Vespasian

Yes I do mean the one taken forty years back... the one the brextremists have been crying about since... Yea, I'm sure those voters back then we're given the same option.. to join the EU... they voted to join the EU...

hehehe I was gonna make the point clearer Timon, but then fought, fk it, it'll have to do.. happy new year to you Timon..

You mean like Nigel Farage or the other brextremists wanting a new referendum because they didn't like the result of the first one?... bunch of crybabies that they are..

Sorry Timon you've misunderstood what I was getting at... The idiots are those presented with the truth but unwilling to acknowledge it..

Fooled by big business?... More like the brextremists have fooled half the populace... Anyways matelot, I've developed something of a road map as to why we voted for Brexit, why people voted for trump, why every muslim country is a shithole... its all related to the same underlying themes.. Its why communism collapsed as well by the way... The gist of which concerns the road of good intentions... leading to the law of unintended consequences... when I get it wrapped up I'll post it up as an explanation and warning to those idiots who think they know better..

Happy new year folks....

Love those fences?... are they fences?.. if I didn't know any better I'd be minded to describe them as works of art..

Will do..

well we can blame Henry Ford for that... He had a group of experts go over his cars to see which part lasted longest.. turned out the back axle lasted longest by a good margin.. He told his designers to lower the quality as fast as they could... I'm sure it made sense to him, I'd of increased the quality of the failing parts but I'm never going to be a millionaire am I...

Now looking at Carl Gustav Jung.. I don't expect to get much of anything he says but I expect a few crumbs to fall from his table.. Education is a life long journey...

If I was a doctor I'd prescribe medication, seeing as my expertise lies elsewhere, I'll prescribe the mind of Jordan Peterson.. look him upon on utube, you'll thank me later..

Moment of clarity.. In those experiments on free will, might we be reading those ECG's wrong.... what if they're not evidence of the brain manipulating events but of the mind seeing events?... Its a pretty weak argument I know, but still... Let me explain... lets say that the brain has seen what you are going to do, those brain waves are at some unfathomable level working it out.. the brain has figured out your next move half a second before you act.. The next question should that be true is is the mind capable of seeing future events in other scenarios?.. we've all had that experience of thinking of an old friend we hadn't seen in years and later that day or hr bumped into them.. perhaps the brain knows we're gonna be seeing them shortly and has prepped the conscious mind for whats about to take place by putting into our conscious mind thoughts related to that future encounter.. perhaps the mind is much more attuned than we think, and here and there it lets you know how much more powerful than you that it is... Yesterday I was looking at two words and had to look up their proper definitions in an online dictionary.. having mused on their meaning for a while I put the matter to bed.. sometime later in the day, I was wondering what to watch next and was led from one utube vid to the next eventually landing on some black comedian an earlier vid had promoted me to investigate.. I clicked on the vid but skipped the first five minutes as thats usually the introductions, and low and behold the very first two words out this fella's mouth were the ones I'd earlier been ruminating on.. I was a bit taken aback but then I remembered those ECG experiments.. Perhaps, just perhaps, those experiments weren't exposing evidence of brain manipulation but insight... intuition.. perhaps the mind can see much further into the future than we can imagine... Perhaps those spooky moments in life are the dark side of the brain throwing you a bone..

The Republicans have just passed a tax bill that will add one and a half trillion dollars to their national debt over the next ten years.. Sort of undermines the Rights argument that borrowing will bankrupt Britain.. or that Corbyn is a loon... My own pet peeve is subsidized housing Matelot.. If it was possible I have every private landlord flogged tarred an feathered... if they want any money they must do as I do.. get a f*in job...

The Village idiot.. I've looked at loads of vids covering free will, but this one had the greatest effect on me.. you should watch it.. took me an age to find it again as it didn't pop up in my history feed.. anyways its worth the time to take a look at it..

the village idiot.. It certainly is a mind warper. You kind of have to hijack your brains natural processes and turn them in on themselves to gain the necessary insight. Real mental gymnastics. I'm not even sure that you can sort it all out through thinking alone. Brain training (ie meditation) really helps. After a while this gradually gives you the opportunity to observe how your mind is fuctioning. You get to see that you are not in control and the 'self' becomes an untenable concept. Not sure I understand all this.. I don't need to do any mental gymnastics to get a flavor of whats being got at.. to feel a sense of helplessness when you understand you're not what you think you are, like an out of body experience.. i can do that at will.. theres a disconnection with what you imagine you are... its pretty easy if you're asking me... Whats getting me is why it matters.. how it should change you in any way beyond having a philosophical argument.. I can see the sense of investigating the mind but its application in the real world seems a bit removed from what we do in real life... Theres a paradox at play with some of these applications, better to understand criminal behavior.. but when you understand that behavior, your bound to be more forgiving of a criminal and his crime... which obviously leads to more crime as more people know they'll be treated leniently if they do bad things... Thats something I sense you don't understand.. that raking up subjects like free will might do more harm than good.. its gives bad behavior a get out of jail card.. I mean if someone invented a pill to stop crime then that would do the trick.. but is it ever likely to happen?..

Looking into this subject certainly messes with your mental health I can tell you, I've ended up watching a debate with Richard Carrier in an attempt at some light relief and escape from the subject matter... I can only take so much.. Now, having ruminated on, contemplated on, got a headache on, its struck me that the question shouldn't be does free will exist, but does it matter?.. After all, no matter if I understand it all or not, its not going to change anything I do other than contemplate the matter when I fancy having something to muse on... The one thing I have got from looking into this subject is, if you let em, people will cheat, and if you're inclined to forgive wrongdoings, your making matters worse.. Which has application's in other subjects I happen to be in the middle of getting a headache on at the minute..

If it wasn't an arb forum I could bang on about this till kingdom come... Of the vids on utube I watched yesterday a third were devoted to understanding free will.. and even after that I can't settle on a solution.. I fully understand our actions are the result of unconscious actions in the brain directing us to act.. But I can't imagine that means our conscious mind doesn't influence the unconscious mind.. chicken and egg, which comes first?. On the subject of free will in regards crime and punishment, two things spring to mind.. First, people who believe criminals can't help themselves are much more likely to forgive criminal behavior.. (applies to me a lot of times). Criminals who believe they can cheat will cheat.. If a killer thinks his punishment is being treated in a clinic for a month to change his behavior, those behind him will take advantage and more people will die as a result... IE, If society took a more forgiving attitude to crime, the the result would be more crime. its not exactly what we want is it?.. Bit of a puzzler in it, you want to help, but by helping you only make things worse..

It ain't such a high hurdle, I'm a philosopher in my spare time.. in the manner of Newtons mathematical smatterers mind... Which is why I've decided to come back and answer this question.. The question of free will and criminal behavior.. when I have ruminated on the problem two things have popped up in my mind over the days.. in a vid on utube discussing free will mention was made of an experiment with students taking exams.. they gave a test group an opportunity to cheat and those that could cheat mostly did cheat... Now I didn't know what to make of this at first, I mean their cheating was still the result of their environment was it not.. But if they hadn't been given the opportunity to cheat they couldn't of cheated could they.. This has been getting on my nerves to be honest, a head scratcher as to how it all ties in to free will and human behavior... The second thing that was bumping around in my head was Schrodinger's cat.. To whit, look for evidence of free will and you wont find it, don't look for evidence and it exists.. its a paradox.. Both free will and predeterminismn only exists if you both look for them and do not look for them.. if you like... which leads me to crime and justice. if free will both exists and doesn't exist at the same time then utility suggests we treat crime by not allowing criminals to cheat.. IE, don't give em a chance to cheat justice and they wont act like they can cheat justice... Conclusion, free will exists in a paradox of both existing and not existing....depends if you look for it..or not?..

Its by inches its beginning to dawn on me that your not that different to me in many ways...

That Mr Bullman was the most heartwarming thing I've seen in a while...

Oh but I do understand what bitcoin is.. its a gambling site masquerading as a crypto currency... the fact that it pretends to be something its not is what annoys.. its a lie.. so, if you engage in bitcoin trading you're part of the moral bankruptcy of the enterprise.. as far as I'm concerned, theres one legitimate form of gambling, and thats when you invest in hard assets to increase your business growth.. Gambling on horses, or crypto currency is nothing but a sign of moral bankruptcy.. by engaging in both, you're promoting idleness and sloth as an alternative to hard work and industry... Thats why its morally bankrupt as an enterprise, and thats why you should be ashamed to be part of it...

it might be "fun for you" but not the lemming getting in when they don't understand the risks, or worse do understand but get in anyways.. its not goin to be a laughing matter when people lose money on an algorithm is it.. And no I haven't a clue why bitcoin was invented, or its original intention, I got bored real fast looking into it... although I do understand whats inflating its price at present.. loads of scumbags trawling the Internets with spam on the subject.. the very same people you wont hear from again when the price tanks and they've sold up a day or two before that happens.. If you've made some money on it good luck, but if your asking me your as bad as the thieves for supporting this shisterismn.. you should be ashamed of yourself..

What does it matter if Greeks turned to bitcoin, Greek citizens are likely to be hoodwinked as anyone else.. same goes for the Chinese.. You might argue the Chinese and Greeks imagine bitcoin to be a safe bet, seein as they might of jumped on bitcoin during their crisis.. But theres a difference to what I'm talking about.. The Chinese devaluation was local, as was the Greek crisis... What happens during a downturn is no place is safe... no asset seems safe.. If stocks begin to fall around the world, were does the Greek look for a safe haven then?.. The essence of perceived value is trust.. You buy a house because you trust its value to go up over time.. you buy gold because its intrinsic value has remained steady for thousands of years... Houses, you can live in, Gold you can hold in your hands, touch it, feel it, marvel at its beauty.. what can you do with Bitcoins?.. look at a string of numbers in an algorithm.. I can't see anyone holding onto an algorithm in a crisis.. Dan494 Yep, exactly what I suspect, thousands if not millions of emails have been sent out by Bitcoin insiders and their discipels to talk up the currency... if you can rightly call it a currency..

betwixt ruminating on a topic or two brought up in this forum, one being bitcoin.. Its struck me a day or two ago that bitcoin as in investment is about the most dangerous out there.. perhaps if bitcoin acts in the manner it was intended then it might be OK but as a speculative adventure, its gonna make a lot of people bitcoin broke within hrs one day.. I thought maybe its saving grace might be that it might act as a safe haven investment harbor, but the more I think on it the less likely I see that happening... human psychology being what it is, I just can't see people having confidence in a bunch of random numbers generated on the internet in times of crisis.. In fact I think the opposite be would true.. I think the first mention of an economic slowdown, bitcoin will be one of the assets dumped by investors.. In fact if thats true and bitcoin acts as I suspect, then its only value to most people is as a warning to us that a recession is on the way if bitcoin tanks.. the canary in the coalmine...

I'll concede the point that we have no free will, but what I wont do is accept that that excuses crime and criminal behavior.. Free will or no free will, environment shapes events one way or the other.. the idea of time in prison concentrates the mind of criminals.. thus the mind is once again shaped by its environment.. I don't buy the argument that prison increases re offending rates as well... I see it like this, an offender does time in prison, they find it ain't as bad as they imagined and calculate that crime is worth investing their time in seein as the punishment is not half as bad as they thought.. We should incarcerate people for shorter time spans but make prisons an appalling experience for the criminally minded, see if they want to go back after spending months in isolation with regular beating and starvation diets.. Murderers should be confined in the same manner but with the bonus of a lottery drawn out weekly that picks out one for weekly execution.. Lets see if that has an effect on a criminals state of mind... As to why we're now talking about criminal behavior, thats because it effects other people in a negative manner.. two people falling for each other and getting on with life doesn't have the same effect that some criminal running off with your TV and car does..