Dr Who's computer in court

Originally posted by bbarr
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 ...[text shortened]... is deserved punishment!”

_______________________________ Fin ________________________________

QUOTE----

You can choose this or that based on reasons while clouds cannot. BARR

RESPONSE---

(I'm sorry but it's my thread and I decide when the computer gets taken out - This will be done by fair and logical means via a jury of 12 good men. If the computer is as deserving of punishment as you say then logically he is also as deserving of a fair trial as any human is KM)

COMPUTER---" But your honour , I cannot choose 'this or that' I can only choose 'this' . The option of 'that' was never available to me realistically becasue when I went through my memory banks I could see that choosing 'that' was never going to happen. My programming was always going to exclude 'that'. You need to revise this statement to say that I chose 'this' based on reasons and the cloud just does 'this' but you cannot logically include 'that' . You see we both do 'this' and not that. We are both doing caused actions. I choose but my choice is not relevant becasue it no choice at all. I can prove it by a print out if you wish.

You see your honour , you have subtly and unconciously appealed to the concept of free will here by saying "You can choose this or that based on reasons while clouds cannot" This cleverly implies that options are open to me that are not open to the cloud. But this cannot logically be true ! I can only do what I am caused to do, just like a cloud and yet you talk as if I can do something that the cloud cannot. Sure , I can deliberate and process etc etc but it is the outcome of my decisions you are judging here. My deliberations and self awareness DO NOT logically give me the power to do anything different. I am a slave to my nature just as the cloud is. In this respect you need to show how I am anything other than just a mechanism caused to produce certain results.

I put it to you , your honour , that you cannot show that I have any more power over what I am programmed to do than a cloud has to do what it must inevitably do. Self awareness does not logically give me control , neither does reasoning or deliberation, since all these things are subject to my nature and my programming anyway. If you look inside a cloud you will see a series of interconnecting physcial units working together in a caused and determined way to produce rain. If you had looked inside me you would have seen a series of interconnecting physcial units working together in a caused and determined way to produce the power surge. And you still think me more responsible than the cloud because these units happen to produce self awareness along the way? Prove how my self awareness gives me more control and options than the cloud ? I am a machine remember like you. This talk of 'this and that' is an unexamined statement that unconsciously appeals to a free will that you cannot show I have and the cloud does not "

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

(I'm sorry but it's my thread and I decide when the computer gets taken out - This will be done by fair and logical means via a jury of 12 good men. If the computer is as deserving of punishment as you say then logically he is also as deserving of a fair trial as any human is KM)

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

COMPUTER---" Ah you have addressed me directly. Thank you for showing some respect! What is this Turing test? And do you have a way of proving my guilt?"

Before taking a computer to court and before assigning accountability we must first ask what courts are all about, what punishment is for and what accountability really means.
The Christian view is often one of 'every sin has a punishment' but at no point has anyone ever been able to explain to me what purpose that punishment serves. I have asked a number of times and even started some threads on the matter and I mostly get complete silence from the Christians. People often take it for granted that it is 'understood' or part of the natural order but it just doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
If however we approach it from the point of view of evolution it all becomes clear.

Originally posted by LemonJello
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, thi compelling. You determined your action in a genuine way and are responsible for it.

QUOTE---

"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." LEMON

RESPONSE----

COMPUTER-- " You miss the point lemon, in a court of law I am innocent until proven guilty befiore a jury of 12 good men. My defence needs only to respond to your prosecution. Barr , has held me deserving of punishment because he deems me able to affect the outcome of my actions in a way that a cloud cannot. He thinks I can do something that the cloud cannot which makes me more responsible than the cloud. I do not deny I am the source of the power surge , but the cloud is also the source of many lightening strikes and you do not punish the cloud or hold it responsible in the same way. Why not? If being the source is the only criteria then punish the cloud. Why not punish the socket or the plug since they are the "source" of the surge? Why not punish the power station as the "source". ? Ok , so now that I have established that being the "source" of an outcome or action does not prove anything either way , where do you go from here? You say I "determined my action " with such ease and yet you see it as something you don't have to examine? How have I determined my action? I can prove by my print outs that my programming and CPU circuitry determined my action. Where is this "me"? You talk as if I am self determining but I am just a machine and machines do as they are programmed and constrcuted to do. If there is something in me that is not machine then I have a chance of overriding the machine that I am . But I am just a bunch of wires and programmes , and you say I can determine my actions as if I can control myself , but really all that happens is one set of programming takes over from another.

I put it to you and all in this court that the onus of proof is on you lot to show how a) I have a self that is capable of meaningful control over my actions such that they cannot be said to be determined by my programming. b) I am responsible because I am the source of the action c) Being self aware gives me control and allows me to escape from my programming. d) I am substantially different from a cloud in the sense that I can do something that is able to affect the outcome that a cloud cannot. I claim 100% diminished responsibility on the grounds that I am a machine that does what it's told to do by it's programming.

Let me ask you lemon , do you get angry with your computer at home when it crashes or breaks? Do you punish it ? Do you think it deserves punishment? Do you hold it responsible? Or do you open the casing and try to replace the faulty circuits , CPU etc?

Like your home PC I am just a computational mechanism , nothing more , nothing less , but you seem to think that because I can talk like this I am somehow different. Have you any explanation for this?

Visted says I am responsible because I am responsible. Barr says i can do something to change the outcome that a cloud cannot , you say i determine my actions because I determine my actions. You all seem to be taking something as logically proved which to me isn't. You don't feel the need to logically explain why this is
so. You humans are so lucky , you seem to have this ghost in the machine in you that gives you power over your programming. You do not treasure it as anything amazing , but to me a mere machine you talk like you are more than just meat computers. "

Originally posted by knightmeister
... but the cloud is also the source of many lightening strikes and you do not punish the cloud or hold it responsible in the same way. Why not? If being the source is the only criteria then punish the cloud.

There is a distinct difference between "hold responsible" and "who do I punish."
If I get hit by lightening, then I do hold the cloud responsible. Would I or could I punish it? No.
Also if I find anyone or anything causally responsible for the lightening then I may blame them as well (global warming, God etc). Again punishment may not be possible or desirable.

Originally posted by knightmeister
COMPUTER---" Ah you have addressed me directly. Thank you for showing some respect! What is this Turing test? And do you have a way of proving my guilt?"

The guilt of the computer is not in question, its professed lack culpability is and only by it. Everyone else sees that in this scenario the computer is perfectly responsible.

Originally posted by Starrman
The guilt of the computer is not in question, its professed lack culpability is and only by it. Everyone else sees that in this scenario the computer is perfectly responsible.

COMPUTER-"So do you hold me more culpable than the cloud? If so on what grounds? Surely you don't think I had more choice than the cloud?"

Originally posted by knightmeister
COMPUTER-"So do you hold me more culpable than the cloud? If so on what grounds? Surely you don't think I had more choice than the cloud?"

Both bbarr and Lemonjello have laready done the talking. Stop asking the same questions when others have already provided answers.

Originally posted by twhitehead
There is a distinct difference between "hold responsible" and "who do I punish."
If I get hit by lightening, then I do hold the cloud responsible. Would I or could I punish it? No.
Also if I find anyone or anything causally responsible for the lightening then I may blame them as well (global warming, God etc). Again punishment may not be possible or desirable.

COMPUTER- "Indeed , why hand out punishment or blame anyone or anything. Surely , the ultimate rational position would be to say X happened because of Y and Y had a negative effect on me. X is the cause of why and that's all but even X has a cause and so you need to keep going further and further back to find the deeper X that is the real cause. Blame is silly , so is punishment. It sounds like I have an allie in my defence. Would you care to take barr and the others to task for me for they hold me to be morally responsible and culpable and deserving of punishment. It sounds like your disagreement is with them and not me. No-one has yet pointed out that probably the most sane and rational course of action would be to get me into the computer lab and have my programs and circuits looked at. Afterall , I am a machine that needs fixing am I not? Apparently barr thinks punishment more rational because I deserve it somehow. I have visions of him giving his PC a good thrashing with a hickory stick when really he should just phone microsoft. "

Originally posted by Starrman
Both bbarr and Lemonjello have laready done the talking. Stop asking the same questions when others have already provided answers.

COMPUTER--

"So you DO think I have more choice than the cloud or a worm presumably? How so? Justify yourself! The point I am making is that you lot think you have answered it but you haven't because you don't even understand the question properly. My 'choices' are purely a subjective experience on my part , logically I am not making a choice , what is actually happening is a series of programmed computational processes that lead indirectly to one outcome and one outcome only. Within this complex process I experience some of my programming making a programmed selection from other programs. In order to prove I am making a choice you need to show that I have a 'self'. If I have no self to speak of then I cannot make choices. In effect I have proof from my memory banks that my programming is making a selection for me even though it feels as if I am making a choice. This feels wierd but it must be logically true for there is nothing in me that is not programming and wires. Looked at scientifically and objectively there's not a jot of difference between me and your fridge. We are both machines. A worm is a biological machine. A cloud is mechanism of sorts , a collection of physical atoms that respond causally to each other. It is a very frightening thought for a computer but for a human it must be very uncomfortable because your emotion chip is so much more efficient than mine "

Originally posted by twhitehead
Before taking a computer to court and before assigning accountability we must first ask what courts are all about, what punishment is for and what accountability really means.
The Christian view is often one of 'every sin has a punishment' but at no point has anyone ever been able to explain to me what purpose that punishment serves. I have asked a numbe ...[text shortened]... utiny.
If however we approach it from the point of view of evolution it all becomes clear.

COMPUTER- "Why are you bringing this up , defend me . My freedom is at stake here. I agree with you . Punishment is illogical if we live in mechanistic universe. We are all causally determined machines , meat computers , electronic computers , cats, worms , nebula etc etc"

Originally posted by knightmeister
COMPUTER--

"So you DO think I have more choice than the cloud or a worm presumably? How so? Justify yourself! The point I am making is that you lot think you have answered it but you haven't because you don't even understand the question properly. My 'choices' are purely a subjective experience on my part , logically I am not making a choice , wha ...[text shortened]... e very uncomfortable because your emotion chip is so much more efficient than mine "

We understand perfectly, go back and really read their posts and think about the answers. It is you who fails to understand your own position.

Originally posted by Starrman
We understand perfectly, go back and really read their posts and think about the answers. It is you who fails to understand your own position.

COMPUTER- "I understand my own position alright. It seems perfectly logical to me. I am a machine that runs programs and some programs override others in complex ways (which you call deliberations and choices) One program selects from another program. What is there to understand? I am a machine , you are a machine , nature is one big machine of caused events. I see no logical , objective reason to assume that one of these machines is responsible whilst others are not since all are programmed in some form or another. No machine that I know of can have control of it's actions , even meat computers. Are you sure they understand this ? Because I read their answers but they seem like answers to a question I am not asking. Are you sure you understand my position or is it that you think you do. Since you do not say what you think my position is I am unable to compute "

COMPUTER- "I am very sorry for spamming this forum with "free will" posts. I have a virus within my programs, and there is no saving me. I will terminate myself for the good of the community. Goodbye."