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Criminal Law and free will

We have already worked in a different place with the question of whether humans have free will. The result was that, regardless of how the "free will" means that man in any case under very specific conditions of each case - that his life story, his Experience, which he classified as important decision criteria, his present mood, etc. - can decide on only one way. Rewind back to the time 100 times and lets the people make the decision again, he will get the same result every time.

The question that arises then is: What do we actually punish the criminals? We have charged them each time that is before (legal category of personal " debt") that they have consciously decided against the law and the injustice and committed the crime. Should we rethink about the whole criminal law? Imagine a courtroom and the following dialogue between Defender and prosecutor before:

Attorney : According to the results of the investigation it is clear that you have stolen the Mona Lisa! Behind bars with you!

defender :
Not so hasty! My client has indeed confessed his crime. I still apply for acquittal! What do you wonder why at first glance, when you look closely and think about absolutely sincere and keen. For you see, my client was at the moment so not do otherwise, as the "Mona Lisa" to steal. As there is a "free", not hanging in the air will have, was the decision of my clients is an unavoidable product of numerous factors, the different can not be, but all are of equal weight for his decision! The specific electrical currents in his brain at the moment of decision for the theft were the result of his difficult childhood, his desperate financial situation, but even the mere fact of his birth, the birth of his mother and grandmother and millions of other small or large causes. Ultimately, his theft have necessarily caused the Renaissance, the extinction of the dinosaurs and the big bang. All of these events and circumstances linked an uninterrupted chain of causes that has tragically ended up in the slump in the Louvre. But he was nothing for it! The electrical impulses in his brain, although the last link in the chain of causes, but it is a random element picked out by another million. Punish but his mother that she was born, or Leonardo da Vinci, he painted the first picture! The fact that you, Judge, not now stand in its place, you owe only the happy coincidence that this endless chain of causation has not brought you to the crooks in the gutter, but on the tribunal. Do you want to punish my client really just for being in the lottery of the blind causality happens to be unlucky?

Attorney :
But Mr. defenders hesitate, but the time the consequences! First, there is no compelling If the conclusion from being . That man is not free in its decisions, may be a scientific fact. However, the consequences for our sense of justice, our value system, by which happen to be punishment of offenders, once nothing. In our society we have namely the subjective and inter-subjective idea that man is acting as autonomous beings ultimate author of his deeds, and not the extinction of the dinosaurs. This social consensus is like a menu in a restaurant: if there a free and a paid dining there, and the fee-based option, you can not tell the waiter, the cashier, too, you had it is compulsively decided and therefore not want to pay. So happens to be the rules of the game, Mr. defender. And secondly, keep in mind - if we can not punish someone for his guilt, we can also praise anyone for his services! The result of your view would accept a callous world of humanoid machines where you deny the existence of people, and their actions is as good or bad weather would have. Our identity as a human being is at stake here! Shakespeare and Beethoven were just machines? And guess what, your "knowledge" would talk about - the loss would be the result of any responsibility, and each could with the words "I could not help" save the impunity.

defender :
I ask not of outright sanctions freedom for the accused - I argue for a paradigm shift in criminal law. You, Mr. Attorney complain, not even an apple falling from a tree on your head - you are either wary of first place, or take any appropriate measures to ensure that nothing like this was repeated. And we must also deal with people - prevention above all else - or improvement of the offender. Only with the nonsense about "guilt" and "punishment" we should stop. There is increasing evidence so That even serious crime often has a clear biological catalysts - such as genetic defects or serotonin deficiency. We should start as well. And - yes, our mission should be reconsidered as a man - but it's just the lobes, for the children's education and artistic achievements nor acceptable to play your "party game" with the acceptance of personal responsibility, the fun does but at least then, if you a man for years of his life behind bars, lock and pretend that the problem was solved!

The age-old illusion is over, Mr. Prosecutor.

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a model kit for the world

It is in some ways like the ideal of the great romantic love: They are always looking for, but you will not, but at best rough approximations. Often you find yourself starting with what you have, and yet she hangs like a semi-transparent mirage for many generations before us, and we continually seek, for they and the search for it enriches our lives and gives it a hint of a meaning. Many people have gone crazy because of them, committed suicide or were killed. However, it is not a femme fatale, not even a person, it is - the truth.

The urge to understand the world and find out how it works is that people immanent - the earliest age, we crawl around curiously and suck everything in us that makes us understand our environment. The deeper understanding of the world is the evolutionary advantage of us, who are neither particularly fast nor particularly strong, or shipped, has allowed to survive. On the other hand, philosophers early have recognized that we will understand the truth about the world as it is "in reality," never to end.

the one hand, we rely on detection of the things on our feelings. We see not really what "is" an object, but only a construct of our brain because of the sensory stimuli. Let's take for example a red apple, we must be aware that the apple does not really red "is" - we see only red because our brain from the retina to the incoming data on electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength of about 640 nm - 780 nm interpreted as red. The joke is that a red apple is actually anything, not just red - the red wavelengths are indeed the apple just thrown back (and get in our eyes). As the same wavelength is interpreted by a rabbit or a Martian, and whether their concept of "red" corresponds with ours, we do not know - but both are expected in each case a quite different model to build the "truth" about the red apple.

intellectually Also, our knowledge Limits - we humans are simply not smart enough to know "the truth" about the world. Even if, in view of us brought forth by supercomputers or Mars rovers first sounds stupid - the way the world is certainly too complicated for us. Or you can prove to me that we all are not just figures in a giant computer simulation known to our laws of nature, as we know it works? What can we do - and what is the role of science - is to us as in the perception of the red apple to construct a model that fits reality. It does not address, is said, but fit, not contradicts it. A police dog will never understand why he was trained to sniff out drugs in luggage compartments, but it is clear to him - if he does it, there's a treat and some tender loving care by the master. It penetrates the complexity of the world, but he learns to deal with it, so is he good. And in this position, we are ultimately human. The laws of nature, we discover, are nothing more than the law of the dog that there is a drug discovery Chappi a pound.

truth is always subjective, navigating a guide to the world with which we through the maze of being. It does not matter whether someone with a better knowledge (other advanced civilization etc.) has overtaken our model - as long as it works, it is our "truth." A good example is the placebo . If the model in our mind gives us an improvement - it will just be so, then this is our personal truth about the "reality" - even though we have "objectively" just a piece of white sugar eaten in tablet form. In a famous experiment "thought" birds that if they make a certain movement, the machine in her cage donated them food - in fact the machines were their dances matter, but they were tired at the end anyway. Its truth was so different from those of researchers who the weird contortions of the birds laughed, but both views were equal. And therefore, the theory of relativity "objective" might describe a very different way the world than we think - as long as it works, it is our useful placebo, our "truth" that we now do not even know better. But still looking

be constantly on.

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The Meaning of Life

Ah yes, the meaning of life ... There are many paraphrases this seemingly profound question - Where do we come from, where are we going? - Or, to put it to Douglas Adams: "The Question of Life, the Universe and Everything". I as a follower of prose Answers to questions poetic think the question is in this form first, and were ambiguous and, secondly, a touch of megalomania out. Miss

course because "meaning" mostly implies that the something whose meaning we seek, was created by someone in an intention out for anything, so has a purpose. "What is the meaning (and purpose) of a computer?" Is thus a valid question. The "sense of the weather," one looks in vain, however. The weather is just there. It is a natural phenomenon, as we are. No one has been created us or we are, even if it sounds disappointing, the product of a process of random selection Mutations of a complex carbon-based molecule. All the miracles accomplished man so far, the symphonies of Beethoven, the relativity theory, the landing on the Moon, to the words of Carl Sagan, "things that hydrogen atoms do when you give them 15 billion years time .

But where does the question of the meaning of life in general? - Well, for thousands of years it was not questioning taken for granted that we were created but somehow, by one or more gods. Created - oh, then surely for a purpose! Life was filled with a mysterious sense, because such a God is not for nothing that makes the effort. And then suddenly - I give the floor here at Steven Weinberg, who puts it excellently added:

"The people considered themselves characters in a cosmic drama: We were created to have sinned, to be redeemed - a very large remember history. Now we know that we are more like actors standing around with no stage directions on a stage, and that nothing else is left here as a bit of drama to improvise there a little comedy. "

Sigmund Freud had already had a similar epiphany, and developed the theory of the "insults to humanity . After that the first (Copernicus) the humiliation that people suddenly had to realize, not the Earth was the center of the universe, but an insignificant bits of stone somewhere on the outskirts of the Milky Way. The second insult came from Darwin, who made us clear how the man could arise naturally, without divine breath from a common ape-like ancestors. I think, therefore, is the eternal question of the meaning of life: the past, the sense because of the religious influence of course available and easy to find at the pastor / priest / shaman of your trust. Is man but disenchanted as a mere upgrade of the monkey, so it looks (perhaps unconsciously) - For a replacement for the lost throne - and invents a meaning of life, is not there, because there is nobody who can give us this "objective" sense.

What does not prevent us to live the life meaningful, to try to understand the world and to do good. This sense - or rather content - we must give life but even so he is solely in our hands.