On Jan 26, 5:24 pm, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > On 1/26/2012 1:51 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > >>> My chasing you with an ax would be no different than colon cancer or > >>> > > heart disease chasing you. You would not project criminality on the > >>> > cancer > > >> > Yes exactly, I want any cancer in my body to die and I want the guy > >> > chasing me with a bloody ax to die, and I don't care one bit if either > >> > of them is a criminal or had bad genes or had a bad childhood, > >> > and I don't care if the cancer or the ax-man has free will or not > >> > whatever the hell that term is supposed to mean. > > Of course you would care. If cancer had free will then you could make > > a deal with it. If people had no free will we would would not bother > > with imprisonment, we would just exterminate them. > > Imprisonment works because people are intelligent and can learn and act > accordingly. > "Free will" is irrelevant.
If that were the case then prison would either 'work' or not work, but it doesn't. Computers can 'learn' (trivially) and act accordingly, like doing a Windows update can change how your computer acts. The fact that prison does sometimes work and sometimes doesn't work is another symptom of free will. The person has to choose how they interpret their imprisonment (make sense of it) and how to respond to that interpretation (sense + motive). They may be a recidivist sooner or later, or they may be rehabilitated, or they may try to be rehabilitated but find that that particular motive is not strong enough or does not get enough support. Putting a computer in prison doesn't make sense. From the dumbest toy processor to the grandest supercomputer, none of them have any possible criminal motive. Their motive is to enact the proscribed stops and gos of electric current or weight and motion. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
