On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 8:52 PM, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > Contral-causal, I guess. What I'm defending is that the belief in > free-will is, in part, a social construct, useful from the social/legal > point of view, as you say. We are educated to believe it. > > > The social/legal concept is certainly a social construct, and one that has > evolved over time from simple revenge and "an eye for an eye" to all sorts > mitigating and exacerbating factors. I think that belief in contra causal > free will is natural and not a social construct. It arises from that > "feeling I could have done otherwise" and then, by the theory of mind, the > other guy "could have done otherwise". We will have be educated to > disbelieve it. > > I think the feeling that "I could have done otherwise" comes from education. When our parents got mad at something we did when kids, what belief could have we learned, except that "I could have done otherwise" or "damn it, why didn't I do otherwise?" But I'm not sure if we can substitute that belief with something else ... "Next time I will do otherwise" perhaps doesn't work equally well, because you might think, "ok, next time I will do the same, and it will be next next time that I will do otherwise" > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
