t join unions, steal, complain, take days off or need medical insurance. Osha doesn’t need to check on their working conditions. There are machines that couldn’t have been imagined 20 years ago, that now rent us videos, while robots are performing surgery. In the near future, “smart” vehicles and road systems will eliminate the need for human drivers. Accidents, road-rage, intoxicated drivers, will all be bad memories of the past. Nothing ever comes without a price, and we will also make thousands of driving jobs, and hordes of ticket-writing police, jobs of the past. Machines will continue taking the place of pilots and other military jobs that put people in harms way. Loading our children on buses and delivering them to expensive school buildings to educate them will also be a thing of the past. Why should an average teacher be teaching 30 students per class, when the best teachers, the cream, (some of you know the type of teacher I’m referring to), could be teaching thousands of students. Jobs will continue to be rendered obsolete or unnecessary by the by the ingenuity of man…. MILLIONS of more jobs.

This has always been a good thing in a culture where the act of giving is seen as a virtuous quality. It wasn’t that many generations ago when a man and wife spent most of their waking hours obtaining and maintaining the basic necessities of food, shelter, clothing and fuel. There were no days off, no vacations. Life was short, brutal, and cheap. Children had to do their share of serious work too, on farms and in factories. Technology, and machines like the automobile, are what made a 5 day, 40 hour work week, the exodus to the suburbs, homes full of appliances, and vacations, all possible. Technology, was the magic genie that allowed average people to obtain an abundance of goods, services, mobility, and leisure time. A lifestyle that had previously been reserved for the wealthy upper class, was now everymans very obtainable American Dream. We were promised technology would someday all but eliminate boring, repetitive, dangerous jobs. Technology has, up till now, delivered on that promise.There was no reason this trend shouldn’t have continued. A 21st Century where people only needed to work 10-20 hours a week seemed totally within sight. Work would be a part-time activity as technology took over more jobs, while increasing productivity giving us all inexpensive, plentiful goods, along with more time to spend on things like family, education, travel, hobbies, sports, creating literature, music, art, and other forms of enjoying and productively using leisure time .There will be those who will work long hard hours. The ones lucky enough to find their work is their true passion. They will mostly be scientists, craftsmen, teachers, artists, healers, and sports gods. Wars and most crimes won’t happen on a world inhabited by well educated, well fed, happy, satisfied people living fulfilling lives. Man will have finally reached the true Golden Age which had been paid for by the short, often violent lives the vast majority of our ancestors lived. They tried and succeeded. and in increments sometimes too small to measure, they made the world a little easier, a little better for the next generation.

Our species survived mistakes, failures, wars… but the most important thing we overcame was at one time our greatest asset: our survival instinct. That driving force that made us tough, tenacious, and wouldn’t let us give up. The killer instinct of the predator, added to the fear and caution of the prey, combined with the ability to reason, allowed us to survive whatever came our way. We survived things, terrible things that often we would visit on ourselves. It is a powerful drive that doesn’t have an off switch, and for far too many, becomes a horrible addiction that senselessly drives men to take, take, and then take some more, never having quite enough and always greedily looking for devious ways to acquire more. We almost didn’t make it, but we finally grew up. We started by finally allowing ourselves to let go of our fear. That helped break the addiction. We also realized our killer instinct combined with our most powerful weapons, could, and probably, eventually, would, wind up killing everything. We finally realized it might be a good idea to return to one of our basic core values, our basic decency, our basic goodness. The desire and drive that comes from the selfish paternal and maternal urge to leave the world a little better instead of worse, for our kids. Our problems really started to snowball when we stopped doing this, and we began immediately healing once we started again. We became responsible stewards of our planet. We figured out ways to take care of everyone’s basic needs, while providing more choices, and allowing more personal freedom for everyone, than anyone had ever imagined possible. This, or something like it, is what should still be happening. It should be, because just exactly how else could an economy work that only requires 20% of the population to provide 100% of everyone’s needs?

What seems to resemble the path we’re on is a bit different. Our future looks more like this. We can only offer full-time employment to 20% of the population.These lucky 20% will be called Labor, the working middle class, the 20% figure is somewhat inflated, we like to keep the real, paid Labor at a very manageable, highly profitable 6% to 8%, with occasional spikes into the dreaded double digits. We squeeze as much work as possible from Labor, while paying a pittance, a tradition started by men who finally grew up and realized the name of the game was Profit. Labor doesn’t complain. In this system, Labor is thankful, grateful actually as it is a buyers market-wet dream when it comes to Labor. We take good care of labor and even pay them. We also take good care of the other 80%, the trash, and we do it without robbing them of their dignity and honor, and self respect. The stuff that comes from hard work, sacrifice, and taking care of yourself. We tell the whiners a truth some would rather not hear, “If you take care of you, you’re a Man, If I take care of you, you’re my pet, my property.” we provide them low interest loans to buy tools and seeds and allow them to grow food in permitted areas. Most have access to fairly clean water. They are the Trash. They breed like rabbits and die like flies… always have, always will. Hey, it’s just dealt cards. We, on the other hand, the Earners, have built the most profitable, profit Machine the world has ever seen, and as the owners of this Machine every Earner counts their wealth in Billions. The Royal Flush families, however, count their wealth in Trillions, but hey, we deserve it, we’re smarter, healthier, shrewder, and overall better animals than the Labor or the Trash. We invented and developed the technology, the Machine. invested our fortunes in it, fought uprisings, and wars. We made some mistakes, but we kept our wealth, property and power, It’s self-evident that we deserve it, because over generations, we Earned it. People get exactly what they deserve on our planet, and it’s been scientifically proven, more than once, that if you move a piece of trash into one of the mansions, in a year’s time they will have turned it into another trashouse. It’s their nature, in their genes to be Trash. The world needs Trash too, and no one is in charge of who we’re born into. Free will was proved to be an illusion years ago, which also proves everything is exactly the way it’s supposed to be. One should be satisfied with the cards they got dealt. It’s no one’s fault that only the very special few can get dealt the Royal Flushes, Four of a Kinds, and Straight Flushes, while a very lucky piece of Trash might get a small pair. It’s wrong thinking to believe everyone deserves to be happy. If everyone deserved to be happy, well they just would be happy, what a no-brainer. True happiness has to be earned over generations of smart, ruthless Earners, making smart, ruthless decisions. It’s how we got here, it’s how we stay here. End - of - story.

Our 21st Century problems are tough ones, that won’t be easy to solve. The work week is not shrinking, wages are not rising, our standard of living is not improving, the lost jobs are not being replaced this time, and the middle class is not prospering, in fact it is vanishing. That is not to say no one is benefiting. A larger percentage of the world’s total wealth is being accumulated, held, and controlled, by a smaller percentage of the total population than ever before in history. This trend is not going to change with the systems, checks, and balances we now have in place.

Simply put, there is far too much greed, corruption, and waste in the world. We have reached a point in the story of mankind where our culture, our society, our civilization, our way of viewing the world, are all failing us. Old ways of doing things that served us well, are not working anymore. For one thing, it is mathematically impossible to sustain infinite, continued growth, (of any kind), on our finite planet. Our natural resources are shrinking, as our population, (and demand for those resources ), is increasing, yet, ( just one example), we’ve been wasting tremendous amounts of energy, labor and raw materials making things that are carefully designed to break or become obsolete, (it’s a profit thing). Can anyone on the planet explain why this widespread practice, while profitable, isn’t unethical, really stupid, and in a very real way, actually stealing that energy and those resources from a future that will be worse because a greedy, sleazy business practice wasted them? Did we accomplish our best in this country back in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s, when it was common for a business to value things like honor, loyalty, and reputation, because they were considered important ingredients in a company’s long term health, growth, and profit? Didn’t caring about that stuff also help make the world a little better, for the future? Is profit without honor really worth anything? Is a life lived without at least trying to be honorable, a good life, or a life to be ashamed of? If we can’t or won’t change, if we just flat out don’t care about the world our kids and grandkids will have to live in… then we probably don’t deserve to survive. I’m too old to see how all this will eventually play out, and I don’t see any easy solutions, but I still have hope.

God’s Not There

2013-04-24T04:51:02Z

Hello, I first wrote this after viewing a documentary which I think was titled “The God Who Wasn’t There”. Anyway, I thought this was a place where it might be appreciated.

Light a candle, say a prayer.
To the God who isn’t there.

Through the course of history,
creating needless misery.

Inquisitions, witch’s trials,
rooting out the infidels.

Like a bear trap for the mind,
to hold you dumb and deaf and blind.

He’s above all sense and reason.
If you question that it’s treason.

When you see it all as uselessness,
Religion’s it’s own punishment.

So don’t supplicate to God, because
He’s not there, and never was.

Accidental Racist

2013-04-09T03:46:40Z

This song is apparently pretty controversial right now

So is the controversy warranted? Is it understandable ... reasonable?

- -

Looks like that version got nixed.

Not too surprising I guess. Bummer though. That video was a slideshow of pics featuring the artists, and the lyrics were added.

But, hereyago.

We’ll see how long this one remains available (and I’m presuming it’s the song because of the length—I’m on the desk at work so I don’t have access to sound).

Zombie brains dont exist. Free Will & the GOD challange.

2013-04-07T07:02:00Z

I have got to draw a line in the sand.
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Classical view of reality vrs QM view of reality
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Classical view: (first introduced in 500 BC. Most of these Principles, by Anaxagoras)
*Matter is real and fundamental.
*All change is a result of collisions of matter.
*Matter has to be independent of space and time. (How can matter collide with non-matter?)
*Space is infinite and cannot expand. (How can something that’s non matter be pushed or contained?)
*Matter cannot become Energy.
*All forces has to be Physical. (How can a nonphysical thing/idea/rule collide with matter? Thus the search for the ether in the 1800’s)
*4 forces has to be derived from one force: (the physical ether)
*Empty Space cannot have energy: (how can non matter have a property of matter?)
*Light can have no limit: (matter will react according to how hard it gets collided with)
*Matter cannot disappear: (Real things cannot be unreal)
*Matter cannot be created: (Real things cannot appear from something that does not exist)
*Only 3 dimensions can exist: (Nonphysical things can not contain or arrange against one another)
*Light cannot be a wave and particle: (A chair cannot exist all over the room at once, but at same time be a chair?)
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Quantum Mechanics: Realty is informational bits that’s nature is probabilistic and statistical.
*Matter is virtual and not fundamental:
*All change is a product of a rule set.
*Matter is not independent of space and time.
*Space can be finite and can expand. (The amount of information in this reality is growing)
*Matter can become energy:
*Forces do not have to be matter:
*Forces do not have to be from one force: (rules set can be discrete)
*Empty space can have energy: (Energy is word we use to measure change. It is not real in itself. Empty Space is represented by information in an informational reality. It can cause change via rule set.
*Light limit: (Fastest information can be processed in informational reality)
*Matter can disappear: (not fundamental, it’s virtual)
*Matter can be created: (rendered from probability distribution)
*Light can be both:
*Reality can just seem to appear out of nothing (simulation beginning)
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Current science and physics, is stuck in the transition. I think the deepest rooted belief that humans have is the classical view belief. It is an omniscient fact in science; science demands it be classical yet, there is the burden of trying to interpret in QM, and it creates horrible confusion. Watch the Neil Tyson Giraffe’s theory of everything debate. The problems are how to make reality still be classical. Each scientist has their own, interpretation of how to do this. Slowly science will be forced to incorporate more and more QM ideas until the burden is too much and the scales finally tip. Heisenberg book is titled the Revolution in modern physics. It has been 100 years and no revelation has happened yet. Scientist, have spent 100 years trying to make QM classical. String theory/ infinite dimensions etc. Now Scientist just think it can never be understood. The classical explanation is just beyond human comprehension is what they really mean to say.
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Look at the Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser Experiments>>>>>
(Skipping to real life consequences)
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If you get black out drunk and go buy beer and put it in your fridge and get more drunk. In the morning the amount of beer you find will be a probabilistic amount. Zero, two, three, ten, the amount depends upon the probability distribution assigned to how likely each value is. If you have the receipt magnetized to the fridge, and cans in the trash. The classical objective number of beers left is what you will find. Because, Information in the reality has to be consistent and meet historical accuracy. If you had ate the receipt and chunked the cans out the window on the way home. The information is erased. Thus a probalistic number will show up.
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Nothing is rendered in the fridge until the door is opened and information is created. Once Information is created (turns into matter) it is here to stay, and be objective until there is no historical information constraining it.
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Take Example: of in a racing video game. The background and trees pop up as you get closer. The entire map and level is not rendered the entire time. It takes more processing and requires storing more data.
If a modern physicist, where in the video game. They would spend 100’s of years trying to explain to people how the real trees must be popping up from multiple other video game dimensions. Or there is 11 other real spatial directions they are falling out of, that they still fundamentally exist in.
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QM becomes insanely complicated IF you have the belief Reality is Classical. No matter how hard you try to interpret it, w/classical physics (which is what the west means by “science”) It will result in nonsense.
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SAM and the Free Will Debate.
To start. You need to present a deterministic reality; which would terminate free will, right of the bat, and Sam does…But It’s pretty clear reality isn’t deterministic from QM. Krausse guy, Says oooo but the probability distribution is deterministic. (Meaning – from the beer example – the percentages of how many beers show up is determinable, 20 percent 2 beers, 35 percent of time 4 beers etc.) But For determinism you need one out come every time.
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Think of those old computer screen savers. Where the ball bounces around the edges of the screen. Say we could determine that every time it hits the edge it bounces left at 45 degrees or right at 45 degrees. So we have determined the probability distribution, is 50 percent. Say we had 10 balls bouncing around screen. The fact remains you cannot determine a repeatable outcome. Each time you did the experiment you would get a different result of where all the balls end up after some time has passed.
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Krausse guy, and most scientist. Wake up each day, go to work w/the attitude of how are they going to prove reality is classical, so they can oppose theist. Neuro-Scientist, goal each day of work is how to prove the brain makes the mind, so they can oppose theist. No wonder we get nowhere. Imagine if, a republican woke up each day, and studies politics so to prove how the democrats are wrong. You can see how even after a career of intellectual pursuits it does not lead to truth. Same w/scientist.
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Isn’t lust worship? Isn’t it what creates delusion? Ever choice is largely motivated by lust. To be superior, to know, to have value, to unique, different, give lectures and sign books: To lust for a god or to lust for no god through classical science. If the same amount of lust (need/wants/desires/expectations) is applied. Will not the same amount of delusion be evident? Why would this fundamental virtue of human (to lust, for outcomes that provide self-meaning) not apply to scientist?
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To read book’s that stick it to those people you hate…Is this not worship?
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Aside: [Some of reality is approximately objective. If you need to pick you kids up from day care it is profitable to multiple interacting awareness to have a consistent reality, and for the daycare to be on the same street each day. Engineering handles these approximately objective (large slow things) objects. Classical physics applies to these things. It is a subset to a superset of logic. Even though the earth is round we can still survey in a flat earth assumption because on that scale it is approximately true enough. NOW, galaxies in space does not need to be rendered or meet any informational consistency. They exist as probabilistic states. Until say, someone takes of photo, then that state that pops in existence is here to stay. Unless the information gets lost.]
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Now back to it:
It’s pretty clear reality is not deterministic from QM. It also would require too much information to be rendered all the time. Making it harder to process and too much data to store. Most importantly:
Deterministic systems cannot learn.
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Note pad on your computer can not evolve into Microsoft word because it is determined how it handles inputs. Note pad would need a way to try things in a non-determined way; then a way to judge if the attempt had value or was damaging. This process is called evolution. Profitable choices stick, Nonprofit able is dropped.
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Free will, is fundamentally necessary ingredient to what’s going on here.
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Some BLASPHEMY on cognitive sciences.
[It seems like when the west wants to know something. We go up to the wizards with the crystal ball (brain). And they wave some hands over it and parts light up. Then they give their decree.
It reminds me of Alchemy or Astrology in the medieval days, where it sounds like the cutting edge of science to the common people who just want answers.
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Think of this: IF we drop a cell phone. In some remote island of aborigines, and they crack the phone open and count all the different type of circuits; they see what parts light up when they drop or kick it… Do they understand the cell phone? Don’t you understand something when you can build one or at least make predictions about it? If I walk in a skyscraper and count stuff do I understand how to build one?
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Is it not obvious how the islanders would miss interpret the phone…IF the phone is cracked open (metaphor for brain) and a part starts to buzz and then a text message shows up (thought)? Would they not come to the conclusion that the buzz must have created the text message? That the phone creates the internet?
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Ok so if, cognitive sciences can understand the brain. They should be able to build one, or at least make predictions. Such as If I say Spaghetti you will scratch your right ear. (Don’t let advertisers know about this) - It just seems off putting that cognitive science is believed as unquestionable truth.

Sam Harris - How to Handle An Annoying Attack in Three E-mails

2013-04-03T06:24:41Z

Today on Sam’s blog he demonstrates, yet again, why he is among the most remarkable and highly respected people whom I have ever read. He deconstructs Glenn Greenwald’s re-tweeting of an inflammatory and defamatory article swiftly, succinctly, and with grace and agility. I admire Mr. Harris for his excellence.

Dear Fellow Liberal

A counter argument to some points made by Sam Harris in Speech, October 29, 2012 - Bon Mot Book Club; Video on youtube

2013-04-02T19:44:29Z

The Thought:
We are not truly the authors of our actions and there is a vast chain of causality of which we have no control over, choice still matters, yet true free will is not within our grasp. Okay.
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My response:
So what would it be like to have free will? We would know why and when we chose to do what. We would be the authors of pressing the go button, but who authored pressing the go button, the go button, the go button, the go button… Well think of it in terms of a computer programmer, he presses a button the initial conditions of which are under his control, but there is still room for the system to evolve. Evolve in a way in which he can never know, but only predict to a certain probability the outcome; pseudo and true randomness are still preserved. This leads to the big question of who decided the initial conditions with absolute certainty and how does one know they were truly the author. The infinite regression begins of who created the creator and who really decides the button push. This argument apparently solves everything, but upon further inspection actually solves nothing, as is the nature of all infinite regressions.
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Firstly, why is knowing exactly where an idea originated considered a precondition of free will? May there be many simultaneous places an idea originates in our brain and the input combines in such a way we could never know where it began? Maybe, but why does it matter if you know where it originated, as if knowing what and where transcends the importance of how. How we use our thoughts is the most important and worth-wanting definition of free will if there ever was one. What could be more worth wanting from a free will context than the control to change; to choose, absolutely nothing. Knowing where an idea originates is of no importance to what actually matters, how we take hold and use it.
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Of course a deterministic beginning of an idea would be expected from an evolutionary standpoint. Events simply happen given quantum mechanics, what was not known is how the system will evolve given the initial conditions. Choice is merely one facet of avoidance which evolution has locked on to as a valid alterative to a purely deterministic universe; out of determinism free will evolved. This does not de-value the idea of a choice, nor does it do away with physical ideas that are completely out of our control, it rather brings it into context.
.
How might this idea of an evolving idea work? We take an idea or sight or sound while we are experiencing it and rationalize it into our own intent made idea; we modify the probability. You can either experience or modify your experience. Our intentions and foresight are manifests of the physical mind and are tools we use to modify our future. Sometimes they are realized quite well and other times our intentions go array, nothing is certain, but probability is not a wild spin-the-wheel free-for-all either.
Choice as it is in this instant is as it will be and nothing can modify that reality, what is happening at any instant is happening. What we modify is the probability of our future actions and brain states, our future initial conditions; within a certain degree of certainty. We are probability modifiers in a sense; we are the controller of the machine in which we take part to the only degree that is worth-wanting.
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How can this probability modification evolve? We may not be able to set the initial conditions with absolute certainty in the same sense we cannot change what we are doing at any one instant, in that specific instant. It’s not necessary to be able to do that if we can modify the probabilistic array of choices and physical outcomes of future events, which is choice in itself. To say that at any one instant you must be capable of telling how you arrived at that instant instantly is to enter a world of craziness, it is simply not knowable by the system or its creator if there is one at all. Each instant is an evolution of the next in the same sense that evolution by natural selection accounts for rationally intelligible creatures, but not at any one instant can anyone go from stupid to intelligent or from non-rationalizing to rationalizing, yet we can clearly distinguish stupidity from intelligence and even more clearly the dying from the dead. You don’t wake up one day after living 80 years and decay instantly and die, you’ve been dying for quite some time by that point. We can clearly distinguish each instant from the next, but hoping to take each instant through a regression to pinpoint the cause may never be possible and not worth-wanting. In the same respect, who cares when you started dying? You never meet anyone except a biologist trying to prevent the end result caring about the process itself or the starting point. What really matters to most people is when you are dead, how we use up the intermediate time in an ironic and interesting way is what matters; tip of the hat to the late Christopher E. Hitchens for the latter half of that point.
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To say because I cannot know this instant why and where the choice originates and at any next instant I must know beforehand or be able to explain where it originated and it was of my own intent to have it truly be considered free will is to lose sight of what really matters. Consequences matter, choice matters, how matters, not what and where. To put it another way, saying that I cannot know at any one moment what choice I will make or why or where it originated from is to say that at any one instant there must be room for choice. There is no room for choice at that instant; the state of the system is how it is at that instant. There couldn’t be room if we were to make choices there must be deterministic means that are set and cause regularity, causality must be preserved to even have a notion of free will, these are preconditions of free will. Yes we are constrained by the rule set of our universe. There are answers to questions and choices of which I am not currently aware, and tomorrow I may be. Free will a.k.a. choice in itself is an evolution.
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Knowing why is not even a precondition this would suggest you somehow were above the law and causality is in your hands. That may be another level of free will a different type in which nobody is ever privy to. To argue for this is to argue for religion and we know that is false, in the sense that we know it’s made up, irrational and explains nothing. I am arguing that the system itself cannot know or predict how it will evolve, not even the system itself gets that information until after the information has been rendered; there is always an innate level of uncertainty. Surely there is a probability of possible outcomes, which could be very small or very large, regardless what is actually the case the system is evolving simultaneously within itself, within its own constraints we are the a part of the physical system we are privy to probability modification. Our actions matter and further modify our brain states, ideas and circuitry of our minds. How we respond to environmental inputs is of the importance, which one would want to enjoy and experience. In this sense we have free will, the one worth wanting and no other. We are here to experience, but we can also modify our experience given our physical machinery. Our system, us, our thoughts, our choice are all an evolution, a condition of the constraints and initial conditions in which we live and experience, the wonderful playground of life. In essence, we dont truely make decisions in an absolute sense, we modify probability.
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If my argument is unsound or you would like to comment, please do.
Hope you enjoyed the read,
Chris

Free will and regret

2013-03-30T12:32:43Z

My third and final thread on this topic, I promise!

If we accept that we do not have free will and that our actions are instead governed by other factors, does this not free us of all regret?

If I fall pregnant at a very early age and then later in life feel it was very detrimental to my life, or if I cover my body in tattoos and a few years later begin to regret the permanent markings I have all over my body, or if I go out driving while drunk and have an accident or seriously injure someone and feel immense regret and sadness for the rest of my life, could I not simply remove all regret by accepting I don’t have free will, and that the decisions that were made by me in these moments were made by my subconscious mind in response to the environment, my experiences and my expectations, and that if time was repeated I would, in fact, make the same choices?

What control do we really have over these actions before we make them? If we’re facing a decision that is going to permanently alter my life - having a child, getting tattoos, selling home and moving abroad, killing someone, etc - one of the biggest fears is “I hope I don’t regret this in X amount of time”

If we don’t have free will then these decisions won’t be conscious choices. As such we can’t blame ourselves for making them because given the exact situation, we were always going to make that decision, and it’s difficult to regret something of which we didn’t consciously control.

So basically, if I believe that I don’t have free will then I shouldn’t regret anything, ever, because any person if they were me, and in my exact situation, would have behaved the same. I can accept this and go through life knowing that I will never regret anything. Is there an obvious flaw in this line of thinking?

Free will and prison

2013-03-30T12:15:23Z

Hi all,

Another thread as I try to understand this free will business.

Sam explained in one of his youtube lectures how a better understanding of how we behave, and an acceptance that we don’t have free will, can result in a much more compassionate society where we pity people for having been raised in such circumstances that leads to them committing crime rather than blaming them personally and feeling hatred towards them.

If it is true that a person’s circumstances can result in them becoming a murderer, I assume it is also true that certain circumstances could result in a person NEVER becoming a murderer. Is it not possible, therefore, that a person could commit a crime, but feel so sickened after committing the crime that it is not possible for them to commit such an act in the future, and thus not present a threat to society and need imprisonment?

For example, a jealous husband or wife is consumed by rage in the moment of discovering their spouse in bed with another lover. In this fit of rage they become violent and kill the lover or their partner, however afterwards the experience becomes so horrendous and they experience such regret that they would never do something like this again in their life.

In this case, would it not be wrong to imprison this person? I know it’s a pretty exaggerated example, but the basic point remains; is it not possible that we are imprisoning people when it will achieve no good for any party?

And even further, is it not possible that by actually imprisoning some people we are putting them in an environment where they are now more likely to commit crimes upon release, in effect creating problems for society where there otherwise would have been none if the person was not imprisoned?

Free will and determinism

2013-03-30T11:59:13Z

Hi all,

Like many others I’ve been trying to grapple with the notion of free will and after watching a few of Sam’s lectures on YouTube I have a few questions. I believe that Sam stated that denying the existence of free will doesn’t necessarily mean that our futures are already determined, however I find it hard to reconcile this in my mind.

If every decision we make is essentially treated as a complex equation and solved by our subconscious mind then although we may not know exactly what is going to happen tomorrow (some randomness exists) we could still say the response to whatever happens is already determined. Basically what I mean is that it sounds like there may be a number of possible futures, we don’t know which path we’re going to end up on, and we’re merely experiencing the unfolding of events, much like watching a movie. However, just because the EXACT future isn’t known, we still don’t play much of a role in choosing what happens next. In this way every possible future is already determined, we just don’t know which one we’ll be experiencing. So I find it hard to understand how we can lack free will, and that decisions are governed by some sort of rules, but yet I’m pretty sure Sam states in one of the lectures that his idea of no free will doesn’t imply determinism?

New members post here

2013-03-28T17:34:18Z

I couldn’t find a new members thread, so I am creating one instead.

My name is Adam, I’m 30 and am agnostic. I personally believe that there is an afterlife, but I am unsure on the question of God exists, as I struggle with the question of whether we actually have a coherent definition of what God is—along the lines of Kai Neilson in “Does God Exist”. I’ve heard people use the term “ignostic” to describe people who think that the term “God” lacks a coherent definition. My belief that there is an afterlife stems from evidence in near death experiences.

I should also divulge that I am a gay man. This does not define me, but I believe that gays around the world are unfairly persecuted and I would like to see them stand up for themselves, and I try to stand up for gays as well.

edit: I should also mention that the lack of coherence of the term “God” is not the only thing that prevents me from accepting any of numerous crazy religious beliefs.