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12.6.16

Sapolsky makes a point that to lock away dangerous criminals does not depend on their having free will.
He is obviously coming from a chemical aspect so you would expect him to see things in the light of his own field. Still the point should be well taken. Maybe someone's genes and DNA comes from some Muslim or Tartar background. So they think theft and murder are nice and pleasant things in one's free time or for recreation. Or as he suggest Toxo-plasmosis. Like he says who know how many more things are out there like that that take over one's mind.
[See his ideas on stress]


The whole concept of courts trying to determine if one is responsible for his actions makes no sens e to Saplosky. You stay away from crocodiles even if you do not think their are morally culpable for their actions.

And we can go further to put equate evil with death as the Torah itself does in Deuteronomy.
Thus Adam and Eve did not need to have free will in order to do evil. And they could not have known what they were doing was evil.

The most important ideas on Adam and Eve are  Rambam and Avot Deravi Natan.
Mainly we have from Rambam (Maimonides) the allegory idea plus the sin of not going after the tree of life which was knowledge of truth as opposed to falsehood and instead went to the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

 Avot DeRavi Natan  says one should not make a fence for his words as Adam did.  And it refers to this  as a debate between the sages of the Misha. Some said one should make  a fence.Others said one should not. And it compares the fence of Adam to the fences make as rabbinical decrees. That is to say that some sages did not agree with the idea of making rabbinical decrees at all. I have not mentioned this on my blog here much. But it does give you an idea of why I look mainly to fulfill the commandments of the Torah and not to add or subtract.