221 réponses à ce sujet

[Slayer299]

Turin_4 wrote...

Slayer,

But the term, slave, is not accurate at all however. The Quarians
didn't create slaves, they *built* machines and I know that we can't
build animals or people, you can clone animals but it's not the same as
building something from the DNA up. The Geth were machines in concept,
creation and usage and that's all.

I had this long reply to your questions, but the bloody thing got deleted by accident and I don't feel like re-creating it, at least at 11:30pm. So to be brief;

1 - The Quarians didn't create slaves, they built machines...period.

2 - Yes, our definition of 'create' are very different. With your example though with eggs, if you have milk, eggs, onions and pepper for an omelet and you walk away as your makig them to come back and see it's all burnt up, it's still an omelet, just not a edible one. The ingredients didn't change, only the taste and appearance.
You can create machines of all stripes and sophstication, but they're still just machines. You can't just 'create' a person or animal from new parts and the ME universe can't do that either. (Barring Shep's magical resurrection at the hands of the Happyness Fairy)

3 - Using the term slaves implies that the Geth lost their freedom or had it taken away from them when neither occured. The Geth were machines and had no more "rights" than my PC or my mp3 player. The Quarians built machines to help them in a variety of ways and to handle hazardous jobs that Quarians would normally have to do themselves. Were those machines sophisticated? Yes, quite. But should that also mean that we should give rights to IBM's Road Runner or Deep Blue computers based on that progression since they are two of the most advanced computers presently?

4 - I called your claim specious because the Geth didn't start thinking about anything abstract as souls and the color of the sky until quite some years after they'd been built, which was part of the reason that even allowed them to have a greater enough set of numbers for such abstract thought to be even thought of, much less contemplated.

5 - Of course I can't hold fault the Quarians response, they were faced with the strong potential of a huge loss of life and damage to the Quarian society if they stood by and did nothing, so they decided to act first and cut the threat to the lives of billions of Quarians from malfunctioning *machines* who worked on all levels of Quarian society. And on that note Turin, good night.

Modifié par Slayer299, 09 octobre 2010 - 12:51 .

[Slayer299]

Moiaussi wrote...

Slayer299 wrote...

But the term, slave, is not accurate at all however. The Quarians didn't create slaves, they *built* machines and I know that we can't build animals or people, you can clone animals but it's not the same as building something from the DNA up. The Geth were machines in concept, creation and usage and that's all.
No one said that the Quarians were washing their hands, instead they were attempting to destroy machines that had the potential to cause a lot of death and destruction to the Quarians if more Geth became aware and reacted violentlyl.

So why is EDI ok? EDI controls everything on the Normandy. If she could (once unshackled) repel a Collector invasion, she could certainly do the same to the regular crew any time she wanted, yet it is ok for her to be in complete control of a stealth warship.

I never argued that EDI was okay and my Shep would prefer not to have an AI, but Shep isn't given a choice when she's given the Normandy.

[Moiaussi]

Slayer299 wrote...

I never argued that EDI was okay and my Shep would prefer not to have an AI, but Shep isn't given a choice when she's given the Normandy.

Tali doesn't say a word about her though. The majority of the rest of the crew are all 'oh cute, an AI.' Some of the pro cerberus renegades point to her as a Cerberus success.

[Rip504]

I have been in these talks before... And I have found it pointless. Neither side will/can see the others pov.I didn't read past the first sentence of the op. (Some Quarians push for Peace.)



I personally think both sides are at fault,but at very least the Geth should return the Homeworld.

The Geth are sentencing the Quarians to extinction. You consider it wrong to commit genophage/genocide,but yet you support the Geth in their act? Oo you say what if the Quarians attack the Geth? So the Geth are willing to see the Quarians extinct over a risk of attack,but yet put forth no effort in the name of Peace? (The Geth would rather see the Quarians extinct then live in Peace) Similar can be said about the Quarians,but I promised Tali I would help reclaim her Homeworld...

[Kasen]

If Legion is correct, the Geth are open to peace with the Quarians. He even says that they consider themselves caretakers of the Quarian homeworld, living in space stations above it and clearing rubble and cleaning toxins from the Morning War. He compared it to cemetaries and memorials on Earth.

I'm sure that peace is possible between the Geth and Quarians, however you don't get peace when one side hides behind the Veil and the other side opens fire every time they feel they have the upper hand. Unfortunately, with organics being who they are, I feel it will be more difficult to convince the Quarians that peace is an option, than the Geth.

Edited to add: As my Commander Shepard told Legion and Tali during their arguement, "Sooner or later, you're both going to have to stop fighting this war. Or we'll all end up paying for it."

Modifié par Kasen13, 09 octobre 2010 - 07:58 .

[CroGamer002]

Hmh, why does most people ignores option "Geth and Quarians make peace"?
Seriously, Legion said they don't need planets, it's far for efficient for Geth to have space base and mind asteroids so they don't need Qurian homeworld and Geth are willing to have peace with Quarians so what's the problem?

Modifié par Mesina2, 09 octobre 2010 - 07:50 .

[Moiaussi]

Mesina2 wrote...

Hmh, why does most people ignores option "Geth and Quarians make peace"?
Seriously, Legion said they don't need planets, it's far for efficient for Geth to have space base and mind asteroids so they don't need Qurian homeworld and Geth are willing to have peace with Quarians so what's the problem?

Because there is a strong 'they ain't like us' sentiment in some, as well as those with the sentiment can't accept that the Geth are sentient regardless of what even the writers tell them.

[lovgreno]

Also some think they have to support a violent and/or controversial sollution or they will not fit into their own narrow concept of what a "cool" or "tough" person is.

[Slayer299]

Moiaussi wrote...

Slayer299 wrote...

I never argued that EDI was okay and my Shep would prefer not to have an AI, but Shep isn't given a choice when she's given the Normandy.

Tali doesn't say a word about her though. The majority of the rest of the crew are all 'oh cute, an AI.' Some of the pro cerberus renegades point to her as a Cerberus success.

True about Tali, and that was something I thought was disappointing to, especially after Jacob states he's going to introduce Tali to the new AI, I had wanted to see something play out with that.

[Turin_4]

Slayer,

(Hehe, you really need to get a handle on formatting;) )

1 - The Quarians didn't create slaves, they built machines...period.

We've been over this.  Initially they created machines.  But, accidentally...through negligence...they created something else.  That is a fact.  To illustrate my point, I'll go into detail about why it is a fact.  The Council had rules about working with VIs and AIs, and the Quarians knew this, and skirted those rules, consistently building bigger, better, and more complicated Geth.  They wanted the most sentient-like without actually being sentient 'machines'.  It was very much as though they were playing a game of chicken, never intending to actually hit the other car.

But when people playing chicken get in a car accident, they don't get to say to their insurance, "It wasn't my fault, I never intended to have a car accident!"  They've got some blame, Slayer, it's just as simple as that.  It's not a perfect analogy, I know, but the Quarians have some blame here.  The Geth ended up being slaves, and the Quarians created them.  This was not some calamitous accident like a comet striking a planet full of dinosaurs.

Now, you can pick apart some piece of my reasoning, if you like, but to say, "They built machines, period," to me seems like a very weak argument.

Yes, our definition of 'create' are very different. With your example
though with eggs, if you have milk, eggs, onions and pepper for an
omelet and you walk away as your makig them to come back and see it's
all burnt up, it's still an omelet, just not a edible one. The
ingredients didn't change, only the taste and appearance.
You can
create machines of all stripes and sophstication, but they're still just
machines. You can't just 'create' a person or animal from new parts and
the ME universe can't do that either. (Barring Shep's magical
resurrection at the hands of the Happyness Fairy)

That's not a viable comparison, though.  In your cooking breakfast and forgetting example, nothing I was doing could have resulted in anything other than either breakfast or a burned up mess.  With what the Quarians were doing, though, there were things that they were doing that could have resulted in sentient Geth.  First by allowing them to share information amongst themselves - the likelihood there is vanishingly small - and second, more importantly, by building vast numbers of them.  So your comparison breaks down when put next to the Quarians and the Geth.  We can't just create a person or an animal, but they could.  And maybe we - human beings - will be able to someday too.  A look at the way technology, both artificial and biological, advances over the past century suggests that's possible.

If the Quarians couldn't have forseen the Geth's sentience, if it was totally impossible, if a magical lightning bolt of sentience flung by Athena handed to her by Zeus were what had done it, maybe then we could fairly say the Quarians didn't create slaves.  But that's not what happened.  It would be similar to if you (general 'you') were working on, say, an antihistamine, but trying to make it as robust, as powerful, as really badass as you possibly could, but then one day it got out of control and became somehow dangerous by attaching to something else or something - I'm not a doctor, but do you see where I'm going?  You couldn't just say, "This isn't 'my fault, I didn't create this!"

Using the term slaves implies that the Geth lost their freedom or had it
taken away from them when neither occured. The Geth were machines and
had no more "rights" than my PC or my mp3 player. The Quarians built
machines to help them in a variety of ways and to handle hazardous jobs
that Quarians would normally have to do themselves. Were those machines
sophisticated? Yes, quite. But should that also mean that we should give
rights to IBM's Road Runner or Deep Blue computers based on that
progression since they are two of the most advanced computers presently?

Now, I'm afraid I have to insist you're absolutely mistaken here, and not just as a matter of opinion.  We can look to the Codex to see why:

By repeatedly tweaking the geth's systems, the quarians had inadvertently allowed the geth to evolve into an Artificial Intelligence, thus becoming sentient. In response, the quarian government ordered an immediate termination of all geth programs.

edit] The War
Once the now-sentient geth realized what the quarians were doing, they retaliated. The geth soon overran the quarian homeworld, Rannoch, and the surviving quarians gathered their ships and fled the planet. They pleaded for help from the Citadel Council,
but were denied aid and stripped of their embassy as punishment for
creating an AI. The geth emerged victorious, costing the quarians
billions of lives and countless credits.

At some point prior to the war, the Geth attained sentience.  This is indicated clearly and inarguably by their asking about souls.  In my opinion, that's just straighforward.  Machines don't wonder if they have souls.  Slaves, on the other hand, do.  Anyway, the Quarians decided to terminate all Geth programs.  I'd say that fits the bill for 'losing their freedom or taking it away', of course saying nothing about whether or not the Geth while having sentience had the option of refusing to do menial tasks such as domestic servitude, dangerous labor, or war.

I called your claim specious because the Geth didn't start thinking
about anything abstract as souls and the color of the sky until quite
some years after they'd been built, which was part of the reason that
even allowed them to have a greater enough set of numbers for such
abstract thought to be even thought of, much less contemplated.

My claim wasn't specious because I wasn't claiming the Geth were thinking about these things originally.  I've never claimed the Quarians made slaves right out of the gate.  I've always been quite clear that it was a transitive process.  I'm not sure why you seem intent on sticking to this point.  The Quarians initially made machines, but over time things changed.  The Geth changed.  But here's the thing: the Geth did not change themselves.  The Quarians did.  It wasn't the Geth who changed themselves into machines which could wonder if they had souls, it was the Quarians.  That is what I mean when I say they created slaves.

5 - Of course I can't hold fault the Quarians response, they were
faced with the strong potential of a huge loss of life and damage to the
Quarian society if they stood by and did nothing, so they decided to
act first and cut the threat to the lives of billions of Quarians from
malfunctioning *machines* who worked on all levels of Quarian society.
And on that note Turin, good night.

Again, why not?  Why do right intentions excuse one from being held at fault?  The road to hell - or the Migrant Fleet, in this case - is paved with good intentions.  And of course the choice you pose is an artificial one, genocide on the Geth and stand by doing nothing.  Furthermore, you don't know that what they were destroying was malfunctioning 'machines'.  At least some of them weren't just machines, Slayer, and that's also a fact.

If you're going to object to my 'emotionally laden' word 'slave', then you must drop your deliberately unemotional word 'machine' here, because that's a carefully chosen word too, and please don't think I don't recognize it.  The Geth clearly aren't just machines.  Machines, the way we use the word, don't wonder if they have souls or purpose.  They don't have intent or react with wonder if their users fear them.

---------------

The Geth are sentencing the Quarians to extinction. You consider it
wrong to commit genophage/genocide,but yet you support the Geth in their
act? Oo you say what if the Quarians attack the Geth? So the Geth are
willing to see the Quarians extinct over a risk of attack,but yet put
forth no effort in the name of Peace? (The Geth would rather see the
Quarians extinct then live in Peace) Similar can be said about the
Quarians,but I promised Tali I would help reclaim her Homeworld...

The Geth are sentencing the Quarians to extinction?  How?  First of all, there is still a very poweful faction within the Quarian race, it seems, that wants to wipe out all the Geth or enslave them all again (or 'take control of the machines again), so one can hardly blame the Geth for now just welcoming back the Quarians with open arms.  Second, the Quarians could settle another homeworld.  It would be hard, that's putting it very mildly, but it could be done.  Much more easily than wresting Rannach back from the Geth, though, setting aside any moral or ethical questions.  But even in the Migrant Fleet, what signs are there of extinction?

-------

Prove the geth are sentient and not just clever mathematical
equations. Do the same for EDI. Prove that immitation crab meat is the
same as real crab meat.

Prove that you are sentient, while you're posing impossible questions, please.  Prove that human beings aren't just chemistry, electricity, and meat.

Modifié par Turin_4, 09 octobre 2010 - 01:21 .

[Moiaussi]

Shandepared wrote...

Moiaussi wrote...

Because there is a strong 'they ain't like us' sentiment in some, as well as those with the sentiment can't accept that the Geth are sentient regardless of what even the writers tell them.

Prove the geth are sentient and not just clever mathematical equations. Do the same for EDI. Prove that immitation crab meat is the same as real crab meat.

The writers describe both as AI's rather than VI's and specificly state the Geth achieved sentience. You prove the writers are wrong about their own universe.

Artificial crab meat vs real crab meat? In what regard? In that they are substitutes or are you saying they have to be completely identical? If the latter, then since no two humans are exactly identical, your arguement would seem to be that there is no such thing as sentience.

Making up your own definintion of 'sentience' does not make your definition valid in any context other than your own mind.

[Moiaussi]

Shandepared wrote...

Moiaussi wrote...

The writers describe both as AI's rather than VI's and specificly state the Geth achieved sentience. You prove the writers are wrong about their own universe.

When and where? In any regard even characters within the Mass Effect universe agree with me.

Codex and in Tali's initial discussions with Shepard. I have linked the Tali discussions a couple times already. Characters in game treat them as otherwise, but even Xen still calls them AI's. She wants to control them, but still calls them AI's.

[DPSSOC]

Rip504 wrote...
I personally think both sides are at fault,but at very least the Geth should return the Homeworld.

I agree both sides have done wrong, disagree about the homeworld, spoils of war and what not.

Rip504 wrote...
The Geth are sentencing the Quarians to extinction.

 
Yes and no.  In reality the Council and the Quarians themselves are sentencing the Quarians to extinction.  The Geth created the circumstances the Quarians are currently in but it was the Quarians who decided not to do anything about it for the past 300 years and the Council who wouldn't let them if they tried.  Saying the Geth are sentencing the Quarians to extinction is claiming that if your landlord kicks you out he's sentencing you to homelessness, starvation, and ultimately death.  The reality being you can take efforts to find another place to live.

Rip504 wrote...
Oo you say what if the Quarians attack the Geth? So the Geth are willing to see the Quarians extinct over a risk of attack,but yet put forth no effort in the name of Peace? (The Geth would rather see the Quarians extinct then live in Peace)

 
I suspect you are going to rob me so I hit you over the head with a pipe, you understandably get pissed and beat the snot out of me, Now I came out of the exchange worse off but as the agressor the first step towards peace and forgiveness is mine.  If I don't admit what I did was uncalled for, or at least ill conceived, and apologize how can I honestly expect you to apologize for how far you went in retaliation.

Rip504 wrote...
Similar can be said about the Quarians,but I promised Tali I would help reclaim her Homeworld...

Did you pinky swear?  Do Quarians have pinkies?  If you didn't pinky swear it doesn't count.

[Turin_4]

The writers describe both as AI's rather than VI's and specificly
state the Geth achieved sentience. You prove the writers are wrong about
their own universe.

Actually, if memory serves, Legion describes himself as over a thousand networked VIs which when together form the platform known as Legion.  Just a quibble, though.

When and where? In any regard even characters within the Mass Effect universe agree with me.

There's not much point talking about this with you, it seems.  You've made up your mind, regardless of what the game and its writers say about it.  They're just machines, period, no matter what the machines, their creators, or even the creators of those creators have to say.  So...you're pretty dang silly.

[Moiaussi]

[quote]Turin_4 wrote...

[Actually, if memory serves, Legion describes himself as over a thousand networked VIs which when together form the platform known as Legion.  Just a quibble, though.[/quote]

I think he uses the term 'programs' or 'geth' rather than VI's. but regardless, any given line of code or subroutine in a program is only part of the full program. On it's on either accomplishes little but with the other lines of code, with the other subroutines you have a functional program. To say the Geth aren't sentient on that basis would be to say that since the human liver isn't sentient, that humans are not sentient.
[/quote]

[Moiaussi]

Shandepared wrote...

The codex is not an objective source and neither is Tali. Poor girl thinks its wrong to experiment on geth. When she was freaking over what her father did I wished I could tell her, "Tali, relax, they're just machines."

Lol, what do you consider an objective source? You? I notice you left out Xen, who also refers to them as AI's.... she says 'yes they are AI's , but they will be our AI's.' 

[Slayer299]

[quote]Turin_4 wrote...

Slayer,

(Hehe, you really need to get a handle on formatting;) ).
[/quote]

Yeah, pretty much, it's all the multi quotes I'm having problems with, sorry, and yowch! long reply there! 


[quote]
We've been over this.  Initially they created machines.  But, accidentally...through negligence...they created something else.  That is a fact.  To illustrate my point, I'll go into detail about why it is a fact.  The Council had rules about working with VIs and AIs, and the Quarians knew this, and skirted those rules, consistently building bigger, better, and more complicated Geth.  They wanted the most sentient-like without actually being sentient 'machines'.  It was very much as though they were playing a game of chicken, never intending to actually hit the other car.
[/quote]

The Geth could only have become slaves if their freedom to choose was taken away, it wasn't and at the time of the MW they were just self-aware and asking questions, which is not sentient "to me". And the Quarians got a little too close the edge between AI and VI with the Geth networking abilities, this allowed the Geth to be self-aware, not self-determinenent.

[quote]
But when people playing chicken get in a car accident, they don't get to say to their insurance, "It wasn't my fault, I never intended to have a car accident!"  They've got some blame, Slayer, it's just as simple as that.  It's not a perfect analogy, I know, but the Quarians have some blame here.  The Geth ended up being slaves, and the Quarians created them.  This was not some calamitous accident like a comet striking a planet full of dinosaurs.
[/quote]

I've never said or thought that the Quarians lack of or insufficient safeguards, in fact I commented on that at least twice before in two earlier posts. And machines are not slaves, they are built to perform a single task or the capacity to multitask as per their design. Only and only *if* they can show both self-awareness and self-determinatin can they be considered as sentient and thusly are being used as slaves. Withouth both those 2 determinants all you have are machines, IMO. The same standard would work for the Quarians as well, until they could see that the Geth were both self aware and determinent they would be seen as machines, just because the machine asks an esoteric question on life does not automatically presuppose that it is 'alive'.
You can accuse my argument of being weak, but those are my conditions and without them being met my argument stands for me.

[quote]Yes, our definition of 'create' are very different. With your example
though with eggs, if you have milk, eggs, onions and pepper for an
omelet and you walk away as your makig them to come back and see it's
all burnt up, it's still an omelet, just not a edible one. The ingredients didn't change, only the taste and appearance.
You can create machines of all stripes and sophstication, but they're still just machines. You can't just 'create' a person or animal from new parts and the ME universe can't do that either. (Barring Shep's magical resurrection at the hands of the Happyness Fairy)
[/quote]

see above

[quote]
That's not a viable comparison, though.  In your cooking breakfast and forgetting example, nothing I was doing could have resulted in anything other than either breakfast or a burned up mess.  With what the Quarians were doing, though, there were things that they were doing that could have resulted in sentient Geth.  First by allowing them to share information amongst themselves - the likelihood there is vanishingly small - and second, more importantly, by building vast numbers of them.  So your comparison breaks down when put next to the Quarians and the Geth.  We can't just create a person or an animal, but they could.  And maybe we - human beings - will be able to someday too.  A look at the way technology, both artificial and biological, advances over the past century suggests that's possible.
[/quote]

Well, you were the one to use the egg comparison, not me. Yes, someday I'm sure it *might* be possible to create life, but that's a big *might* and one I'm not certain we really could pull off.

[quote]
If the Quarians couldn't have forseen the Geth's sentience, if it was totally impossible, if a magical lightning bolt of sentience flung by Athena handed to her by Zeus were what had done it, maybe then we could fairly say the Quarians didn't create slaves.  But that's not what happened.  It would be similar to if you (general 'you') were working on, say, an antihistamine, but trying to make it as robust, as powerful, as really badass as you possibly could, but then one day it got out of control and became somehow dangerous by attaching to something else or something - I'm not a doctor, but do you see where I'm going?  You couldn't just say, "This isn't 'my fault, I didn't create this!"
[/quote]

Well as a researcher of course that was the your fault, the proper safeguards were not in place to prevent such an occurance! That's not an argument since we've agreed on that before about Quarian safeguards.

[quote]
Now, I'm afraid I have to insist you're absolutely mistaken here, and not just as a matter of opinion.  We can look to the Codex to see why: [quote]By repeatedly tweaking the geth's systems, the quarians had inadvertently allowed the geth to evolve into an Artificial Intelligence, thus becoming sentient. In response, the quarian government ordered an immediate termination of all geth programs.

edit] The War
Once the now-sentient geth realized what the quarians were doing, they retaliated. The geth soon overran the quarian homeworld, Rannoch, and the surviving quarians gathered their ships and fled the planet. They pleaded for help from the Citadel Council, but were denied aid and stripped of their embassy as punishment for creating an AI. The geth emerged victorious, costing the quarians billions of lives and countless credits.

At some point prior to the war, the Geth attained sentience.  This is indicated clearly and inarguably by their asking about souls.  In my opinion, that's just straighforward.  Machines don't wonder if they have souls.  Slaves, on the other hand, do.  Anyway, the Quarians decided to terminate all Geth programs.  I'd say that fits the bill for 'losing their freedom or taking it away', of course saying nothing about whether or not the Geth while having sentience had the option of refusing to do menial tasks such as domestic servitude, dangerous labor, or war.
[/quote]

As I said just above, the Geth became self aware, that does not mean they were self-determinent.

[quote]
My claim wasn't specious because I wasn't claiming the Geth were thinking about these things originally.  I've never claimed the Quarians made slaves right out of the gate.  I've always been quite clear that it was a transitive process.  I'm not sure why you seem intent on sticking to this point.  The Quarians initially made machines, but over time things changed.  The Geth changed.  But here's the thing: the Geth did not change themselves.  The Quarians did.  It wasn't the Geth who changed themselves into machines which could wonder if they had souls, it was the Quarians.  That is what I mean when I say they created slaves.
[/quote]

Then I apologize, because your comments sounded that the Geth started off thinking that way, which was my disagreement with it. However, my disagreement with the Geth being called slaves is unchanged. If matters had proceeded differently with the Geth/Quarians then it could have been determined that the Geth at the time of the MW were both self-aware and self-determinent. Up until that decision was made a compromise would have been needed during that time, one that allowed the Geth to continue with a majority of important functions that they had been doing because a 100% stop would have been impossible. The Geth functioned on all levels of Quarians society, from manual labor to military hardware.

[quote]
5 - Of course I can't hold fault the Quarians response, they were
faced with the strong potential of a huge loss of life and damage to the
Quarian society if they stood by and did nothing, so they decided to
act first and cut the threat to the lives of billions of Quarians from
malfunctioning *machines* who worked on all levels of Quarian society.
And on that note Turin, good night.
[/quote]

[quote]
Again, why not?  Why do right intentions excuse one from being held at fault?  The road to hell - or the Migrant Fleet, in this case - is paved with good intentions.  And of course the choice you pose is an artificial one, genocide on the Geth and stand by doing nothing.  Furthermore, you don't know that what they were destroying was malfunctioning 'machines'.  At least some of them weren't just machines, Slayer, and that's also a fact.
[/quote]

Must I repeat myself...again? (sigh). The Quarians reacted (as I've said before) in fear; fear of the Geth rebelling, fear of the impact on their society and fear of the Councils reaction. But in the final analysis neither of them walks away as innocent in the matter. The Quarians *could* have taken the time to ascertain that the Geth were no longer machines and whether they were self-detminant and where to go from there. The Geth on the other side, their follow up reactions tp the initial attempt by the Quarians to shut them down show they slaughtered Quarians left and right. Billions of Quarians died.

[quote]
If you're going to object to my 'emotionally laden' word 'slave', then you must drop your deliberately unemotional word 'machine' here, because that's a carefully chosen word too, and please don't think I don't recognize it.  The Geth clearly aren't just machines.  Machines, the way we use the word, don't wonder if they have souls or purpose.  They don't have intent or react with wonder if their users fear them.
[/quote]

That was the reason for my use of the word machine, machines are viewed as emotionless things and the direct opposite of a slave.

---------------

[quote]
The Geth are sentencing the Quarians to extinction. You consider it
wrong to commit genophage/genocide,but yet you support the Geth in their
act? Oo you say what if the Quarians attack the Geth? So the Geth are
willing to see the Quarians extinct over a risk of attack,but yet put
forth no effort in the name of Peace? (The Geth would rather see the
Quarians extinct then live in Peace) Similar can be said about the
Quarians,but I promised Tali I would help reclaim her Homeworld...
[/quote]

I didn't say I support the Geth in genocide or anything even remotely close to it. None of my Sheps supported Han'Gerrel or Daro'Xen, but infact encouraged Zaal'Korris to push for peace.

[quote]
The Geth are sentencing the Quarians to extinction?  How?  First of all, there is still a very poweful faction within the Quarian race, it seems, that wants to wipe out all the Geth or enslave them all again (or 'take control of the machines again), so one can hardly blame the Geth for now just welcoming back the Quarians with open arms.  Second, the Quarians could settle another homeworld.  It would be hard, that's putting it very mildly, but it could be done.  Much more easily than wresting Rannach back from the Geth, though, setting aside any moral or ethical questions.  But even in the Migrant Fleet, what signs are there of extinction?
[/quote]

Again I never said that either. So I don't know where you're coming from on that. see above

Edit - annoying formatting errors

Modifié par Slayer299, 09 octobre 2010 - 07:07 .

[Jedi Master of Orion]

Shandepared wrote...

Moiaussi wrote...

Codex and in Tali's initial discussions with Shepard.

The codex is not an objective source and neither is Tali. Poor girl thinks its wrong to experiment on geth. When she was freaking over what her father did I wished I could tell her, "Tali, relax, they're just machines."

Even the developers have refered to Legion as being sentient before the game was released. I also don't think Tali was concerned about the welfare of the geth in that mission, just that the experiments were dangerous and forbidden.

[Turin_4]

To say the Geth aren't sentient on that basis would be to say that since the human liver isn't sentient, that humans are not sentient.

Exactly.  Conceivably, human beings could clone brain cells now, or within say the next generation, and those would of course not be sentient.  Do it enough times and put them together, though, and things change.  From what we've seen, it's very similar with the Geth, just using different tools.  Two houses, one made of bricks and another made of wood are both still houses, despite their different building materials.

------

Slayer,

The Geth could only have become slaves if their freedom to choose was taken away, it wasn't and at the time of the MW they were just self-aware and asking questions, which is not sentient "to me". And the Quarians got a little too close the edge between AI and VI with the Geth networking abilities, this allowed the Geth to be self-aware, not self-determinenent.

Wait, what is sentience if it doesn't start at questions of personhood, at awareness and wondering if one is a person or part of a group?  That's a serious question.  In my experience, that is the foundation of sentience, that question, "Do I exist?  What am I?  Am I real?  What happens when I die?" and so on and so forth.  "Do we have a soul?" is about as straightforward a way to ask those questions as there can possibly be.  I'm not trying to hammer away at this, but if that question doesn't indicate sentience, Slayer, what on Earth would?

As for self-awareness and self-determinance, why does the former not grant the latter?  If they don't have the latter, then the Quarians must have some responsibility to respect the former, too, in the same way that a parent must respect the rights of a child while a child doesn't have right of self-determination.

And machines are not slaves, they are built to perform a single task or the capacity to multitask as per their design. Only and only *if* they can show both self-awareness and self-determinatin can they be considered as sentient and thusly are being used as slaves.

But you're using circular arguments here.  You're saying the Geth don't have self-determination...because the Quarians didn't program that into them?  Or what.  I don't understand your argument, you're drawing an awful lot of what seem be arbitrary distinctions here like the one about technology.  The Geth did show self-determination: when the Quarians attempted to shut them down, they rebelled.  They showed sentience, because they recognized their own personhood, albeit in a different way.  You say you don't recognize their questions as signs of sentience, but you haven't said what you would recognize as sentience.  But every definition of the term I've ever heard used pretty much includes questions like wondering about souls.

The same standard would work for the Quarians as well, until they could see that the Geth were both self aware and determinent they would be seen as machines, just because the machine asks an esoteric question on life does not automatically presuppose that it is 'alive'.

It's not an 'esoteric question on life', it's fundamental to the question of sentience.  Self-awareness is determined by questions like that.  Where do you think sentience lies, Slayer?  That seems to be the crux of our disagreement.  From wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentient: Sentience is the ability to feel or perceive. The term is used in science and philosophy, and in the study of artificial intelligence. Sentience is used in the study of consciousness to describe the ability to have sensations or experiences...

Wondering about souls, fighting and winning a revolution, etc., these are all by the definitions of sentience pretty clear-cut indicators, whatever your personal definition of the term may be.

Well, you were the one to use the egg comparison, not me. Yes, someday I'm sure it *might* be possible to create life, but that's a big *might* and one I'm not certain we really could pull off.

What, really?  Given the not-so-slow and steady march of science, looking at where we were and where we are now, I'm really not  sure why you're not sure we wouldn't be able to pull it off someday.  Note I'm not talking about creating something wholesale out of nothing, but of assembling something out of pre-existing pieces but that nonetheless didn't exist before.  And yes, I did use the egg comparison, but you changed it radically.  In the comparison I used, the outcome was predictable within the process I started, much like the Geth.  In the comparison you made, it was a total accident, unforseeable beforehand.

Well as a researcher of course that was the your fault, the proper safeguards were not in place to prevent such an occurance! That's not an argument since we've agreed on that before about Quarian safeguards.

OK, but you keep wanting to say, "The Quarians didn't create slaves," as though the Quarians intentions mattered to that question.  "The Quarians created slaves," can be a statement of fact, intent, or both.  When I make that statement now, I am making it as a statement of pure fact, and nothing more, Slayer.  At the end, the Quarians were faced with self-aware Geth that they intended to use for domestic servitude, dangerous labor, and warfare, giving the Geth no input on that labor, and treating them as items to be posssed as property.  That is the definition of slavery.  Where you dispute the matter is that they were self-aware.  I hold up the Geth's questions of personhood, their successful rebellion and war, as pretty indisputable signs of their sentience, and so far your response is that it's just a difference of opinion.

Well, in my opinion, yes, that is a pretty weak argument on your part.  Yes, the Quarians did start out just making machines.  But that's not what they ended up with.

As I said just above, the Geth became self aware, that does not mean they were self-determinent.

I've asked the same question of you and of others: why aren't the two linked?  You wouldn't, I hope, dream of denying a self-aware human being the right to self-determination.  We've spent thousands of years just starting toarrive at the conclusion that it's pretty important, in some parts of the world, to link those two concepts, self-awareness and self-determination, and even where we've done so it's an incomplete process to say the least.  But just because the Geth were initially created by the Quarians, they don't get to link the two?

Then I apologize, because your comments sounded that the Geth started off thinking that way, which was my disagreement with it. However, my disagreement with the Geth being called slaves is unchanged. If matters had proceeded differently with the Geth/Quarians then it could have been determined that the Geth at the time of the MW were both self-aware and self-determinent. Up until that decision was made a compromise would have been needed during that time, one that allowed the Geth to continue with a majority of important functions that they had been doing because a 100% stop would have been impossible. The Geth functioned on all levels of Quarians society, from manual labor to military hardware.

Thanks.  The Geth were, ultimately slaves, though, that's still undisputable, at least for some of them-certainly the ones that rebelled.  Unless it was just an 'error of programming' or something-but I'll let you rebutt that.  I still don't understand how a life-form can possibly be self-aware but not self-determinant, though.  What gives one race the right to make that decision for another?  Just because they're 'savages', 'inferior', 'artificial', or 'different'?  Or in the Quarian case, just because they're too badly needed?  Listen to what you're saying.  if the Geth had been recognized to be self-aware and self-determinant, well, then - you say - they would be slaves.  But they would still have to keep on working, because the Quarians just couldn't live without them.

Can you understand how intolerable that kind of thinking is?  It may seem silly to get passionate about this sort of thing, because after all it is just a story, but the truth is, people (not you particularly, people generally) can let their 'other' thinking come out in strange ways.

The Geth on the other side, their follow up reactions tp the initial attempt by the Quarians to shut them down show they slaughtered Quarians left and right. Billions of Quarians died.

Well, first of all, you haven't been repeating yourself, I've been asking why it's not OK to hold someone at fault even if their reaction was understandable.  Second, we don't know what happened after the Quarian 'initial' attempt to commit genocide on the Geth.  Do you really think it's likely that they just tried once and then stopped?  I don't know, but personally, I don't think it's likely.  But even if they did try once and then stop...suppose you're the Geth.  You're the Geth, and you've got memories.  After many years, and you've got really good memory, so you know all about what you've been doing, and then one day some of you start wondering if you've got souls and if you're people.  You're Geth in this scenario, so there's none of this quibbling about self-awareness and self-determination, you're people here, so like every other person who's ever lived, you think you're just as entitled to self-determination as anyone else, thanks very much - so after realizing you've been enslaved, and after realizing that your masters are scared that you realize this...they try to wipe you out.  Just exterimate the lot of you.

You don't perceive things in such emotional terms of course, because you're Geth, but you do want to continue existing, and your former masters have shown absolutely no signs of being even remotely trustworthy thus far.  You can look back in history and see that not only have they betrayed you, but they violarted the law in your creation over years.  You want to live.  They want to kill you.  They can't be trusted.  They've just got to go.

Is it right?  Well, no...but then again, it's not as though the Quarians programmed much in the way of ethics into you in the first place.  Maybe that's why you were asking if you had a soul, instead of knowing.

[StarGateGod]

i have to side with the geth on this matter the quarions attempted to commet genocide. the geth are more than willing to let the past stay dead but the quarians want to continue this pointless conflict. i may have had my way with tali, but i still think she's an idiot

[Turin_4]

Regardless, this wouldn't change anything. People in the Mass Effect universe aren't privy to the fact that none of it is real. As far as they know this is reality. Where I a person there I'd see no compelling reason to believe any synthetic "life form" was alive.

Wait, so you're saying that a storyteller's authors don't get to say what is and isn't true of their own story? Yeah, that's not, y'know, a crock of something that comes out of the hind end of a bull or anything, Shandepared. As for seeing no reason to believe a synthetic person was alive, well, that's easy when you constantly refuse to engage on any of the questions of what makes a person alive.



Thus far your reasons for thinking no synthetic beings are alive are...you don't see any reason they're alive. Great reasoning, man. Well, I don't think you're alive.