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[Dethateer]

cruc1al wrote...

Dethateer wrote...

That goes for pretty much everything. What we know (and I'm aware I'm contradicting most statements I've made around the forum with this) is mostly made up of educated guesses. You can believe the theory of gravity, doesn't mean it's true and the quantum physics one about large bodies creating bubbles in the fabric of space in which smaller bodies get trapped is wrong.

There is substantial evidence for gravity, quantum physics etc. scientific. If you think that's an "educated guess", well, you don't know what "educated guess" means.

Either you missed the point or I wrote that wrong.

[cruc1al]

Dethateer wrote...

cruc1al wrote...

Dethateer wrote...

That goes for pretty much everything. What we know (and I'm aware I'm contradicting most statements I've made around the forum with this) is mostly made up of educated guesses. You can believe the theory of gravity, doesn't mean it's true and the quantum physics one about large bodies creating bubbles in the fabric of space in which smaller bodies get trapped is wrong.

There is substantial evidence for gravity, quantum physics etc. scientific. If you think that's an "educated guess", well, you don't know what "educated guess" means.

Either you missed the point or I wrote that wrong.

What exactly was your point then? I assume it is that things like theory of gravity are just something we believe in, just like the theory that everyone not in your religion is possessed by the devil. Well, it's not a matter of belief, it's an observed fact.

[Dethateer]

Erm, no. Never mind. My mind's too f**ked up to explain right now.

[Wildecker]

cruc1al wrote...

Dethateer wrote...

Ok, let's try this again: "you're him. Try to think like him. You have your book. It's the only thing you can trust. You *know* it's true. Everyone else is trying to convince you you're wrong. You're scared, all you know and have is your book, and it tells you that a god is watching over you, that the god will make sure things end well for everyone. You try to obey that god as best you can, casting all doubts from your mind, as to ensure you'll be safe in heaven."
Understand? It's true for him. It's as true as the existence of photons instead of magical beams from the sky for us. From his point of view, it's true. It's not true for you, but it is for him. The point of view is valid for him, just like yours is for you. That's why it's YOUR point of view: because it works for you. It's the way you see the world.

To the emphasized section.

There is no "true for him". HE'S WRONG. Period. There is no relative truth. There is only true, or not true. There is no evidence his point of view, out of all the possible millions of points of views that contradicts it, is true. Therefore it is practically certain his view is not true regardless of what he believes.

Photons instead of magical beams?! What? Photon is the name we give to the quantifiable unit of light for which there is evidence. Where is the evidence for magical beams from the sky? Nowhere, and just because person X might believe magical beams from the sky exist doesn't make his point of view valid.

If Faith needed proof, it wouldn't be Faith.
Do you have a soul? Prove it.
So you think you don't have a soul? Okay, but don't dare to tell me that I can't have one, either.
Because I believe in souls, and if you don't, that's your loss. Now go ahead and  tell me I'm a silly uneducated barbarian! I'll just laugh at you, poor little thing that is afraid to believe and clings to its scientific crutches ...

Modifié par Wildecker, 14 mai 2010 - 06:15 .

[Dethateer]

Ugh, this is just f**king great... Wild, it's not a loss. Depending on the way you define "soul", cruc1al could very well believe in one.

[Wildecker]

Dethateer wrote...

Ugh, this is just f**king great... Wild, it's not a loss. Depending on the way you define "soul", cruc1al could very well believe in one.

I've been a roleplayer for half my life. I can impersonate almost anything.
...
...
...
As long as it's just male. 

[Tirigon]

cruc1al wrote...

Tirigon wrote...

cruc1al wrote...

The question isn't whether value of flies relative to humans equates the value of humans to relative to reapers. The question is whether humans are just as valueless as flies in a non-relativistic sense. Human nervous systems are more complex, therefore it is safe to assume we can feel more, think more, achieve more, and that we have a greater degree of free will than flies do. Humans killing humans is just as questionable as reapers killing humans.

From our perspecitve that is so. But as Sovereign says in ME1: The reapers see organic life as a mistake that must be corrected. So from their perspective humans ARE indeed worthless.

Are they right?

I wouldn´t say so. They would. Ultimately, in cases like that the one with the better gun is right. That´ll be Shepard and his allies, btw.

[Dethateer]

Wildecker wrote...

Dethateer wrote...

Ugh, this is just f**king great... Wild, it's not a loss. Depending on the way you define "soul", cruc1al could very well believe in one.

I've been a roleplayer for half my life. I can impersonate almost anything.
...
...
...
As long as it's just male. 

Can you do Max? Don't know if it counts as male, though...

[Wildecker]

Dethateer wrote...

Can you do Max? Don't know if it counts as male, though...

There are so many Maxes ... please, be more specific. You probably don't refer to the manservant of Jonathan and Jennifer Hart?

Modifié par Wildecker, 14 mai 2010 - 08:10 .

[Dethateer]

No, the hyperkinetic rabbity-thingie from Sam and Max.

[SpectreSeven]

2pac Shakur wrote...

Pyromanen wrote...

Who says the reapers were not built and programmed to do this cycle of endless death and destruction by some truely twisted evil beings of über technology?

that is just retarded plot induced stupidity

Even EA isn't willing to go THAT far for money

But Activision is!

[William Adama]

Sadja wrote...

Out of curiousity here..
Do you truly believe that a higher level of intelligence does, in fact, beget a more reasonable and gentler beeing?

This one here is thinking that it's the other way around. While we do get a sense of right and wrong (which is something we're being taught by society), being smarter doesn't make us better. With the sort of intelligence you're pointing at comes self awareness, the I. The Me, or in the best case the We (the group, be that family or nation).

Without self awareness, we'd be like the other beings of creation. The lion, for example.
Noble as he is, he's not necessary the smartest out there. Not daft, but... not really there either. It's in his nature to kill, but you won't see him commit genocide on the nearest gazelle population. He will erradicate the young of his rival so the lionesse can have his cubs, but that is survival of the fittest. Which, at a sidenote, is something human nature hasn't discarded just because we are oh-so-smart.

And now let's go to the dolphins and the shinpanzee (or however you spell 'em, I aint native English). You, the OP, said that these creatures show signs of empathy. Now, that might be true, but did you also know that these creatures show signs of cruelty? Did you know that dolphins rape? Did you know that shimpanzees will murder?

I shudder to think what they would be capable of if they had humanities level of self awareness.

No.

With intelligence does not only come empathy. It brings the whole package.

Interesting, I thought that all animals other than humans engage in mating competitions to the degree of wounding a challenger NOT killing them. Humans are the only animals that murder their own species.

Yes, chimps form troops and slaughter neighbouring chimps in territorial clashes but they NEVER go so far as to exterminate the entire family. They kill 2-4 young males in the invading troop and that is IT. Same with alligators, sharks, dolphins, gazelle, bison, lions, hyenas ... Interspecies slaughter is a product of humanity, even the more savage animals do not conduct such behaviours.

I feel that the product of this "new" hman behaviour is due to clashing of ideas and moral perspectives. But as we as a species have become more educated and learned, our society is becoming more passive (I know it isn't perfect but then again not everyone is educated on the planet yet). The mark of true wisdom is the honoring of harmoneous behaviours that allow sentient beings to self determinate.

That is why WW2 was so important to western society, it was a war for freedoms. Hitler tried to impose his doctrine on the world and everyone fought him for their right to choose.

[William Adama]

Wildecker wrote...

William Adama wrote...
Reapers KNOW we are sentient, subjective, emotional entities; yet they feel nothing towards the murder of trillions of comparable entities... I cannot believe that.

So what? Organic life has no issues with killing itself, as has been demonstrated in the past, over and over. And organic life on an individual scale will end, anyway. What do a few years more or less mean compared with inevitable aeons of non-existence?
It's perfectly possible that the Reapers have turned the galaxy into a giant test lab. They set up the relays and the Citadel, wipe the slate clean and wait for a new species to evolve far enough to discover the network. They give them some more time to evolve, then shut down the laboratory, grab as many members of the most successful species of the cycle as they can lay their hands on and turn them into almost immortal constructs like they are, in an attempt to preserve their creativity. Then it's time to sterilize the lab and start the next cycle.
In all probability the current harvest was intended to start millennia ago with the Asari and the Salarians, and only the Prothean manipulation bought us two or three millennia more time.
In this scenario the Collector plague field-tested on Omega is meant to take care of all other species, while humans as the chosen species will be Reaperized (and made immortal, according to the Reaper view). Two thousand years ago it might have been a photo-finish race between Asari and Salarians.

William Adama wrote...
You should respect animals, because you are more intelligent then they are. You have no excuse to acting immoral towards them, you cannot say, "I didn't know any better." 

I'm pretty sure the crow is smarter than the young sparrow that just hatched from its egg. The crow devours the sparrow nonetheless and feels no need to apologize about it.
Savage hunter tribes offer apologies to the spirits of the animals they hunt and kill for a living. But they hunt and kill them. What's immoral about that? They hunt animals because they need their flesh, their furs and sometimes their bones, not for sport.

I thought I covered this moral issue in a earlier post... murder for the sake of eating is not immoral, it serves a purpose ESPECIALLY for animals who are unable to discover alternatives. A lion needs to eat protein, it cannot rationalize alternative foods because it cannot understand why it needs protein.

Therefore it acts on its instincts to hunt for flesh.

Modifié par William Adama, 14 mai 2010 - 09:40 .

[William Adama]

DC86 wrote...

Long story short: your morality comes from your set of beliefs, your surroundings.

I disagree. Morality is a rational product of intelligence, you cannot logically argue against the moral systems that we as a species have put forth especially with regards to deontological philosophies; they just make sense.

[William Adama]

Dethateer wrote...

Tirigon wrote...

Dethateer wrote...

Morality is purely subjective. Let's take you and Hitler for example: you both want what's best for the world, but you see everyone as equal human beings, he didn't, he tried to make the world better by killing those he deemed inferior so that mankind would end up made of stronger individuals. You might try to make the world better by convincing everyone to get along. Both are perfectly valid points of view, only yours is evil in his view, his is evil in yours.

To the bolded: NO!

Killing "inferior" people is not a "valid point of view", it´s stupid and cruel and people who want hat should be imprisoned in a N@zi death camp like Auschwitz themselves. Let´s see if they still think so afterwards.

A radical muslim kills innocent civilians because from his point of view the civilians worship the devil, and he brings the justice of god to them, plus he prevents them from infecting his own people with their godlessness. From his point of view, what he does is not evil, it's the epitome of good. And don't you f**king dare call me a n@zi.

Interesting that God tells them also not to murder or judge others... Jihad followers are not Muslims, they are fanatics that give religion a bad name. They do not follow the letter of the koran, they invent their own interpretations of it.

[William Adama]

Dethateer wrote...

cruc1al wrote...


The reason the radical muslim's point of view is wrong is because with almost absolute certainty his presumption that the civilians worship the devil is false. End of story.

Last I checked, radical theists of all religions consider people of all other religions (and in some cases atheists) to be devil-worshipers. It is false because you and I are atheists and according to us the devil doesn't exist, not to the radical muslim. To him it's as true as his god.

I do not know where you got your views as the 3 Great faiths do not believe that everyone not of their religion worships "the devil".

Judaism and Christianity are avid practicers of deontological philosophies.

[William Adama]

I have visited many sites over the course of my internet career and the majority of these morality debates get antagonized by secularists who cannot resist tempting others into a religious debate. I have actively attempted to avoid discussing religion in this thread yet it has spun out of control into a, " My beliefs are right, yours are wrong" argument that is self validated by a medium (human science) that, by most intelligent peoples admission, is FAR unqualified to prove or disprove.



Stop it right now.



The topic is with regards to morality of Reapers and their motives to commit galactic genocide. Does smarter mean more moral? I believe so.

[Jonathan Shepard]

William Adama wrote...

I never really understood the motive that went behind the mass genocides the Reapers periodically committed for the sole purpose of procreation... one would think that hyper advanced intelligences would be FAR more moral than those of smaller minds.

For example, human intelligence has allowed for empathy to be experienced which led to more pro social behaviours given to not only members of our own race but to members of other species as well.

Reapers SHOULD have not only empathy but possibly even greater senses of morality unthinkable or unpercievable to other organic life. Murder/violence for ANY reason should be abhorant for higher beings due to the fact that they understand suffering and death to a greater degree.

Legion/Geth came to this truth on its own and it's a machine... allowing things to self determinate absolves oneself from guilt of evils these beings visit upon themselves. Like if Legion were witnessing a quadruple homocide committed by 2 Vorcha on 4 other Vorcha and did nothing, he is not morally responsible for the actions of the Vorcha. But if her intervenes and kills the 2 Vorcha, he is guilty of murder. Evils done for a sake of good do not exist... if antyhing, higher intelligent peoples scoff at consequentialism and practice modes of deontological morality almost to absolution.

Why would Bioware even impose such a evil persona on beings that are obviously our intellectual superiors? I find it hard to believe that 100% of this race agrees with the destruction and mutilation of galactic civilizations solely for the sake of "building" more Reapers... if antyhing they should have found alternative paths to this problem due to the fact they are vastly more intelligent.

They just seem too... Terminator to me. And don't respond by saying that Reapers are machines, they are ORGANICS mixed with technology so they infact should experience organic sentience albeit on a higher level.

Discuss.

Learn how to spell and use proper grammar, please.

Either way: The Reapers are doing what they do for SOME reason. It hasn't been revealed. I'm hoping it's something I wouldn't have thought of. That's partially why I don't think about this one too hard. This is gonna be one of the huge ME3 points I bet.

Modifié par Jonathan Shepard, 14 mai 2010 - 10:08 .

[Dethateer]

William Adama wrote...

I do not know where you got your views as the 3 Great faiths do not believe that everyone not of their religion worships "the devil".

Judaism and Christianity are avid practicers of deontological philosophies.

Deliberately ignoring the word "radical" in each of those posts, are we?

[Icinix]

Your assumption is that more intelligence = more morals. Where this isn't always the case.

There are three different people who use high intelligence. Those that don't do anything with it, those that use it for the betterment of others and finally those that use it for their own gains. If the reapers had ever had any of the former two in their race, I imagine they would have been dominated and wiped out by the more aggressive reapers. The same way dictators get to power through fear or might. Over the course of hundred of thousands or millions of years only the aggressive, we are superior in every way, reapers would have remained.



Otherwise, this theory.





Although it isn't the best example, in Far Cry 2 they originally toyed with the idea of having Lions in the game. These lions hunted / ate the Zebra's in the game. What they found is in a very short time, all the lions had wiped out all the Zebra's, even though vastly outnumbered, and it gained them no benefit. The AI for the lions led to this outcome. Imagine if you will, it was left to grow over millions of years, every few thousand years a new type of zebra would arrive. The lions hunt again. Eventually over time, believing themselves to be superior and their right to hunt and kill the zebra's.



As it's an AI, I imagine the same result for Reapers. Aggressive and programmed to hunt, they'll do it until it isn't there to do anymore. It may have started small millions of years earlier (a war between races, it was an AI designed to track / destroy enemy life etc), but over time they actually begun to develop intelligence along the path line that they were superior and it was their right. In this case the type of intelligence coming about from behaviour, rather than humans behaviour coming about from intelligence.



I think I ranted and may have lost track a bit there. Think that made sense. I'll check it later.

[cruc1al]

Wildecker wrote...

cruc1al wrote...

Dethateer wrote...

Ok, let's try this again: "you're him. Try to think like him. You have your book. It's the only thing you can trust. You *know* it's true. Everyone else is trying to convince you you're wrong. You're scared, all you know and have is your book, and it tells you that a god is watching over you, that the god will make sure things end well for everyone. You try to obey that god as best you can, casting all doubts from your mind, as to ensure you'll be safe in heaven."
Understand? It's true for him. It's as true as the existence of photons instead of magical beams from the sky for us. From his point of view, it's true. It's not true for you, but it is for him. The point of view is valid for him, just like yours is for you. That's why it's YOUR point of view: because it works for you. It's the way you see the world.

To the emphasized section.

There is no "true for him". HE'S WRONG. Period. There is no relative truth. There is only true, or not true. There is no evidence his point of view, out of all the possible millions of points of views that contradicts it, is true. Therefore it is practically certain his view is not true regardless of what he believes.

Photons instead of magical beams?! What? Photon is the name we give to the quantifiable unit of light for which there is evidence. Where is the evidence for magical beams from the sky? Nowhere, and just because person X might believe magical beams from the sky exist doesn't make his point of view valid.

If Faith needed proof, it wouldn't be Faith.
Do you have a soul? Prove it.
So you think you don't have a soul? Okay, but don't dare to tell me that I can't have one, either.
Because I believe in souls, and if you don't, that's your loss. Now go ahead and  tell me I'm a silly uneducated barbarian! I'll just laugh at you, poor little thing that is afraid to believe and clings to its scientific crutches ...

What evidence do you have that you have a soul? If you have no evidence, I'd be right to tell you it's unlikely you have a soul, whether or not you believe it yourself. I wouldn't be right to tell you you're a silly uneducated barbarian; lots of educated, truly smart people believe in a soul, in God, in Jesus et cetera... How they manage it, I don't know, but they don't have any evidence for their beliefs and as such their beliefs are irrational.

I have no reason to believe in a soul. I'm not saying I don't have one, because I don't know. I just don't have any reason to take the positive stance "I have a soul". Unless evidence pointing otherwise turns up, I will take the default stance of considering the whole idea of a soul irrelevant.

No, I'm not a "poor little thing afraid to believe and clings to its scientific crutches", thank you very much. Why would I be afraid? Belief without evidence is irrational, so I don't do it. Simple as that.

[William Adama]

Jonathan Shepard wrote...

William Adama wrote...

I never really understood the motive that went behind the mass genocides the Reapers periodically committed for the sole purpose of procreation... one would think that hyper advanced intelligences would be FAR more moral than those of smaller minds.

For example, human intelligence has allowed for empathy to be experienced which led to more pro social behaviours given to not only members of our own race but to members of other species as well.

Reapers SHOULD have not only empathy but possibly even greater senses of morality unthinkable or unpercievable to other organic life. Murder/violence for ANY reason should be abhorant for higher beings due to the fact that they understand suffering and death to a greater degree.

Legion/Geth came to this truth on its own and it's a machine... allowing things to self determinate absolves oneself from guilt of evils these beings visit upon themselves. Like if Legion were witnessing a quadruple homocide committed by 2 Vorcha on 4 other Vorcha and did nothing, he is not morally responsible for the actions of the Vorcha. But if her intervenes and kills the 2 Vorcha, he is guilty of murder. Evils done for a sake of good do not exist... if antyhing, higher intelligent peoples scoff at consequentialism and practice modes of deontological morality almost to absolution.

Why would Bioware even impose such a evil persona on beings that are obviously our intellectual superiors? I find it hard to believe that 100% of this race agrees with the destruction and mutilation of galactic civilizations solely for the sake of "building" more Reapers... if antyhing they should have found alternative paths to this problem due to the fact they are vastly more intelligent.

They just seem too... Terminator to me. And don't respond by saying that Reapers are machines, they are ORGANICS mixed with technology so they infact should experience organic sentience albeit on a higher level.

Discuss.

Learn how to spell and use proper grammar, please.

... please point out my mistakes as I am unable to find any spelling/ gramatical errors worthy of public scrutiny.

[cruc1al]

William Adama wrote...

I have visited many sites over the course of my internet career and the majority of these morality debates get antagonized by secularists who cannot resist tempting others into a religious debate. I have actively attempted to avoid discussing religion in this thread yet it has spun out of control into a, " My beliefs are right, yours are wrong" argument that is self validated by a medium (human science) that, by most intelligent peoples admission, is FAR unqualified to prove or disprove.

Stop it right now.

The topic is with regards to morality of Reapers and their motives to commit galactic genocide. Does smarter mean more moral? I believe so.

Sorry for unintentionally hijacking your thread for a morality debate; I thought our morality discussion was relevant to the topic.

On the last page I made the argument that reaper intelligence can only influence reapers' ability to grasp objective reality, and that the degree to which one can grasp objective reality influences the degree to which one can make informed moral decisions; in other words, intelligence doesn't make reapers more moral, simply more capable or grasping right and wrong. Their actions are still subject to their free will; they can be both intelligent and do morally questionable things. What do you make of that?

[William Adama]

Icinix wrote...

Your assumption is that more intelligence = more morals. Where this isn't always the case.
There are three different people who use high intelligence. Those that don't do anything with it, those that use it for the betterment of others and finally those that use it for their own gains. If the reapers had ever had any of the former two in their race, I imagine they would have been dominated and wiped out by the more aggressive reapers. The same way dictators get to power through fear or might. Over the course of hundred of thousands or millions of years only the aggressive, we are superior in every way, reapers would have remained.

Otherwise, this theory.


Although it isn't the best example, in Far Cry 2 they originally toyed with the idea of having Lions in the game. These lions hunted / ate the Zebra's in the game. What they found is in a very short time, all the lions had wiped out all the Zebra's, even though vastly outnumbered, and it gained them no benefit. The AI for the lions led to this outcome. Imagine if you will, it was left to grow over millions of years, every few thousand years a new type of zebra would arrive. The lions hunt again. Eventually over time, believing themselves to be superior and their right to hunt and kill the zebra's.

As it's an AI, I imagine the same result for Reapers. Aggressive and programmed to hunt, they'll do it until it isn't there to do anymore. It may have started small millions of years earlier (a war between races, it was an AI designed to track / destroy enemy life etc), but over time they actually begun to develop intelligence along the path line that they were superior and it was their right. In this case the type of intelligence coming about from behaviour, rather than humans behaviour coming about from intelligence.

I think I ranted and may have lost track a bit there. Think that made sense. I'll check it later.

Hey, go ahead and rant away! Discussion admits different viewpoints and even alters perceptions of individuals to particular issues in the world!

Nobody is right or wrong, they just have different viewpoints.

[William Adama]

cruc1al wrote...

William Adama wrote...

I have visited many sites over the course of my internet career and the majority of these morality debates get antagonized by secularists who cannot resist tempting others into a religious debate. I have actively attempted to avoid discussing religion in this thread yet it has spun out of control into a, " My beliefs are right, yours are wrong" argument that is self validated by a medium (human science) that, by most intelligent peoples admission, is FAR unqualified to prove or disprove.

Stop it right now.

The topic is with regards to morality of Reapers and their motives to commit galactic genocide. Does smarter mean more moral? I believe so.

Sorry for unintentionally hijacking your thread for a morality debate; I thought our morality discussion was relevant to the topic.

On the last page I made the argument that reaper intelligence can only influence reapers' ability to grasp objective reality, and that the degree to which one can grasp objective reality influences the degree to which one can make informed moral decisions; in other words, intelligence doesn't make reapers more moral, simply more capable or grasping right and wrong. Their actions are still subject to their free will; they can be both intelligent and do morally questionable things. What do you make of that?

Hey no prob!

With regards to your latter comment, what you are describing is rationalizations committeed by intelligent beings towards acts of immorality. Humans do this all the time, like when someone committs an act of murder towards a criminal (capital punishment) they rationalize the act as for the "greater good".

That still doesn't account for the act of murder which is by definition an immoral act regardless of who it is done against. Intelligent beings should be able to distinguish the two, because humans can.

If Reapers are sentient, and rational entities they should be able to come to the same conclusion and behave in ways that allow other life forms to decide their own destinies.

Consider what alternatives are available to the Reapers; they could bioengineer pre-sentient organisms that are an amalgam of all life they have seen at a genetic level and introduce that into their population. In essence, create a DNA strand that combines ALL life they have seen thus far and bioengineer these materials in ways that allows them to build new Reapers without ever having to melt every galactic civilization down just to build babies.

My point is, why do they bother sentient beings if all they want is their genetic material? Humans can bioengineer DNA, why can't Reapers? Oh wait... they can (cough* Collectors cough*)

Bioware doesn't even consider these dilemmas, it's like they wanted to fabricate the meanest robots in the galaxy that do awful horrors just to make the player feel like a hero crusading against evil.

Life is not so black and white... every mature story acknowledges that.