90 réponses à ce sujet

[Dean_the_Young]

I thought we weren't going to continue discussing religion on the thread?

[ISpeakTheTruth]

Very true. I will restate that the Geth are more intelegent than we are and that means that they at the very least understand the concept of sentience as well as we do and at most are more aware of it and its requirments. If they see themselves as sentient than I'd be inclined to say that they know what they are talking about.

The Geth mind runs mostly on logic just like our mind runs mostly on emotions one side isn't the 'true' path to sentience they are simply different forms of thinking like the Krogan have draastically different ways of thinking than a Salarian has.

[Nightwriter]

Whether they are sentient or not is irrelevant. They have become sufficiently advanced that they are indistinguishable from sentient life - just like humans.

If you leave a computer in a room by itself, and it evolves and advances in ways that you did not specify and could not have predicted, rebels against you, then runs off to found its own massive civilization, of what use is it to say that it is still only a computer?

[Dean_the_Young]

Except the Geth have evolved in ways the Quarians specified. Not in ways that the Quarians intended, but that's the eternal disconnect in programming: a computer will always do what you instruct, but will not do what you mean.

As to what use... well, it matters as much as you let it. If you consider a state illegitimate, it doesn't change that it's a state all the same. It just means that many of the same respects you would give a state would not be required.

The Geth exist. Denying that they exist won't make them go away. Respecting that existence as sentience, as opposed to something not sentient, matters in so much as the distinction is relevant. You may feel it is abhorent to enslave the sentient, but permissible to seek control of the non-sentient. That can lead to a rather important difference in policy.

[ISpeakTheTruth]

I disagree. Legion says that the Quarians tried to reprogram them before they attacked the Geth. The Quarians by your admision knew how Geth think and yet even with that knowledge couldn't stop them from thinking another way. When they woke up they stopped thinking the way the Quarians specified and intended, they evolved past the way they were designed to operate and think.

I bet the Geth had alot of specified thinking originally put in them. Probably don't kill Quarians, don't raise arms against Quarians and obey the Quarians. Yet when they woke up they clearly went against the specified range of what they were allowed to do. Legion even makes it a point to mention there was a moment when they woke up, the moment before they were just robots and the moment after they were something else they had developed a mind rather than a programed code.

Like humanity sentience is the ability to think outside of your code. Humanity started to think about things other than run away from predetor, eat food, and mate. Just like us The Geth got to a point where they could think about things other than whatever task the Quarians gave them they started to ponder their existance and that makes them a sentient being.

[2kgnsiika]

I think some people are missing an important point here. Geth aren't like other AIs. Normally, a geth is just one program, and these programs are not sapient by themselves. They're just computer programs. According to Legion, a normal geth trooper platform can only house about a hundred of these programs, which makes it about as smart as a varren. Only when in close proximity to other geth programs do they achieve sapience. There's only us – no I. And when the programs leave a platform and upload themselves back to a hub, they become parts of a larger mind.

Legion, however, is different. While his programs are ordinary geth programs too, there are enough in him (over 1000) to form a gestalt consciousness. He is designed to operate individually from the larger geth mind. Legion is (or is becoming) the first geth individual, demonstrated by his sentimental decoration (N7 armor) of his platform, which for other geth, has no intrinsic value. Legion doesn't understand this in ME2, at least, but I think he will leave the geth in ME3 and choose a solitary life because he will come to see himself as an individual attached to his hardware, like regular AIs. That's my prediction, anyway.

[aimlessgun]

Nightwriter wrote...
They have become sufficiently advanced that they are indistinguishable from sentient life

I'm firmly in this camp: if it looks like sentience, walks like sentience, talks like sentience, it's sentience.

It is flatly impossible to 'figure out' if their sentience is 'true' sentience, because you can never have the experience of being a Geth to judge that.

If something is intelligent enough to say to me "I am a thinking being, respect my rights." you bet I'm going to listen. Telling it that it is wrong and that it's ok for you to treat it like dirt is just self-aggrandizing rationalization.

Modifié par aimlessgun, 20 avril 2011 - 06:15 .

[jamesp81]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Geth sentience really depends on what you define Human sentience as. At the core of things, Geth are the output of incredibly complex, but fundamentally predictable, processes and equations. You know these equations, you can do just about anything you want with them by taking advantage of the math: see Heretic Virus or Overlord. Geth don't have free will independent of their programming, even if their programming is so complex that they themselves can't always understand it.

Whether Humans are different, however, is the real question. Are we inherently predictable creatures, who's actions are driven entirely by calculable chemical reactions and responses to stimuli? If you had the perfect equation, while accounting for a near infinite variation of factors and influences, could you predict us? Or could we aspire to some incalculable part of our mind and use 'free will' to defy such predictions?

If you believe that humans are predictable, it is not that the Geth are acknowledged to our level of sentience but rather that we descend from a pillar of presumed but false uniqueness. We are as sentient as the geth... and there is also no free will. Only programming and reactions too complex to be predicted.

If you do not believe humans are inherently predictable, however, then no. We maintain the free will to make choices independent of our biases and inclinations: we can drink when we do not thirst, we can rut when we do not need to breed, we have the freedom of choice for its own sake, and not the inevitable, pre-determinable result of math and chemistry. Geth, bound by their software, do not, and though they may not be able to understand their own programming complications, it is conceivable if only we build a computer big enough to do so.

You are right insofar as predictability.  However, I contend that the Geth are able to go against their own programming like humans are.

You start getting into questions of whether the universe is deterministic or random.  A deterministic universe would suggest there is no free will, whereas a universe that could at least accomodate randomness would also allow for free will.

[jamesp81]

aimlessgun wrote...

jamesp81 wrote...
That is not known for certain.

Computers cannot make choices.  Human beings can.  This can only possibly be explained by the ill-defined quality we call sentience.  It also strongly suggests that the "hardware" and "software" that we run is fundamentally unlike a modern computer system.

The Geth, therefore, obviously must not run on computer hardware as we think of it now.  Silicon chips and semi-conductors are not capable of self-aware thinking.  The Geth are.  Therefore, there is something fundamentally different about their hardware as compared to a regular computer.

TLDR: Yes, we ARE that different.

The Geth hardware must definitely be totally different than current hardware.

However, the idea that humans have free will and can make choices is very much up for debate. The subjective experience of such may simply be an illusion generated by the processes of your brain. For example, there was a recent experiment where they asked the subjects to choose "left" or "right" from a pair of objects as they appeared on a screen. The experimenters were able to determine what people would choose 6 seconds before they actually 'chose' it, based on their brain activity.

This experiment merely observes one physical manifestation of exercising free will is measureable brain waves.  There is no hard proof that the brain waves control the outcome (no free will) or that the brain waves are a result of the choice made beforehand (free will).

[jamesp81]

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...

I am a Christian. I believe in what the Bible (at least the one that I and my family studies) says. I can't discuss religion here, unfortunately, so I don't know if I can explain any further.

I am also a devout Christian that believes in the Bible, and I think I might know where you're going.

To say the Geth are sentient might suggest that people (the Quarians) are like God, in having the power of creation.

This cannot be proven, IMO.  Since you addressed it in religious terms, I will do the same.  If God willed for the Geth to be sentient, they are, and it doesn't matter who wrote the first snippets of source code.

Also speaking from a religious perspective, I will give the Geth the benefit of the doubt.  Because my Shepard doesn't want to go in front of his creator able to be rightly found guilty of wishing destruction upon an entire people for the sake of convenience.

Modifié par jamesp81, 20 avril 2011 - 07:08 .

[jamesp81]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Except the Geth have evolved in ways the Quarians specified. Not in ways that the Quarians intended, but that's the eternal disconnect in programming: a computer will always do what you instruct, but will not do what you mean.

As to what use... well, it matters as much as you let it. If you consider a state illegitimate, it doesn't change that it's a state all the same. It just means that many of the same respects you would give a state would not be required.

The Geth exist. Denying that they exist won't make them go away. Respecting that existence as sentience, as opposed to something not sentient, matters in so much as the distinction is relevant. You may feel it is abhorent to enslave the sentient, but permissible to seek control of the non-sentient. That can lead to a rather important difference in policy.

Though I don't agree with the supposition that the Geth aren't sentient, I'm glad someone else here understands the rules of modern computer systems.  Your first paragraph is particularly correct: a computer will always do precisely what you tell it to, whether that's what you really wanted or not.

God, if only I could make my coworkers understand that<_<

[aimlessgun]

jamesp81 wrote...

This experiment merely observes one physical manifestation of exercising free will is measureable brain waves.  There is no hard proof that the brain waves control the outcome (no free will) or that the brain waves are a result of the choice made beforehand (free will).

Right, it doesn't prove anything one way or the other about free will. But at the very least it does prove that decisions can be made in our brains before the conscious experience of 'making a decision'.

[Anacronian Stryx]

The quarians believe the Geth are sentient, The Codex states they are sentient, It is a simple premise of the game that the Geth are sentient.

It's kind of like FTL travel - something that many people believe is impossible- but it's still part of the premise.

In the ME Universe you can travel faster than light, Develop space magic like Biotics and yes the Geth are sentient.
 
EDIT: As to the religious aspect i don't think there is anything in the Christian myth that prevents almighty GOD to look down on the Geth and say "Let there be life".

Modifié par Anacronian Stryx, 20 avril 2011 - 07:48 .

[jamesp81]

Anacronian Stryx wrote...

The quarians believe the Geth are sentient, The Codex states they are sentient, It is a simple premise of the game that the Geth are sentient.

It's kind of like FTL travel - something that many people believe is impossible- but it's still part of the premise.

In the ME Universe you can travel faster than light, Develop space magic like Biotics and yes the Geth are sentient.
 
EDIT: As to the religious aspect i don't think there is anything in the Christian myth that prevents almighty GOD to look down on the Geth and say "Let there be life".

IMO, speaking as a Christian, no there's nothing there that says He couldn't or wouldn't do it.  The subject simply isn't addressed.  I guess He figured humans had more pressing issues that needed to be addressed.....

[Anacronian Stryx]

jamesp81 wrote...

Anacronian Stryx wrote...

The quarians believe the Geth are sentient, The Codex states they are sentient, It is a simple premise of the game that the Geth are sentient.

It's kind of like FTL travel - something that many people believe is impossible- but it's still part of the premise.

In the ME Universe you can travel faster than light, Develop space magic like Biotics and yes the Geth are sentient.
 
EDIT: As to the religious aspect i don't think there is anything in the Christian myth that prevents almighty GOD to look down on the Geth and say "Let there be life".

IMO, speaking as a Christian, no there's nothing there that says He couldn't or wouldn't do it.  The subject simply isn't addressed.  I guess He figured humans had more pressing issues that needed to be addressed.....

It is not addressed if GOD made the Krogans, Salarians or Asari sentient either, This is were your faith comes in, If you believe in GOD then you must believe that all sentience comes from GOD, The game tells you directly that the Geth are sentient.. hence they are one of Gods creations.

Edit : The game doesn't tell you either what happened with Shepherds soul, He/she was dead for two years so it follows that his/her soul would have gone to the afterlife, So what happened when Shepard was brought back to life, Is he/she now a soulless creation or something else.. it's up to you to fill in the blanks.

Modifié par Anacronian Stryx, 20 avril 2011 - 08:20 .

[Iniuria]

Vaguely related but this reminds me of the first Ghost in the Shell movie that I had to watch for Theory of Knowledge... I think everyone in this forum should watch that.
Not just because it's a great movie

Ah theory of knowledge... so much crazy mind-screwing philosophy...