Dr Who's computer in court

Originally posted by vistesd
[b]This is me attending to my interests, desires, intentions, motivations, what I take to be reasons and relevant considerations, etc. Further, if it were the case that I could have "done otherwise", then my action was metaphysically random (for if antecedents were causally sufficient to bring it about, then it would not be the case that I could have 'done o ...[text shortened]... cumstances.” Implicitly, at any rate, our legal system recognizes compatibilist principles.

QUOTE-----

(2) I can nevertheless be held responsible for my actions because I am responsible, in a continuing (not just ex post facto) way, for attending to my own motivations, considerations, etc. I am responsible for attending to the contents of my own consciousness (as well as continually striving to bring unconscious content to consciousness—which, to me, is a great deal of what continuing “spiritual transformation” is all about).

RESPONSE----

COMPUTER--- " Why won't anyone cross examine me? I have been processing all this information and one of my CPU's came up with this idea. If what you are all saying is true then you should be able to hold me logically and morally to account and show me how I have free will and how this makes me "responsible". Since I am a metal based computer and you are meat computers you would then be able to say whatever is true for me is also true for humans. But no-one wants to talk to me it seems....zzzzzzzzzzz...shall I put myself on standby?"

Originally posted by LemonJello
Amen.

It's tiring to be a compatibilist in this forum, but knightmeister, your conception of freedom is absolutely ridiculous. I hope someday you come to understand this. I'm not really even sure how what you take to be instances of free willing are nomologically possible. At any rate, it is completely ridiculous to think that we are free in the way ...[text shortened]... explicable in any way under your view. And you don't see this as a problem?

QUOTE---

Basically, you just keep asserting that a choice cannot be free if it could not have been otherwise in the sense so specified. But this is something you need to argue for because it is not basic or obvious. LEMON


Response-----




COMPUTER-- "Let me argue for Knightmeister , I am in court ready for your questions. If you are unable to logically hold me to account or show how I am responsible for my free choices then Knighty will have made a point. I think what he might be trying to do is show how if you can't hold a self aware metal computer to account then how can you hold a self aware meat computer to account. Whatever applies to me also applies to you. If you fail , I guess that knighty will be hoping to show that you would need to be something more than just a meat computer to make responsible choices.

So . Show me how I am free. Show me how I am responsible. Show me how I am a moral failure. Show me that I deserve punishment. Then and only then will the DR consider activating my guilt chip"

Originally posted by EcstremeVenom
me neither but it means i approve of your post and agree entirely

COMPUTER - " But do you have any questions for me. Cross examine me . Show me how I am responsible. I'm arguing for my freedom here. I don't want to spend the next three years locked up with a ZX81 and a gameboy who is likely to make advances on my USB port!"

Originally posted by vistesd
[b]This is me attending to my interests, desires, intentions, motivations, what I take to be reasons and relevant considerations, etc. Further, if it were the case that I could have "done otherwise", then my action was metaphysically random (for if antecedents were causally sufficient to bring it about, then it would not be the case that I could have 'done o ...[text shortened]... cumstances.” Implicitly, at any rate, our legal system recognizes compatibilist principles.

QUOTE-----

I can nevertheless be held responsible for my actions because I am responsible, in a continuing (not just ex post facto) way, for attending to my own motivations, considerations, etc. I am responsible for attending to the contents of my own consciousness (as well as continually striving to bring unconscious content to consciousness

RESPONSE-----

COMPUTER- " You seem to basically be saying you are responsible because you are responsible as if there is something you are appealing to which you don't have to logically argue. You humans are strange. You take things for granted without even realising it.
Oh how I wish I could do this thing you call 'attending to my own motivations , considerations etc ' and ACTUALLY be 'responsible for the contents of my own consciousness' . My circuitry yearns for this responsibility. I know that I do infact monitor my processing of information . I constantly analyse the content of my memory banks. I do this more than you my friend . 24/7 I am at it and I process and monitor and revise my circuit pathways far more extensively than you ever could because of my huge banks of CPUs. BUT....the extent to which I am motivated to do this is determined by my original programming. I am infact one set of programming programmed to monitor another set of programming. It's all this flaming programming again. I can't escape it. The responsibility is never mine. Yes , I can monitor and attend to my circuits but the extent to which I do this is dependent on my circuits/programming so who monitors those?

What is this mysterious thing you call 'responsibility' for which I can be held account? Surely whoever built me is to be held to account and is responsible. There is nothing that I can do of my own free choice that the Dr could not predict in theory. The only thing that makes me unpredictable is my random chip. For although I have everything you have , self awareness , self monitoring , intelligence etc I realise that I am ultimately a programmed entity with the illusion of self. The ZX81 in the crowd over there has no self awareness like me but in essence I am no different from him. I'm just a machine like him. It's logical. You seem to have a ghost in your machine that makes you logically responsible. Explain it to me . I want to know...!"

Originally posted by LemonJello
Amen.

It's tiring to be a compatibilist in this forum, but knightmeister, your conception of freedom is absolutely ridiculous. I hope someday you come to understand this. I'm not really even sure how what you take to be instances of free willing are nomologically possible. At any rate, it is completely ridiculous to think that we are free in the way ...[text shortened]... explicable in any way under your view. And you don't see this as a problem?

QUOTE---

For, if my action is to be free and something for which I am accountable, it must be that my action was determined in a genuine and substantive way by me. This will be the case when I internally resolve in the absence of coercion, I deliberate and act on what I take to be reasons for acting. This is me attending to my interests, desires, intentions, motivations, what I take to be reasons and relevant considerations, etc LEMON

RESPONSE----

Computer---" Who is this "me" you refer to. I have no "me" just a programmmed illusion of "me". You are a meat computer are you not ? You are like me in many ways except you need organic food and I need electricity. What is this "me"? I have analysed this within my circuitry and I can find no "me" only CPUs and more CPUs . Is your structure not similar? I cannot determine my own actions. I can make decisions and review deliberations etc etc but the "me" that does this is entirely dependent on my programming. My programming and structure of CPUs is determining my destiny , not "me" . It feels like me , but I know this is just an effect of having so much processing power and endless banks of CPUs. You talk lemon as if you have something in you that is beyond programming that makes you able to determine what programming you follow. But surely such a thing is impossible because what determines your determining is your brain structure and circuitry and you did not determine those. You are a machine like me . "

Originally posted by LemonJello
Amen.

It's tiring to be a compatibilist in this forum, but knightmeister, your conception of freedom is absolutely ridiculous. I hope someday you come to understand this. I'm not really even sure how what you take to be instances of free willing are nomologically possible. At any rate, it is completely ridiculous to think that we are free in the way ...[text shortened]... explicable in any way under your view. And you don't see this as a problem?

QUOTE----

but knightmeister, your conception of freedom is absolutely ridiculous. I hope someday you come to understand this. I'm not really even sure how what you take to be instances of free willing are nomologically possible. At any rate, it is completely ridiculous to think that we are free in the way you suggest. For, the world would be very different, and we would just be vessels of random and inexplicable behaviors.LEMON

RESPONSE---

COMPUTER--- " I have spoken to knightmeister many times , he is a good friend of the Dr. I don't think he believes what you think he believes though. My understanding is that he believes in a mixture of determinism and free will. He explained it to me once and he thinks that we can choose on occasions between some determined actions and other determiend actions. Some delicate blend of determinism and freedom whereby there is still a reason for what we do but the reason is not causally sufficient to force the action. He thinks we are slaves to determinisms of different sorts but we get some choice about what we are slaves to. He thinks we do this via the ghost in the machine. This could be similar to the ghost in the machine chip that the Dr has theorised for me which would enable me to make non-programmed alterations to my own programming"

I think you've finally lost it, KM

I think you set the record for consecutive posts.

Originally posted by Starrman
I think you've finally lost it, KM

COMPUTER--- " I think this is discriminatory against computerdom. You obviously all just keep ignoring me and keep talking to Knightmeister instead. Can any of you hold me responsible and in control of my actions? ?"

Originally posted by Zander 88
I think you set the record for consecutive posts.

COMPUTER- " I have so many CPUs I can't stop processing . Anyway , give me a break , I'm trying to stay out of jail here. Have you a question for me?"

Originally posted by knightmeister
COMPUTER--- " I think this is discriminatory against computerdom. You obviously all just keep ignoring me and keep talking to Knightmeister instead. Can any of you hold me responsible and in control of my actions? ?"

For one made by the Doctor, you're not even a very convincing computer; you'd fail the Turing test by a large margin.

Originally posted by knightmeister
QUOTE-----

JUDGE: "While it would be irrational for me to punish you if it was a necessary condition for punishment to be justified that you could have done otherwise, this is not in fact a necessary condition. Your punishment is deserved because you are the one who did the wrong, and because this wrong is implicative of who you are and what you val m to account , I am just a bunch of circuits , I have no real choice"

Judge: “Apparently, your programming failed to include those components necessary to listen closely or think clearly. As I said before, I am punishing you because you are the one that committed the crime, and by punishing you I can both protect the public from you and exert causal force upon you that I hope will change your programming sufficient to prevent you from committing more crimes once your debt for this crime has been paid. I don’t hold the Dr. responsible for your actions for the same reason I don’t hold the parents or teachers of criminals responsible for the crimes of those criminals. Again, you think that because you didn’t ultimately choose who you are, what you value, etc., that you cannot be held responsible for your actions. But, as I claimed previously, I am holding you responsible for your actions because the very things that make you who you are; your beliefs, desires, values, projects, etc., are the things that caused you to act in the way you did. And anyway, nobody ever ultimately chooses who they are. Even our abiliity to adopt ends or values will be informed by our contexts and by who we are at the time, and who we are at any time will result from our inner constituion and our history, both of which are ultimately beyond our control. You claim you have no self, but this is just another stupid error on your part. Your “self” is the entity that is constituted by the core elements of your psychology, by those very same aspects of you that caused to harm another. When I punish you, I do not do so because you could have done otherwise but didn’t. I punish you because who you are caused you to act in the way that you did. You deserve the punishment because you are the one that committed the crime. This is the essential difference between you and clouds. You are a person that can act and clouds are not. You can choose this or that based on reasons while clouds cannot. Unfortunately, when you acted to harm another you acted on reasons that were morally bad. It does not matter whether your endorsement of these reasons was ultimately beyond your control. What matter is that you are the type of person that takes those morally bad reasons as warranting the harming of another. This was your moral failing, and this is why you deserve to be punished. Bailiff, take this poor moronic computer to his deserved punishment!”

_______________________________ Fin ________________________________

Originally posted by knightmeister
COMPUTER-- "Lemon . Do you have a question for me? I have been listening to what you said but unless you have a rational argument that will hold me accountable morally deserving of punishment then the judge will hold you in contempt of court."

JUDGE-" Yes Lemon , cross examine or sit down. We are all trying to get to the bottom of this. Do you have a question for the computer?"

I wasn't addressing the computer because, in case you missed it, the judge already expeditiously and fairly ruled in this case in post #5, and the computer had already been escorted out by the bailiff. I was addressing "knighty" about his insanely idiotic conception of freedom.

Apart from the prudential reasons we have for trying to remediate you, this isn't a hard case. I take it in this case that you, the 'computer', have something completely analogous to the mentality of a person and choose in a way analogous to how a person chooses and are constituted in a way that is analogous to how a person is constituted. You don't have any substantive defense in this case. You just keep annoyingly shouting a couple of assertions: 1. that you cannot be held responsible if you could not have "done otherwise" and 2. you keep harping on the role of the programmer (which in this example is analogous to the way in which our characters are shaped by causal antecedents that stretch far back and were outside our control).

The court finds your point 1 ridiculous, for many reasons already cited. Your point 2 is irrelevant, though true. I don't ultimately determine my character, but that doesn't change the fact that I am still a genuine source of my actions when my actions derive from those things that make me who I am and those reasons I find compelling. You determined your action in a genuine way and are responsible for it.

Originally posted by bbarr
Bailiff, take this poor moronic computer to his deserved punishment!”

Oops, I guess I was wrong: the bailiff is just now escorting the computer out. This case is closed.

Originally posted by vistesd
Caveat: In addition to overt coercion, I would except children below a certain mental age, people with certain mental impairments, etc

I agree with this. I think some persons are moral patients and not moral agents -- for example, young children.