careful there Dawk, bourbon and a vicodin…

that will do more then just take away your pain /unsure.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':(' />

Trust my experience on this. It is vast.

I will defer to your expertise on this matter then Dawk /wink.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' /> haha

In my belief I was given the gift of free will, therefore I am responsible for much of my experiences

here. I think the only thing predestined is death.

I also agree with Heidi and some others that pointed out we are not in control

of what others do and the events caused by nature, we can only control our

reactions to them. But I believe we are able to control to a large degree, how

bad or good that experience will be by our reactions to the situation. We can

choose to be a part of the solution or we can choose to be a part of the problem.

So, you're saying, stop sweating the little things! /tongue.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':o' />

No, I'm saying that control, just like pretty much everything else, is an illusion. There's always some doink who says, "if I have no control over anything, then nothing is ever my fault". You still have control, in the sense that your brain determines what the rest of your body does. What your brain determines is based on the exact quantum position, momentum, and spin of all the vast million of billions of trillions of particles that form it. Your brain is a learning system, so it actually forms as you continue on with your life. What you experience shapes your mind. When it doesn't function within specified norms, we say a person is insane. We are still the sum of our experiences, as filtered through the quagmire of human DNA. When the mechanism gets out of whack, well…

Here's an example scenario: You get awakened in the middle of the night, by a noise in your kitchen that is not your children or significant other making a sandwich. You grab the pistol you keep in the bedside table drawer, and creep into the kitchen to investigate, pistol pointed straight ahead. As you come into the kitchen, you find a scraggly looking man who smells like dog urine rifling through your junk drawer (everybody has one). You flip the lights on, startling the crap out of him, and he turns towards you, obviously shaken by your sudden appearance.

At this point, what is most likely running through your mind is a mishmash of the following; "This guy is robbing me", "this guy might try to hurt me", "I should call the police", "if he so much as twitches in my direction I will shoot", "can I legally shoot him in self-defense?", etc. somewhere in the back of your mind will be "it's wrong to kill", but fear will probably be keeping that thought at bay. Whether or not you pull the trigger will be determined by which of the pathways forming those thoughts is the strongest at the moment, and that will be determined in part by how much adrenaline is now coursing through your bloodstream. All of the experiences you've ever had that were strong enough to shape your brain will now be in play. A guy that has been robbed and beaten before might pull the trigger without hesitation, whereas a guy who has never had anything bad happen to him might just stand there.

My point is, under the same exact circumstances, the same person is going to make the same decision, because the underlying quantum processes would still be running the show. That doesn't make people any less responsible for their actions, it just makes them who they are. If a person does things they know they shouldn't, then they are a bad person. It may not be entirely their fault that they are that way, but if they lack the ability to change for their own good, then they are insane by definition.

As for "predeterminism" taking all the fun out of life by removing chance and free will, how can that be true when nobody can tell what the initial conditions are with enough resolution to determine the outcome? Just because the outcome of any situation is fixed, doesn't mean we know what it will be with any certainty. Since it is currently well beyond our ability to know, it really just becomes a question of philosophy.

I'm gonna hop down off the soapbox now and go buy the kids some fireworks.

But most everybody I know is ignorant about that future, predetermined or not, and that is good enough for me.

The bigger the better! /wink.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':D' /> /laugh.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />

Now, the next question after that is…where do they sell fireworks in California? I got a hankering for making something go boom boom. /ohmy.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':blink:' />

We went for a combination of small stuff for the kids to light, and massive artillery shells for the big kid. Karen is already into the last bottle of tequila, and the campfire is going for the wienies and smores. /biggrin.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':D' />

On a serious note, when I say that control, like most other things, is an illusion, I mean that we still have to function in this framework. It's like seeing a brick wall as a solid object. There's nothing really solid about it, except that the fields of all those quantum particles interlock with a stronger force than the particles that make up our hands. It looks solid, because it consistently reflects photons back to our eyes, and it feels solid because the valence electrons push against the electrons in our fingertips, but on a purely physical level, it's well over 99.99999% empty space. We have to live with the solution that it is solid, because that is what we see, and it will hurt if we smack our heads against it.

We have to function with the idea that we are responsible for our actions, because society couldn't function without that construct in place. And really, even if we have no direct control over the quantum functions that form our neural pathways, we put those pathways there in the first place.