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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Janx" data-source="post: 6047878" data-attributes="member: 8835">First order of business, please back off on the religion fork of this thread.  It ain't kosher, and some people are getting testy.  I had some thoughts on the religion gene's relation to this thread, but once folks start naming religions and applying some subjective adjectives the conversation gets Mod-risky.  thanks for complying.I like AaronL's considered response, though I think "deterministic" might be a better term than predetermined, regarding peopls's behavior and destiny.  Without a Hisenberg Compensator and Fluxx Capacitor, we probably can't manage all the variables that drive a human.Aside from that, each human acts in certain ways that they are driven to do by nature of the complex arrangement of their brain's neural networks.  Addicts have reinforced their reward circuitry when they engage in their addiction behavior.  They can't really stop that.  As we learned from that one article, apparently a guy became a creepy pedophile because of a brain tumor, and got fixed when he got it removed.  That's probably the strongest point in the no-free-will case, in that certain misbehaviors are in fact beyond a person's control (free will to stop doing) by nature of their brain's wiring.I've got to read   [MENTION=6688858]Libramarian[/MENTION]'s links to catch up to where he is.  I'll let you guys in on a secret, I like well stated counter arguments and new information I hadn't considered.  Many times in these kind of threads, I change my position based on what I learn here.  In this case, the concept that "even if you really don't have free will, it can be bad for society if people believe that" is one I hadn't considered.  Note, I paraphrased, and that's not exactly what L meant or said.</blockquote>

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