450 réponses à ce sujet

[Capeo]

Though I wouldn't recommend a war I would side with the quarians. Sentience doesn't mean something is alive and most life isn't sentient but inarguably alive. The geth are constructs. Constructs running computer programs that can be altered with ease. If a virus can utterly and completely change their thinking then are both not alive and highly dangerous. They're still tools and lack the self determination and culture of living sentient species.

[marshalleck]

Capeo wrote...
If a virus can utterly and completely change their thinking then are both not alive and highly dangerous. They're still tools and lack the self determination and culture of living sentient species.

There are a number of biological parasites in the real world that can alter the behavior of their hosts to induce conditions that are favorable to their continued existence and procreation. They range from microbes and fungus and worms to relatively complex organisms, such as wasps. Would hosts afflicted with such parasites, engaging in abnormal or hazardous behaviors no longer be considered alive? If we want to steer this back to Mass Effect, what about the colonists of Feros? The thorian took control of them and made them attack Shepard.

The geth do possess self-determination, hence the Morning War and the schism between the 'true' geth and the heretics.

And as a footnote, you might want to brush up on your understanding of sentience.

Modifié par marshalleck, 05 février 2011 - 05:43 .

[James2912]

The Geth will become tools of humanity after Cerberus figures out how to control them. If you went renegade in Overlord that is!

[Capeo]

marshalleck wrote...

Capeo wrote...
If a virus can utterly and completely change their thinking then are both not alive and highly dangerous. They're still tools and lack the self determination and culture of living sentient species.

There are a number of biological parasites in the real world that can alter the behavior of their hosts to induce conditions that are favorable to their continued existence and procreation. They range from microbes and fungus and worms to relatively complex organisms, such as wasps. Would hosts afflicted with such parasites, engaging in abnormal or hazardous behaviors no longer be considered alive? If we want to steer this back to Mass Effect, what about the colonists of Feros? The thorian took control of them and made them attack Shepard.

They would still be alive, yes.  And if said parasite made them dangerous then they should be contained or exterminated like so many locusts.  In many ant species they take care of this themselves by kiling fungally infected members of the colony.  In the case of the colonists on Feros, it's quite simple, you attack back until the situation can be contained.  If it can't then they all die.

marshalleck wrote...

The geth do possess self-determination, hence the Morning War and the schism between the 'true' geth and the heretics.

And as a footnote, you might want to brush up on your understanding of sentience.

I need not brush up on anything.  Sentience, by definition, is subjectivity distinct from self awareness and intentionality.  Most narrowly it is the ability to experience pleasure and pain.  That aside, the point your missing, using Feros as an example, is that the colonists had a prior subjective baseline prior to being subverted.  Their sapience, self awareness, empathy and overall conciousness is an emergent expression of their natural evolution.  There was something to actually subvert.  In the case of the geth, such a baseline is malleable to the point of nonexistance.  Thier ability to have every aspect of their dubious consciousness overwritten with a flip of a switch makes them dangerous and little more than chess playing computers.

Modifié par Capeo, 05 février 2011 - 06:40 .

[Pro_Consul]

Capeo wrote...

In the case of the geth, such a baseline is malleable to the point of nonexistance.  Thier ability to have every aspect of their dubious consciousness overwritten with a flip of a switch makes them dangerous and little more than chess playing computers.

No disrepect intended, but this is utter nonsense. If the Geths' consciousness could be overridden with the flip of a switch then the Morning War would have lasted about as long as it took to reach out and flip that switch...and not one moment longer. And when Nazara tried to enlist the Geth it would have come away with 100% of them, not just 5%. The whole reason there WAS a Morning War is because the Geth have distinct minds of their own, with their own values, their own will and their own identity. And they have a highly effective means of defending their minds from external tampering, even more so than most organic races.

After all, we hear plenty of mention of control chips, brainwashing and other means by which organics in the MEverse tamper with each other's minds. And they tend to have a LOT higher success rate than the mere 5% that a Reaper's best efforts were able to manage with the Geth. Heck the Reaper case alone takes your argument and turns it on its head. If the ability to overwrite a consciousness is the measure of that conscious being's entitlement to be classified as sapient life, then the Geth are far more entitled to that classification than any organic race we know of. After all, so far as we know organics are all 100% susceptible to Reaper indoctrination, while Geth have proven to be at least 95% resistant to it.

Modifié par Pro_Consul, 05 février 2011 - 07:54 .

[Zing Freelancer]

But in the end, HG obtained technology from Reapers that could potentially overwrite all Geth. Though it was said to be a long time process that involved introducing a small error in their code.

[Pro_Consul]

Zing Freelancer wrote...

But in the end, HG obtained technology from Reapers that could potentially overwrite all Geth. Though it was said to be a long time process that involved introducing a small error in their code.

Yep, and it was the best long term effort that of a Reaper applying technology that is WAY beyond every other known species in the galaxy, Geth included. And we do NOT know if even actually worked. We have to wait for ME3 to find out if it was effective in turning the HG back into TG. If not, then it is just another failed attempt by the Reapers to indoctrinate the Geth.

[Ramirez Wolfen]

Pro_Consul wrote...

wulf3n wrote...

Did you even read the post? it wasn't about god, it was about a higher power or creator trying kill you, in a futile attempt at showing Ramirez empathy, as empathy is the mother of morality. God was irrelevant to the post, the only reason i used it is because whether you believe in god or not, most people understand the concept of god being a creator, and to the geth the quarians are effectively god, and thats what i was trying to get across.

Told you it wasn't going to go anywhere we wanted it to... I did indeed read the post. I also accounted for its intended audience, which is where I believe you erred. Nuff said?

So what are you saying?

[Capeo]

Pro_Consul wrote...

Capeo wrote...

In the case of the geth, such a baseline is malleable to the point of nonexistance.  Thier ability to have every aspect of their dubious consciousness overwritten with a flip of a switch makes them dangerous and little more than chess playing computers.

No disrepect intended, but this is utter nonsense. If the Geths' consciousness could be overridden with the flip of a switch then the Morning War would have lasted about as long as it took to reach out and flip that switch...and not one moment longer. And when Nazara tried to enlist the Geth it would have come away with 100% of them, not just 5%. The whole reason there WAS a Morning War is because the Geth have distinct minds of their own, with their own values, their own will and their own identity. And they have a highly effective means of defending their minds from external tampering, even more so than most organic races.

After all, we hear plenty of mention of control chips, brainwashing and other means by which organics in the MEverse tamper with each other's minds. And they tend to have a LOT higher success rate than the mere 5% that a Reaper's best efforts were able to manage with the Geth. Heck the Reaper case alone takes your argument and turns it on its head. If the ability to overwrite a consciousness is the measure of that conscious being's entitlement to be classified as sapient life, then the Geth are far more entitled to that classification than any organic race we know of. After all, so far as we know organics are all 100% susceptible to Reaper indoctrination, while Geth have proven to be at least 95% resistant to it.

Legion's loyalty quest alone turns your reasoning on its head.  Flip of a switch and suddenly heretics are completely rewritten.

The fact that they weren't susceptible to Sovereign's tech is just a gaping plot hole.  If they can do it to themselves the Reapers could do it.  Fact is, there isn't a whole lot of consistency in the internal logic of the franchise when it applies to the geth.  Particulary in ME2 when they throw the whole heretic thing in.

Again, there is no baseline.  There is no true emergent consciousness to return to as is the case with organic beings that have evolved naturally.  An organic being who is being perverted through mind control is actually being perverted from something stable and existant and recognizable as divergent within its own race.  A geth is a machine being reprogrammed.  No culture, no art, nothing would be missed in their subjective experience.  In fact, they aren't capable of "missing" anything.  

Modifié par Capeo, 05 février 2011 - 08:37 .

[Pro_Consul]

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...

So what are you saying?

I was saying that I was in agreement with what you said, when you told him that bringing God into the discussion was a bad idea.

[Ramirez Wolfen]

Pro_Consul wrote...

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...

So what are you saying?

I was saying that I was in agreement with what you said, when you told him that bringing God into the discussion was a bad idea.

For some reason (to me at least),it came off as if you saying something about me from the "intended audience, from which I believe you erred."

[Pro_Consul]

Capeo wrote...

Again, there is no baseline.  There is no true emergent consciousness to return to as is the case with organic beings that have evolved naturally.  An organic being who is being perverted through mind control is actually being perverted from something stable and existant and recognizable as divergent within its own race.  A geth is a machine being reprogrammed.  No culture, no art, nothing would be missed in their subjective experience.  In fact, they aren't capable of "missing" anything.  

Really? And you know this...how exactly? Did you watch the Legion vids that were linked in this thread? Did you hear Legion say that part of the reason they have restored and acted as caretakers on Rannoch is because they think of the place like a memorial site? You don't build or maintain memorial sites for things you don't miss. We also have direct evidence from back in ME1 that the Geth have a religion.

It seems more like you cannot or will not make the leap to including a lifeform so different from your own as an equal within your value system. Define life, then, as you see it. What criteria determine whether or not something is a sapient lifeform, in your view, please. At least let us define the terms, to be sure we are meaning the same things when we use similar words.

[Ramirez Wolfen]

The Geth that had a religion were the heretics who believed in the Reapers.

[Pro_Consul]

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...

For some reason (to me at least),it came off as if you saying something about me from the "intended audience, from which I believe you erred."

It is true that I displayed a general garment. But if you thought it looked like it was a made in your size, well there isn't much I can do or say about that. It was not my intention to single out you or anyone else specifically, or I would have done so.

[Pro_Consul]

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...

The Geth that had a religion were the heretics who believed in the Reapers.

So are you saying that the HG are sapient enough to have religion and the TG are not? Or were you just clarifying a distinction without a difference? Not clear on what you think this signifies.

Modifié par Pro_Consul, 05 février 2011 - 09:15 .

[Ramirez Wolfen]

Pro_Consul wrote...

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...

For some reason (to me at least),it came off as if you saying something about me from the "intended audience, from which I believe you erred."

It is true that I displayed a general garment. But if you thought it looked like it was a made in your size, well there isn't much I can do or say about that. It was not my intention to single out you or anyone else specifically, or I would have done so.

Let's try to stay polite to one another, alright? I think we can have a discussion without direct and indirect insults.

[Ramirez Wolfen]

Pro_Consul wrote...

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...

The Geth that had a religion were the heretics who believed in the Reapers.

So are you saying that the HG are sapient enough to have religion and the TG are not? Or were you just clarifying a distinction without a difference? Not clear on what you think this signifies.

The HG were infected with a Reaper virus. That doesn't make them "more" sapient. They were more or less controlled.

[Exile Isan]

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...
The HG were infected with a Reaper virus. That doesn't make them "more" sapient. They were more or less controlled.

No they were not. Where do people get this? There is no evidence of it in the game at all. The Hereitcs chose to leave the True Geth and join the Reapers. There was no virus involved until the Heretic Geth created one using technology they got from Sovereign to rewrite the true Geth to the Heretics way of thinking.

[Vaenier]

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...

Pro_Consul wrote...

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...

The Geth that had a religion were the heretics who believed in the Reapers.

So are you saying that the HG are sapient enough to have religion and the TG are not? Or were you just clarifying a distinction without a difference? Not clear on what you think this signifies.

The HG were infected with a Reaper virus. That doesn't make them "more" sapient. They were more or less controlled.

There was no Reaper virus... Come on, why are there people still saying this after all this time...

Heretics had a different opinion than the other Geth. The end.

[Ramirez Wolfen]

Exile Isan wrote...

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...
The HG were infected with a Reaper virus. That doesn't make them "more" sapient. They were more or less controlled.

No they were not. Where do people get this? There is no evidence of it in the game at all. The Hereitcs chose to leave the True Geth and join the Reapers. There was no virus involved until the Heretic Geth created one using technology they got from Sovereign to rewrite the true Geth to the Heretics way of thinking.

I went to the wiki to check. and that IS and incorrect statement. It's a misconception. The hereticcs DID have a virus, but they were planning to infect TG with it.

[Capeo]

Pro_Consul wrote...

Capeo wrote...

Again, there is no baseline.  There is no true emergent consciousness to return to as is the case with organic beings that have evolved naturally.  An organic being who is being perverted through mind control is actually being perverted from something stable and existant and recognizable as divergent within its own race.  A geth is a machine being reprogrammed.  No culture, no art, nothing would be missed in their subjective experience.  In fact, they aren't capable of "missing" anything.  

Really? And you know this...how exactly? Did you watch the Legion vids that were linked in this thread? Did you hear Legion say that part of the reason they have restored and acted as caretakers on Rannoch is because they think of the place like a memorial site? You don't build or maintain memorial sites for things you don't miss. We also have direct evidence from back in ME1 that the Geth have a religion.

It seems more like you cannot or will not make the leap to including a lifeform so different from your own as an equal within your value system. Define life, then, as you see it. What criteria determine whether or not something is a sapient lifeform, in your view, please. At least let us define the terms, to be sure we are meaning the same things when we use similar words.

The geth are sapient.  Sapience only really means as or moreso intelligent than humans in real world terms.  Their sentience though is the issue.  A human is a human.  A quarian is a quarian born.  Their experiences will define their subjectivity and the many other factors of how they will define their reality.  Their individuality is their species strength in terms of social resilience.  The individuality and culture of the species is self correcting.  No matter the social situation their responses will be within the predictable norms of that species.  Even if those norms can have a lot of variance differnt cultures can interact because of this shared social commonality.  They cannot be overwritten wholesale.  Geth, though, can.  There is no self correction.  Their computer programs.  Overwrite them and they are something wholly different with potentially no relation to what they were only moments before.  There is no distinct self that is experiencing the subjective.  Their shared experiences mean nothing when in the end their conclusions can be changed in a blink of an eye.  Also, remove them from those programs and the individual ceases to exist. 

I'm not arguing if they are "alive" per se.  We're talking wacky sci-fi here.  But in the scope of the ME universe, yes, I value organically evolved life over robots following programs that can be used as weapons by simply having the tech to overwrite the entire "species" in one shot.  Hence my answer to the OP.  I would side with the quarians.   

[Exile Isan]

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...
I went to the wiki to check. and that IS and incorrect statement. It's a misconception. The hereticcs DID have a virus, but they were planning to infect TG with it.

Um, Yeah that is the whole point of Legions loyalty mission afterall is to destroy that virus (or end up using on the Heretics).

[Vaenier]

Capeo wrote...

I'm not arguing if they are "alive" per se.  We're talking wacky sci-fi here.  But in the scope of the ME universe, yes, I value organically evolved life over robots following programs that can be used as weapons by simply having the tech to overwrite the entire "species" in one shot.  Hence my answer to the OP.  I would side with the quarians.

Hate to break it to you, but humans are merely a program running on an organic computer. They exist that way because that is what survived enough to reproduce. There is nothing special about being made out of meat instead of metal.

And humans can be reprogramed easily too. Indoctrination just makes this laughable.

Your argument comes down to liking the Quarians not because they are right or justified, but because their physical bodies are more like your own. Do you really want to argue its alright to descriminate against a race because they are different than you?

[Ramirez Wolfen]

Exile Isan wrote...

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...
I went to the wiki to check. and that IS and incorrect statement. It's a misconception. The hereticcs DID have a virus, but they were planning to infect TG with it.

Um, Yeah that is the whole point of Legions loyalty mission afterall is to destroy that virus (or end up using on the Heretics).

Um, yeah, I was agreeing with you. And admitting that I was incorrect with that particular statement.

Modifié par Ramirez Wolfen, 05 février 2011 - 09:54 .

[Pro_Consul]

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...

Let's try to stay polite to one another, alright? I think we can have a discussion without direct and indirect insults.

I wasn't trying to insult you. That was sorta the point of my not singling anyone out the first time this came up. I admit, though, that my precise way of speaking can sometimes strike people as insolent. But please believe me when I assure you this is not the case. I am not being snide; I am being, or trying to be, precise.

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...

The HG were infected with a Reaper virus. That doesn't make them "more" sapient. They were more or less controlled.

Still not clear on why you think this is significant within this context. Just guessing here, but are you trying to say that the whole religion thing was a direct result of the Reaper indoctrination attempt, and that absent the Reaper meddling the Geth would be incapable of having religious views? If so, then you might be onto something, or you might not. I am reluctant to put any effort into analyzing which, though, until I know if that is even what you are trying to say.

Modifié par Pro_Consul, 05 février 2011 - 09:55 .