> That said, I've always thought it an interesting philosophical question of if we don't have free will and our paths in life are somewhat deterministic, it really puts a damper on our legal and moral systems to a degree.
I was just thinking about this the other day. What occurred to me is that we tend to think of legal and moral punishments in a vengeful kind of way (sort of "getting back" at people for doing something wrong), which I agree makes little sense if we think the people involved had no choice in the matter.
But if you think about it, it's really a lot like training an artificial neural network. If it gives you an incorrect output (does something bad), you give it a negative feedback to train it not to do that anymore. In that context, you're not punishing it per se, and there's no consciousness or will or intention involved, but it amounts to basically the same as punishing a person for stealing or something. It's just a form of training.
I was just thinking about this the other day. What occurred to me is that we tend to think of legal and moral punishments in a vengeful kind of way (sort of "getting back" at people for doing something wrong), which I agree makes little sense if we think the people involved had no choice in the matter.
But if you think about it, it's really a lot like training an artificial neural network. If it gives you an incorrect output (does something bad), you give it a negative feedback to train it not to do that anymore. In that context, you're not punishing it per se, and there's no consciousness or will or intention involved, but it amounts to basically the same as punishing a person for stealing or something. It's just a form of training.