On Jan 26, 6:13 pm, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > On 1/26/2012 2:49 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > On Jan 26, 5:24 pm, meekerdb<meeke...@verizon.net> 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. > > But those stops and gos are not just internal, they also include external > sources of > information -- like laws about going to prison.
They literally are just internal though. It's only our understanding that links the stops and gos with anything other than exactly what they are. With a computer, the external sources of information can never be internalized, just loaded and executed. A person has internal sources of information. They internalize the laws and they interpret their significance (and the significance of punishment). Computers are impossible to punish. You cannot make a deterrent for a machine unless you program it to simulate being deterred. Craig Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
