I always see references to free will when certain people start talking about quantum mechanics. Why do people care if free will exists or not?
It doesn't seem to affect anything I can think of.
- It feels like it exists; it feels like I'm making my decisions. Even if my whole life is a series of decisions calculated by me in some inevitable way, the calculations still had to happen in my head, and the experience of deciding was part of that. Therefore I own my decisions either way.
- For that reason, a criminal is just as guilty of their crime, whether they spiritually willed themselves to rob the bank, or whether they are predetermined to. The decision to rob the bank happened in their head.
- Punishment for a crime makes just as much sense either way and for the same reason. Seeing criminals get punished will affect the calculations happening in nearby brains, possibly lowering the chances they will in turn decide to rob the bank. Removing errant decision-making matrices from society should reduce the amount of badness.
- All of the opposite things are also true for rewarding good behavior.
What would you do with a CPU that can do nothing but churn out malware due to a design flaw? What if it's a CPU that only does amazing things? Or if it's some mix of both? It seems very similar to how we'd treat people who behave differently.
It doesn't seem to affect anything I can think of.
- It feels like it exists; it feels like I'm making my decisions. Even if my whole life is a series of decisions calculated by me in some inevitable way, the calculations still had to happen in my head, and the experience of deciding was part of that. Therefore I own my decisions either way.
- For that reason, a criminal is just as guilty of their crime, whether they spiritually willed themselves to rob the bank, or whether they are predetermined to. The decision to rob the bank happened in their head.
- Punishment for a crime makes just as much sense either way and for the same reason. Seeing criminals get punished will affect the calculations happening in nearby brains, possibly lowering the chances they will in turn decide to rob the bank. Removing errant decision-making matrices from society should reduce the amount of badness.
- All of the opposite things are also true for rewarding good behavior.
What would you do with a CPU that can do nothing but churn out malware due to a design flaw? What if it's a CPU that only does amazing things? Or if it's some mix of both? It seems very similar to how we'd treat people who behave differently.