Quake3World

From what I heard he DID commit the crimes, and even boasted about them. Granted I dont know the specifics, but if that's the case then he's one sick fuck.

i'm really interested to learn more about the case details...

if u listen to his interview, it seems like he's become a deeply spiritual person (not in the "jesus saved me" sense, but in the very reflective and introspective way) who is genuinely at peace with himself.

He's obviously educated himself a great deal while in prison - he's a very deep thinker.

What confuses me is that deep thinkers tend to be honest people, since in order to think deeply, you have to be honest with your own mind.

So I see three possibilities:

1) he's innocent of the accused crimes
2) he's a phenomenal liar
3) he's somehow convinced himself he didn't commit the crimes

3) is hard to imagine given the fact that he seems to have so much integrity

http://www.tookie.com/tookie_fact_sheet_10.18.05.pdf

gonna try and find evidence against him now

Prison will turn anyone into a deep thinker.

true that.

here's a short interview hours before his execution:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl? ... 13/1525206

right now i tend to think he's guilty only because I find it hard to imagine that the state would still find him guilty after all these years, but who knows...

watch the latter segment of the link posted in this thread - they talk about a previous case of Ruben Cantu, executed based on circumstantial evidence and eye witness testimony (cept after he was executed, it appears he was innocent)

[xeno]Julios wrote:i'm really interested to learn more about the case details...

if u listen to his interview, it seems like he's become a deeply spiritual person (not in the "jesus saved me" sense, but in the very reflective and introspective way) who is genuinely at peace with himself.

He's obviously educated himself a great deal while in prison - he's a very deep thinker.

What confuses me is that deep thinkers tend to be honest people, since in order to think deeply, you have to be honest with your own mind.

So I see three possibilities:

1) he's innocent of the accused crimes
2) he's a phenomenal liar
3) he's somehow convinced himself he didn't commit the crimes

3) is hard to imagine given the fact that he seems to have so much integrity

Sincerety and is a very touchy thing. George Bush is sincere in what he says. In both cases, I can see honesty being warped by their sincerity to justify their positions. As for those three possibilities you mention, I think its most likely a blend of the last two, where even though he may be aware of his crimes, he sees them as miniscule compared to his recent strides for enlightenment and positiveness.

if he's shrewd enough to convincingly lie about his innocence, surely he's shrewd enough to realize that confessing would be the best thing for him.

That was, afterall, arnie's major gripe - from what i understand, arnie woulda proly spared his life had tookie confessed.

maybe it's a pride issue - maybe he'd devoted so much effort to proving his innocence, it would destroy any credibility he has to confess.

did anyone listen to the first interview i posted?

[xeno]Julios wrote:true that.

here's a short interview hours before his execution:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl? ... 13/1525206

right now i tend to think he's guilty only because I find it hard to imagine that the state would still find him guilty after all these years, but who knows...

watch the latter segment of the link posted in this thread - they talk about a previous case of Ruben Cantu, executed based on circumstantial evidence and eye witness testimony (cept after he was executed, it appears he was innocent)

That is the only reason why I wasnt for this execution, is that I heard there was a significant amount of circumstantial evidence, similar to how Scott Peterson was sentenced based on such evidence. It's a horrible misuse of "without a reasonable doubt" when circumstantial evidence alone puts a reasonable doubt on the table. They should be barred from convicting someone based on a sum of "well we're not sure, but indirectly we can see its possible that he did X, Y, or Z" statements.

[xeno]Julios wrote:if he's shrewd enough to convincingly lie about his innocence, surely he's shrewd enough to realize that confessing would be the best thing for him.

That was, afterall, arnie's major gripe - from what i understand, arnie woulda proly spared his life had tookie confessed.

isn't it a bit like a catch-22? if tookie admitted guilt, then arnie would say the punishment fit the crime and would do his best to avoid mentioning confession as a valid reason for clemency at all. Arnie already split his republican base recently by appointing a democrat to a high ranking position, so there was no way in hell he would have have let tookie live and isolate himself from his republican base further.

my gander is that tookie is both guilty and shrewd. the idea that there will always be doubt as to whether he was ultimately guilty puts him in the position of semi-martyr. i don't think there would be as much support for him if he outright confessed. the the image of innocence is a nice card to lay on the table.

I just finished listening to the democracynow interview that was recorded a few weeks before his death. I realized something in this interview, and that is despite his crimes, and regardless of his innocence, there is a lot that could be learned from this man. I dont know if his efforts are a cover-up of sorts, but his demeanor and the messages he put out show he's very wise to both the justice system as well as street life and the street social system. I think in this case his death took away potential progress from all his efforts. If he were to be behind bars for the rest of his life writing his books and communicating the messages he's been communicating then that's almost a valuable thing, regardless of the extent of its impact on the world. I think such contributive benefits should also be taken into account with respect to the death penalty. Killing him took away a potentially valuable perspective on criminal life. Many other criminals, however, do not show such change. Still, I think a psychology panel should be employed to help assess these behaviors and see if they're truly sincere. I cannot be certain, as for me there's still the possibility that he's hiding his true guilt behind all these progresses and bolstering them in order to hopefully overshadow his crimes.

mjrpes wrote:

[xeno]Julios wrote:if he's shrewd enough to convincingly lie about his innocence, surely he's shrewd enough to realize that confessing would be the best thing for him.

That was, afterall, arnie's major gripe - from what i understand, arnie woulda proly spared his life had tookie confessed.

isn't it a bit like a catch-22? if tookie admitted guilt, then arnie would say the punishment fit the crime and would do his best to avoid mentioning confession as a valid reason for clemency at all. Arnie already split his republican base recently by appointing a democrat to a high ranking position, so there was no way in hell he would have have let tookie live and isolate himself from his republican base further.

my gander is that tookie is both guilty and shrewd. the idea that there will always be doubt as to whether he was ultimately guilty puts him in the position of semi-martyr. i don't think there would be as much support for him if he outright confessed. the the image of innocence is a nice card to lay on the table.

Well, if he admitted it early on, and then spent the time in reform as he did, then that's ok. However, much of what he says is on par with what would be expected from someone who's defending himself and hiding his involvement in the crimes. He claims the system is racist, and claims his disposition was what got him there, etc. While these may be true, they're also so cliche that people overlook any validity in them and see them as yet another strive to prove inequality rather than address the crime at hand.

Canis wrote:

mjrpes wrote:

[xeno]Julios wrote:if he's shrewd enough to convincingly lie about his innocence, surely he's shrewd enough to realize that confessing would be the best thing for him.

That was, afterall, arnie's major gripe - from what i understand, arnie woulda proly spared his life had tookie confessed.

isn't it a bit like a catch-22? if tookie admitted guilt, then arnie would say the punishment fit the crime and would do his best to avoid mentioning confession as a valid reason for clemency at all. Arnie already split his republican base recently by appointing a democrat to a high ranking position, so there was no way in hell he would have have let tookie live and isolate himself from his republican base further.

my gander is that tookie is both guilty and shrewd. the idea that there will always be doubt as to whether he was ultimately guilty puts him in the position of semi-martyr. i don't think there would be as much support for him if he outright confessed. the the image of innocence is a nice card to lay on the table.

Well, if he admitted it early on, and then spent the time in reform as he did, then that's ok. However, much of what he says is on par with what would be expected from someone who's defending himself and hiding his involvement in the crimes. He claims the system is racist, and claims his disposition was what got him there, etc. While these may be true, they're also so cliche that people overlook any validity in them and see them as yet another strive to prove inequality rather than address the crime at hand.

It's your opinion that you believe the situation is cliche, but there is a vocal community of the opinion that he is innocent, no matter how fishy the situation is. And if you think people can be persuaded by cold reason and argument when the situation is fishy, you have yet to argue with a Christian fundamentalist.

I never meant to say I think he's cliche, but rather intended to communicate the things he's advocating are seen as cliche by those who had the power to change his fate.

I was thinking more along the lines of what people will think of tookie in the long term, well after his death. that's where tookie's decision to play the innocence card comes in as a shrewd decision, me thinks. the man knew he'd be in jail for the rest of his life anyway, no? why not do the best he can to get people to be on his side by playing the part of the martyr.

Canis wrote:I am. I study parts of the cellular signal interpretation in neurons.

Does your interest in neuroscience lead you to explore philosophy of the mind?

Massive Quasars wrote:

Canis wrote:I am. I study parts of the cellular signal interpretation in neurons.

Does your interest in neuroscience lead you to explore philosophy of the mind?

No. What I study is purely biochemical. I dont study psychology and such. There are philosophical questions I think are inherent to science in general that are applicable to what I do, but in my work I try to be as objective and straightforward as possible, by reporting my data and basing conclusions on as the most simple, and logical explanation of the data.

Canis wrote:

Massive Quasars wrote:

Canis wrote:I am. I study parts of the cellular signal interpretation in neurons.

Does your interest in neuroscience lead you to explore philosophy of the mind?

No. What I study is purely biochemical. I dont study psychology and such. There are philosophical questions I think are inherent to science in general that are applicable to what I do, but in my work I try to be as objective and straightforward as possible, by reporting my data and basing conclusions on as the most simple, and logical explanation of the data.

I speak strictly of exploration outside of your profession, realizing you aren't required to be both a neuroscientist and neurophilosopher.

Ah. I've wondered about it to an extent, and have dwelled on reasons for certain psychological events and such. Its cool to think about, but I always am skeptical for fear of inadvertently developing a false conclusion.

I think there's the potential for a convergence of what some might call "philosophical" approaches to mind, together with empirical neuroscience.

As far as i'm concerned, much introspection can be viewed as a form of empirical data.

You'll also see philosophers like Paul Churchland who ground their philosophy of mind within an empirical framework. This is where cognitive science or philosophy of AI seems to come in.

There is a very interesting transdiciplinary field that seems to be emerging, with regards to the study of mind and intelligence.

[xeno]Julios wrote:I think there's the potential for a convergence of what some might call "philosophical" approaches to mind, together with empirical neuroscience.

As far as i'm concerned, much introspection can be viewed as a form of empirical data.

You'll also see philosophers like Paul Churchland who ground their philosophy of mind within an empirical framework. This is where cognitive science or philosophy of AI seems to come in.

There is a very interesting transdiciplinary field that seems to be emerging, with regards to the study of mind and intelligence.

oh yes indeed

Empirical evidence may help tremendously in advancing various unsettled philosophical debates regarding the mind. Just as important will be what empirical evidence doesn't tell us about the mind and/or brain (if anything).

I dont see how introspection can be empirical. I generally see empirical data as a collection of unchangable events (data points). They happened and wont ever change, and as such they can be compiled to show something. Introspection is quite dynamic and isnt recordable to show trends or changes over time. Still, I dont doubt its possible to study philosophy with an empirical emphasis. Even in cognitive science, there's a limit to the interpretation based on what they can derive from what was recorded (brain waves, MRI scans, behaviors, etc.).

I do think it would be interesting to see a study done on comparing findings in neuroscience (cellular, systems, and cognitive) with philosophical discoveries. However, folks have been philosophizing since humans could think abstractly, and neuroscience has only developed in the past 50 years or so. There's much catching up to do in this arena before the understanding of it enables links to be made to philosophical abstractness.

Here's an essay i wrote for my psych of human memory course called: "A Case for Introspection"

http://individual.utoronto.ca/mdaar/Introspection.doc

Basically, I argue that there is no fundamental difference between introspective data, and other forms of behavioural data, (or even neuroimaging data, which i ultimately consider behavioural).

When this behavioural data is used to infer or test cognitive models, this means that introspection in principle can be used as a valid source of data for developing models of cognition.

[xeno]Julios wrote:Here's an essay i wrote for my psych of human memory course called: "A Case for Introspection"

http://individual.utoronto.ca/mdaar/Introspection.doc

Basically, I argue that there is no fundamental difference between introspective data, and other forms of behavioural data, (or even neuroimaging data, which i ultimately consider behavioural).

When this behavioural data is used to infer or test cognitive models, this means that introspection in principle can be used as a valid source of data for developing models of cognition.

Muahaha now I have your student ID number. The final piece of the puzzle falls into place!

**Cackles and runs off**

Srsly tho thanks for upping that, I'll give it a readsie later. Can't now, must Internet.

[xeno]Julios wrote:Here's an essay i wrote for my psych of human memory course called: "A Case for Introspection"

http://individual.utoronto.ca/mdaar/Introspection.doc

Basically, I argue that there is no fundamental difference between introspective data, and other forms of behavioural data, (or even neuroimaging data, which i ultimately consider behavioural).

When this behavioural data is used to infer or test cognitive models, this means that introspection in principle can be used as a valid source of data for developing models of cognition.

Neuroimaging data is not behavioral in the same sense that cognition is behavioral. Its like saying the data in one pixel of a digital photo is enough to show the scene of the whole photo. Its fairly well shown that neurons working in conjunction with each other are the basis for cognition, but thats where much of it ends. For the work I do, we get images of little cells grown on petri dishes or in brain slices. Here's one of them:

[lvlshot]http://homepage.mac.com/tkessler/.Pictures/54.jpg[/lvlshot]

This is a picture of the location of specific proteins in the cells using antibodies and such to target them, green being one protein, and red being another (overlap is yellow).

I dont see beyond these cells being the building blocks for the constructs that form our thoughts, how such images constitute behavior. If you're referring to MRI scans and such of the intact brain, then there is a deal of behavior influencing what is seen (or vice versa). However, I'd argue that the empirical nature of the MRI scans is upheld over introspection because of how quantifiable it is. Each image is a hard-set data point with values that can be measured and compared against each other without bias, regardless of when the analysis is performed. I believe with introspection comes a great deal of bias (or rather I cannot fully separate the two). Reflection, even on a written introspective thought, brings about interpretation from one's current mindset and biases the previous thoughts.

I'll read your essay when I get the chance. I'm at work now and have to crack down on a few more cells...microelectrodes this time.

Canis wrote:Neuroimaging data is not behavioral in the same sense that cognition is behavioral.

never said that cognition is behavioural (although I do try to argue in another paper that defining cognition suffers somewhat similar problems to defining behaviour).

What i said was that introspective data should be considered behavioural data (this is one of the points i argue for in the essay). Another upshot of this argument is that neuroimaging data can be considered behavioural data.

Canis wrote: However, I'd argue that the empirical nature of the MRI scans is upheld over introspection because of how quantifiable it is. Each image is a hard-set data point with values that can be measured and compared against each other without bias, regardless of when the analysis is performed. I believe with introspection comes a great deal of bias (or rather I cannot fully separate the two). Reflection, even on a written introspective thought, brings about interpretation from one's current mindset and biases the previous thoughts.

These are good points, and are addressed in the paper