Is reprogramming ethical?

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DevilBee
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Is reprogramming ethical?

Post by DevilBee »

This morning the idea of criminal reform was floating around in my head, and I had this thought on reprogramming and wanted to throw it out to others and see how the ethical response was, and thus I have found this board.

The premise of my thoughts is this: We continue to learn more and more about the human brain and how it works, and more of what we learn show that who we are is determined by physiology, such as the case of Phineas Gage. Given enough time, we may discover how to change that physiological makeup to change a person, much in the way you can change the code in software to change what it does. Change enough code, and the program can become completely different to the point of not having any commonality with the original program.

Under the surmise that the above becomes true, would it be ethical to change the physiological makeup of a criminal to keep them from committing crimes? Or, simply, reprogram Charles Manson to be Charlie Brown, or turn an Kim Jong-un into Ghandi? Further, would such a change give reason to no longer incarcerate said criminal, or must we exact our pound of flesh?
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Re: Is reprogramming ethical?

Post by Spectrum »

From a certain perspective, the human brain is like [not exactly] an organic computer.
There are interdependent modular programs [sub-routines] within the whole human system.

Since the emergence of humans, their brains 'programs' has been subjected to natural reprogamming continually in adapting to changes and the net result for the average human is for the better.

Parallel to the above humanity is making exponential jumps in a greater understanding of the human brain with the target to map and understand every connectivity of the 100 billions neurons and its consequential actions. Note the Connectome Project which has made a lot of headways.
http://www.humanconnectomeproject.org/

Because almost all the modular programs in the brain are interdependent with other programs and thus will have different results as a whole, humanity must also understand all its interdependent consequences to ensure there are no side effects.
Note the cases of lobotomy, Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), etc. that cause unintended and unforeseen negative results.

When at the point humanity have a thorough knowledge of the root causes of why a person is a criminal [minor or major] in terms of his/her brain connectivity together with the understanding of how to prevent any side effects, then humanity can consider reprogramming 'evil' people to be 'good' people.

But who is to decide what is evil and what is good?
This is where we need to establish an effective Moral & Ethical Framework and System to ensure that the actions in the reprogramming of criminals are ethical and fool proof.

How can we establish an effective Moral & Ethical Framework and System?
Note my discussion of an effective Moral and Moral & Ethical Framework and System in this thread;
http://onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums/ ... 8&start=15
Based on our learned knowledge of the details of the brain, humanity can expedite the moral quotient of the average humans, not by direct tweaking of the brain but via self-development programs [voluntary] that target the specific relevant parts of the brain for positive results.

So once humanity has reached the state and level of fully mapping the neurons in the brain together with high MQ [moral quotient] for the average humans, then it is ethical to reprogram [with fool proof methods] criminals [major and extreme] to be good citizens.
Point is by then, criminals [minor and major] would be very rare exceptions arising from accidental defective brain connectivity, etc.
Not-a-theist. Religion is a critical necessity for humanity now, but not the FUTURE.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Is reprogramming ethical?

Post by Sy Borg »

DevilBee wrote:Under the surmise that the above becomes true, would it be ethical to change the physiological makeup of a criminal to keep them from committing crimes? Or, simply, reprogram Charles Manson to be Charlie Brown, or turn an Kim Jong-un into Ghandi? Further, would such a change give reason to no longer incarcerate said criminal, or must we exact our pound of flesh?
I think it could be ethical. It would be doing crims a favour, gifting them with the capacity to lead less troublesome lives. The technique would need to be used selectively though, and ideally, voluntarily. You'd expect that it would work best on those who want to reform but can't control errant impulses.
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DevilBee
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Re: Is reprogramming ethical?

Post by DevilBee »

Greta wrote: I think it could be ethical. It would be doing crims a favour, gifting them with the capacity to lead less troublesome lives. The technique would need to be used selectively though, and ideally, voluntarily. You'd expect that it would work best on those who want to reform but can't control errant impulses.
And what of situations where we don't give them a choice, but use the reprogramming in place of the death sentence? Or life terms?
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username_ok
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Re: Is reprogramming ethical?

Post by username_ok »

Spectrum wrote: May 23rd, 2017, 11:06 pm Because almost all the modular programs in the brain are interdependent with other programs and thus will have different results as a whole, humanity must also understand all its interdependent consequences to ensure there are no side effects.
>>
I'm afraid the physiological makeup of man's personality comprises full combinatoric scheme of his brain neurons and so that any partial changing in it would be equivalent to sort of silent killing of that old individual matrix.

And we come up with a situation where the sentenced person living in his own phisical body is going to be swapped completely by other subjective individual.

Respectively, before running the execution of reprogramming and to prevent different collisions in the future there should be defended all the rights to the body in the global PROPERTY Law.

For example,

The reprogramming contract may include the clause of Backup procedure to Restore the previous man's brain MORAL configuration
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Sy Borg
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Re: Is reprogramming ethical?

Post by Sy Borg »

DevilBee wrote: May 24th, 2017, 10:30 pm
Greta wrote: I think it could be ethical. It would be doing crims a favour, gifting them with the capacity to lead less troublesome lives. The technique would need to be used selectively though, and ideally, voluntarily. You'd expect that it would work best on those who want to reform but can't control errant impulses.
And what of situations where we don't give them a choice, but use the reprogramming in place of the death sentence? Or life terms?
Two years late. Sorry.

I'm fine with what you say. The worst of us, those who terrorise inmates in prison for instance, are not capable of reasoning. They are broken and their functioning is outside of acceptable limits, a hazard to all they encounter, via violence or corruption. The ethics of it very much depends on what comes out the other side - a person who can now hear the better angels of their nature or an enfeebled vicious psychopath (the latter being the case with Alex in A Clock Orange).
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