No shit... I pity drill sergeants today, I really do.

Yeah, no kidding. According to policy, there is no such thing as someone unfit for the army- there're only drill sergeants who fail at their job. Bullshit, if you ask me. Imagine having to pass, by whatever means necessary, some shitbag shmuck, or worse, some kid you know is not going to cut it in his MOS.

As for those with an apparent pre-disposition to violent criminal behavior- I remember reading about a discovery made last year: there was an abnormality found in the brain of repeat violent offenders (serious offenders, not bar-fighters or whatnot). Now here's the thing: you can have the abnormality and have a decent upbringing with no unusual effect. You can have a screwed up upbringing and no abnormality with no unusual effect. If you have both, you are going to be screwed up. Wayne Gayce style. Well, maybe not that bad, but rape, murder, and serious assault are gonna be your hobbies. So essentially, there's a biological disposition, that requires a trigger. How true is it? *Shrugs* Too lazy to google for details and creds right now.

I've got a neurologist in the family, and there's nothing more depressing than listening to a long list of evidence supporting the theory that our "personalities", choices, free will, etc. are all an illusion, just purely the result of chemical reactions and such.
Gotta say, though, I think it's mostly crap. To back that up, I'm going to bring out a reference written by a guy who, as far as I can tell, could be an absolute loon. Wrote a really good book about consciousness and death, though- if you get the time, check it out, it's free and online. No, it's neither religious or Hubbardish. It's called Zen Physics. http://www.daviddarling.info/works/Z...s_front_1.html
If nothing else, it will give you actual answers to questions you've always wondered about, like "What actually happens when you show porn to someone who effectively has two brains, and how does that relate to me?"

Seriously, though, I'm a big fan of the theory that consciousness is its own thing, neither created by nor ending with the mind itself. Your mind may limit or give shape to your consciousness, thus limiting your actions somewhat, but "free will" still exists in varying degrees.

In special education, I run into learned helplessness a lot. These are the kids who have learned that they don't control their surroundings, because care-takers do too much for them. They wait for the world to act on them rather than acting on the world. It is pretty sad and if we let this excuse making nonsense go far enough, we'll have a whole society wired this way.

We already DO have a society wired this way. I see the wasteland everywhere. My twenty-something nephew lived with me for a few months last year and his complete lack of motivation astounded me. It was so pure it was a thing of beauty.

As for the 'soft addiction'--where do I sign up for one of those? It would be a pleasant change from the hard-core stuff I currently deal in. Does anybody watch A&E's INTERVENTION on Sunday nights? Great show.

A big problem with considering humans to be nothing more than automations is that if we are, then why is it wrong to harm or kill someone? It would essentially be the same as a fox killing a chicken to eat it, we don't object to that. Although people react in predictable ways to external stimuli you cannot discount the basic reality that any person has the power to control that reaction.

I agree. Sometimes it FEELS like you can't control it, but you can.

There's another theory of human nature that I learned about last night while watching Sci-Fi's THE SEARCH FOR ATLANTIS (I watch too much TV, I realize that now) This theory says that people who are corrupt and greedy and anti-social are just displaying MORE of their ALIEN nature. Alien as in 'alien's came down and mated with humans a long time ago.' I'm a sucker for this kind of shit.

I usually am to busy on weekends to catch TV, but I should probably watch this, if only to see the stupid shit families try to do before they involve me.

(I once read a family's "intervention plan" that had been written by a design engineer and computer programmer. He had plotted the intervention in excrutiating detail, including which chair the intended victim would sit in, how everyone would behave at the family party that was being held beforehand, and how everyone would say goodbye to the victim before said person was, of course, to be hauled off to rehab because they now understood the power and goodness of sobriety. Let's just say it didn't quite come off that way.)

A design engineer and a computer programmer...sounds like some control issues. :D

Free Will
 

Yes, I really don't believe in free will. So what? I'm still going to make choices and act accordingly. Who cares if those choices and actions are "free" or not? It's still me and my body. My present brain chemistry is based on genetics, experience, environment, and probably some chaos thrown in. And if I have a propensity toward self-examination, I can analyse myself and perhaps change my own behavior. I often think about why I think about what I think about. Yes, it can get confusing.

I have no shame in being a materialist. And there is no "right" or "wrong" either. That is why behaving ethically is hard; because we don't really have to.

They keep coming up with new explanations for why people do what they do and probably will as long as there's grant money and talk shows.

BUT, we are still liable for our actions. You have a brain tumor? chemical imbalance? bad childhood ? so what? If you cook and eat your children you pay. :smack:

Well, the only use for prying into the whole thing in the first place is not to get people off the hook- if we can understand it, we can mess with it. This is not for the courtroom, it's for the lab.

Which is a scary thought. Would you rather continue to have violent crime, or have that capability removed from people at (or before, more likely) birth? It's not sarcasm, it's something I ponder sometimes. I'd almost rather have the crime than have mass genetic tinkering someday (which is a stance I'd be hard pressed to justify to a victim of rape or child abuse, or a relative of a murder victim). I'll bet it happens though, sooner or later.

I agree completely AG, I touched on it here in the stem cell post. I think it'll happen eventually but I think it'll make people a good deal more uncomfortable than any other recent advance in science. Brave New World and Gattaca are interesting looks at the concept.

That isn't necessarily true. They could also chemically alter offenders and eliminate the need for jails and the death penalty. Your worse case scenario isn't the only possible outcome.:cool:

Care to elaborate on what those errors are? Please be specific.

Care to elaborate on what those conclusions are? Please be specific.

I too have been working in special education for a good twenty five years. People are resilient and strong. We are automomous but not automations.

We create.As a people we fight against the laws of nature to achieve some incredible things. Simple organisms might have only their biological functions, like the ants and sea urchins. They might not have a thinking choice but people are not bound by the seeming limitaions of mind or body, no matter how imperfect they maybe. They do have a choice regardless of what the body wants to do we can make it do something else to a degree. Sometimes living life by degrees is all some people have. I'd not like that reduced to simple cause and effect without the will involved. That's all I was saying.