Timeline for How to Kill the Thought-Crime Killer
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
9 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Sep 23, 2016 at 14:12 | comment | added | Justin Time - Reinstate Monica | This does raise the question of what would happen if a telepath were to put thoughts of Joe killing himself in his own head, though. Since it's not "his" thought, but a transplant, would the ability kill him because it rejected the thought? [Assuming, for example, that the telepath was subconsciously broadcasting their every thought into Joe's head, so that they would be able to send it to him before they died.] | |
| Sep 23, 2016 at 14:11 | comment | added | Justin Time - Reinstate Monica | @danl Good point. But even if it doesn't have the intelligence to specifically ignore Joe's thoughts, it likely wouldn't even be able to notice them in the first place. After all, our immune system doesn't attack every cell in our body because it basically filters our own cells out, so logically, a psychic immune system would filter our own thoughts out. | |
| Sep 23, 2016 at 12:08 | comment | added | danl | @JustinTime - logically this makes sense but I think there are real-world example which show that this doesn't necessarily follow. The body's immune system exists for the the body's benefit as a self-preservation mechanism, but it can reject an organ transplant despite the fact that it is meant to benefit the recipient. The fact that an ability exists for the purpose of self-preservation does not necessarily mean that it is intelligent enough to achieve that aim in all logical cases. | |
| Sep 23, 2016 at 1:42 | comment | added | Justin Time - Reinstate Monica | If Joe's ability is some extreme form of self-preservation ability, then it would be logically unable to kill him. | |
| Sep 21, 2016 at 13:50 | comment | added | danl | that one has the added benefit of the fact that the driver's sudden wish to kill Joe, directly caused Joe to be killed, despite the fact that he didn't really act on this thought because he was already dead - so despite Joe's natural defence, the thought of killing him still killed him. It's a bit of a dark ending because all of his family are dead, but the situation of his death is a textbook philosophical problem that John Searle would love : p | |
| Sep 21, 2016 at 13:48 | comment | added | danl | It's not a very satisfying answer, but an interesting solution might be for him to die in transit between prisons - let's say everybody who ever cared about Joe is already dead, so the decision is made to move him to a more minimal security prison (not that the security of the prison makes any difference to his ability, this is just an excuse for moving him that sounds fairly plausible), and while in transit the driver learns about Joe's ability (let's say he has another guard with him who is looking at his file)- suddenly has "the thought", crashes the vehicle and all three of them die. | |
| Sep 21, 2016 at 13:38 | comment | added | user10945 | Thanks for your thoughtful post here and it does indeed raise a philosophical and ethical argument. To answer your first question - Joe knows what's going on. When people get mad at him, something bad happens. I have the image in my head that Joe isn't necessarily a bad person, he can't control what happens. He might be in prison because he was caught, or he might have walked in in an attempt to protect others. I'm open to answers in whatever vein though (as it's philosophical and all...) | |
| Sep 21, 2016 at 13:23 | history | edited | danl | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 380 characters in body
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| Sep 21, 2016 at 13:15 | history | answered | danl | CC BY-SA 3.0 |