[FRIAM] Shorthands for Brain-stuff

Sun Oct 4 15:46:25 EDT 2020

So, here is the logic of my argument, S.A.I.I.

PREMISE:  It must in principle be true that ever thought, deed, feeling, etc that we experience—no matter how bestial or high-minded, no matter how voluntary or inadvertent-- is accompanied by some relation between an organic event and an environmental event, or some organic event that occurs spontaneously.  I don’t know quite know what “spontaneously” means but I am slipping it in there to keep Glen off my back. 

THEREFORE: That an act has some organismic concomitant cannot provide a means for discriminating between a guilty act and a non-guilty act. 

Let us say that I go to pick up my anti-depressant pill and instead the pharmacist issues me a Murderous Rage Pill, whose trade name is Marsipan.  I climb to the top of the cathedral bell tower and mow down Bleeding Heart Liberals by the dozens.   At a bench trial, my attorney pleads that because I had taken the Marsipan, and Marsipan clearly causes an organic change in my brain, I am therefore not guilty of my actions.  The district attorney objects to the defense, claiming that the crucial dimension here is the relation between my taking the pill and my intent.  He provides evidence that the pharmacist and I are both members of a secret anti-BHL group and that I had full awareness of the consequences of taking Marsipan when I took it.  The judge rules that  I am indeed guilty of the act, but that he will entertain a defense of justifiable homicide.  He says, “Somebody had to do it.”  I am released.  

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Sunday, October 4, 2020 11:07 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Shorthands for Brain-stuff

Perhaps there is brain chemistry and pathological brain chemistry and the latter is associated with pathological, criminal behavior, it would be useful to the courts, I assume, to know about the defendant's brain.  This is probably not possible at present and might not be admissible.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, N

On Sun, Oct 4, 2020, 10:13 AM Eric Charles <eric.phillip.charles at gmail.com <mailto:eric.phillip.charles at gmail.com> > wrote:

During last Friday's meeting, there was a discussion about brains and behavior. We were somehow discussing murders and Bruce brought up an example of a friend who helps determine (using EEG and MRI) whether the behavior of the murder had an "organic" cause. People with an organic cause go to mental-health facilities, those would get the death penalty (roughly speaking, obviously there in-between scenarios). Nick quickly pointed out that was some variety of crazy dualism, because all behavior has an organic cause. A few back and forths revealed a two things that seemed worth capturing:

1) IF we are really talking about "does the behavior have an organic cause", THEN Nick is surely correct, and all the EEGs and MRIs are doing is telling us how obvious/easily-detectable-by-current-means the organic cause is. In some future world, where our instruments have much, much finer resolution, we will be able to find an "organic cause" for every behavior, which means the whole process as currently performed is just silly. 

2) However, if that talk of organic causes is just a useful shorthand of some sort, the process might be perfectly reasonable, just poorly specified. 

3) At some point Bruce said that we were trying to determine whether the person was capable of premeditation, and that seemed (to me) to create a window for a perfectly reasonable process, while still acknowledging Nick's point.

4)  IF we were interested in "can the person premeditate" and we had separate research showing that certain types of obvious (with current technology) EEG and MRI results were highly correlated with an inability to sustain behavior-directed-towards-a-goal, then we could reasonable use EEG and MRI results to abduct whether or not the person in question was capable of premeditation. 

5)  Of course, if we had a video of the person premeditating, none of the brain scans would be necessary or relevant --- this would be an example of the broader principle that, when asking questions about psychology, behavioral evidence beats anatomical evidence. However, absent such direct evidence, it is perfectly reasonable to look for known correlates of behavioral patterns, including neuo-anatomical correlates. 

6) Some weird things happen to our thinking if we forget that we are using the anatomy to make inferences about behavior-patterns. The whole process makes sense if the thing we are interested in is ability-to-premeditate, and we are using the neuro-anatomy to guess at that, because that keeps us clear that the neuro-anatomy is not itself premeditation or the lack thereof. The whole process is incoherent if we think some mass killers kill because of the way their brains are, but others mass killers kill and their brains have nothing to do with it. THAT SAID, it can be a useful shorthand to talk as if we are interested in the neuro-anatomy itself. The useful shorthand is not only much quicker in a conversation or in writing, it also adds a false sense of definitiveness to the scientific findings (which is useful to the scientist), which in turn adds a false sense of definitiveness to the legal proceedings (which is useful to the legal system). Challenging the shorthand therefore feels like a challenge to the basic functioning of science and the legal system that accepts such science. 

- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam <http://bit.ly/virtualfriam> 
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20201004/67096813/attachment.html>