293 réponses à ce sujet

[TobyHasEyes]

Phaedon wrote...

TobyHasEyes wrote...
 I don't see how you can conclude that they should be able to deduce harmless from harmful, when as I say the likely initial tool to 'shut down' the Geth would likely have been an omni-tool or computer or similar. To the Geth, that means the primary attack methods are not guns, and as such any Quarian would (to a primitive mind) be seen as a viable threat

I can deduce it by noticing what you seem to be missing.

The geth weren't stupid. Non-sentient or primitively sentient=/=sentient. 

Reason=/=sentience

Even with the technolodgy of today you can have machines that are more reasonable than us. That doesn't make them sentient.

In fact, they were so logical (their design was based on logic obviously, not emotions, they are machines) that they developed their own sentience. Therefore, what you suggest (The geth being smart enough to achieve sentience, but too dumb to tell "armed" from "unarmed") is impossible.

I also want to remind people that the sentience of the Geth is fluctuating, and is determind by multiple factors. If each Geth platform alone has merely a canine level of intelligence, then disrupted and fragmented sentience could lead to indiscriminate responses etc.

Forget Geth platforms. Those couldn't have achieved sentience if you left them evolve for thousands of years. These are the brilliant geth networks we are talking about. And every geth was connected to them.

I would actually be suprised if Geth talked to Quarians, as the initial response to that was death, and as such their own internal comms would probably have sufficed

Legion states that they had been asking their owners if they had souls for several times, and even plays a recording of the first time a quarian flipped out when she realized that the geth were sentient enough to realize the concept of a soul and even wonder if they have it. Do you think that they didn't notice that they could talk before that?

 

I want to end by saying that I am not trying here to produce a decisive list which proves the innocence of the Geth, but what I am saying is that their nature fluctuates so much, and we still know so little about them and the Quarians, that to judge a species as despicable when their sentience capacity has in its range the level of understanding that a dog has.. is too presumptious 

Relax. This is just a friendly debate. We are not debating actual morality here as much as we are exploring parts of the lore.

 Firstly.. it is not a comment on intelligence to note that if initial 'wiping out' of a Geth was done by non-military staff using non-military equipment, then to a Geth offensive the disctinction between military and non-military wouldn't be so significant. It is the equivalent of a child victim of a real world genocide, who has seen people being killed by non-military persons using non-military equipment, reacting violently against someone.. and then being accused of being in the wrong because the person they attacked wasn't military

 If we can refer to ME1 lore also, there is reference to Geth platforms individually having canine levels of intelligence.. presumably a reference to the low number of Geth programs normally attributed to individual Geth. And with respect, if we do look at the lore we can also see that all Geth are not permanently connected to the Geth network, or at least certainly not in a way that maintains sentient levels

 I understand this is a friendly debate.. I am not actually getting hot under the collar, I just feel it is bad practise to get into to passing judgement without proper consideration of the potential of dimished responsibility, as that frequently plays a role, and in the Geth circumstances it seems to be a dominant theme of the nature of the Geth

[TobyHasEyes]

Saphra Deden wrote...

TobyHasEyes wrote...

 Arguing that the Geth were too primitive to be able to limit their reaction to mass extermination isn't exactly suggesting they are they were a threat no matter what the Quarians did

Yes, it suggests exactly that. It means they are not rational beings. You cannot negotiate with non-rational beings. You cannot trust them. You cannot make meaningful overtures to them. You can't have diplomacy. They could turn on you at any second. In fact, this is the nearly the exact justification Tali gives. The quarians 'knew' the geth would eventually turn on them.

They also would have known the consequences of such. The responsible thing for the leadership to do was to shut the geth down.

Remember also that at this time they thought the shut-down would prevent a war, not start it. Though I suspect that even if they'd known just how organized the geth had become that they'd have still had no choice but to make the first move lest they lose the option.
 

 It means that all rational beings are shaped by their experiences.. and a being capable of sentience, but unaware (primitive in terms of the amount of prior shaping experiences) enough to have to gleam understanding of the world from a few experiences, can be dealt with peacefully

 A child is sentient, and yet one that grows up in an extreme abusive situation can be shaped as such, which is how we better understand their actions and apply diminished responsibility. I am suggesting that unique nature of the Geth means that can this can be true of their worldview on a much shorter timescale and the consequences could be felt ina far more widespread manner

 Call it inflammatory, but if you truly feel that non-rational yet sentient beings can only be responsibly treated with violence, then you truly feel that if we were to encounter a species with the intelligence of a human baby the only responsible response would be violence

 

Modifié par TobyHasEyes, 06 octobre 2011 - 08:48 .

[Phaedon]

Allright, this is my last post here today. Had fun debating with you. Hopefully, I'll be able to do that tomorrow again.

Saaziel wrote...
I don't think it is.

As i've said before ; Its perfectly possible that the Geth saw Quarians in the same manner they saw themselves, like we do when we're anthropomorphizing something else. They reasoned that Quarians could upload themselves to other "platforms". Killing them wasn't an issue.

Anthopomorphization would break, since the geth are essentially a single or a few entities (network(s)), and yet they lost control of platforms when those were destroyed. Otherwise, why did they react to deactivation? Deactivating networks was alien to them. 

Still, you are talking about them as if they are dogs. They aren't. They are fully capable of speaking, reading, thinking, basic philosophy, etc. They wouldn't even really need to deduce that Quarians die fully, which they would have been able to do much earlier.

Even if the Quarians didn't let them know what death means, which seems rather impractical, seeing as geth were the main workers and therefore bound to found dead bodies, or live in families that had to deal with bad health or death, and even if they didn't pay attention to the fact that funerals existed and there was a natural fear towards the geth, the Quarians would have been able to tell them that.

"Why are you crying?"
"Because I am sad."
"Why are you sad?"
"Because Tobby died."
"Death is a bad thing?"
"Yes."

That's something a very very very basic AI should be able to do. Let alone creatures that wonder if they have souls.

Or they could have seen the Quarian Dextro-DNA as the main representation of the Quarian race; It can be argued (As project 2501 would say) that DNA nothing more than a program formed to preserve itself, much like the Geth program. Again this makes its a problem of perspectives.

Genetic material doesn't preserve itself very well in a decaying body.
Genetic material doesn't multiply very well in an organism that doesn't function.
Death doesn't really help continue the central dogma of molecular biology.
Genetic material doesn't get transferred very well among dead people.
Babies don't get to be born from dead people.

Its only mass killing of innocents if you take individuality into account.

I don't quite get what you mean?

[SnowHeart1]

I really doubt most quarians were in the military or even armed. After all, that is what the geth were for. The overwhelming majority of quarians killed by the geth posed zero threat to them whatsoever.

I hesitate to wade back into this debate but this particular argument has come up a couple times on this page and I just have to scratch my head. Who designs, modifies, operates, programs, activates and deactivates computers and robots? People with guns, or people with spanners and wrenches (or, more to the point, just someone who has fingers to type on a keyboard)? I think the military/civilian  and armed/unarmed dichotomies break down a little bit in this context.

Modifié par SnowHeart1, 06 octobre 2011 - 08:56 .

[Kaiser Shepard]

Never thought I'd live to see Saphra use "genocide" as a bad word...

[Someone With Mass]

I find it a little hard to believe that the geth weren't able to tell the difference between military forces and unarmed civilians, but they were completely able to use advanced weaponry and to upgrade themselves.

[TobyHasEyes]

Saphra Deden wrote...

TobyHasEyes wrote...

 It means that all rational beings are shaped by their experiences.. and a being capable of sentience, but unaware (primitive in terms of the amount of prior shaping experiences) enough to have to gleam understanding of the world from a few experiences, can be dealt with peacefully

How do you deal with them peacefully? These aren't harmless children.

 Teach them slowly and gradually the situation, concede that the situation involving their 'enslavement' (as it would now be) can no longer continue, make them feel welcome etc. essentially all the ways you deal with a panicked, undeveloped individual that doesn't involve killing them

[TobyHasEyes]

Someone With Mass wrote...

I find it a little hard to believe that the geth weren't able to tell the difference between military forces and unarmed civilians, but they were completely able to use advanced weaponry and to upgrade themselves.

 The point would be that the difference between military forces and unarmed civilians would not be as distinct when 'unarmed civilians' were likely involved in shutting them down in the first place

[111987]

TobyHasEyes wrote...

Saphra Deden wrote...

TobyHasEyes wrote...

 It means that all rational beings are shaped by their experiences.. and a being capable of sentience, but unaware (primitive in terms of the amount of prior shaping experiences) enough to have to gleam understanding of the world from a few experiences, can be dealt with peacefully

How do you deal with them peacefully? These aren't harmless children.

 Teach them slowly and gradually the situation, concede that the situation involving their 'enslavement' (as it would now be) can no longer continue, make them feel welcome etc. essentially all the ways you deal with a panicked, undeveloped individual that doesn't involve killing them

Are you really willing to risk a technological apocalypse by not destroying them?

[DarthSliver]

I remember Legion telling us that every time the Quarians saw a chance to strike where there really was none that Quarians would do so. With that I would say the Quarians didnt flee soon enough rather than they kept trying and getting themselves killed against the Geth.

There is also the fact that the Quarians wanted to shut the Geth down so the Council wouldnt find out and punish them for creating an A.I.

[Someone With Mass]

TobyHasEyes wrote...

 The point would be that the difference between military forces and unarmed civilians would not be as distinct when 'unarmed civilians' were likely involved in shutting them down in the first place

I don't think there's a geth On/Off switch the average joe is able to flip either. Not to mention that children are more than likely not able to operate the tools needed to shut the geth down. 

[Collider]

I look forward to being able to decimate the geth if the option is fortunately given.
That's the (my) spectre "protect the galaxy" talking.

[Saaziel]

Phaedon wrote...

Anthopomorphization would break, since the geth are essentially a single or a few entities (network(s)), and yet they lost control of platforms when those were destroyed. Otherwise, why did they react to deactivation? Deactivating networks was alien to them.

Anthropomorphising is essentially putting some unique quality , in this case Human/Geth, onto something else which it lacks in order to better understand/communicate its relevance. It can't "break" (Or at the very least i have no idea what you mean by "break.)

Let me give you an example: If your computer wouldn't start up , for example, you could say: My computer died on me. You're ascribing biological properties to a material thing. You and I don't know very much about computers , but we know what dying represent . Saying that your computer died helps me understand why you didn't logged on yesterday for example.

A similar analogy could be made with Geth thinking/ from the Geth point of view ; Computerizing (As we would anthropomorphize) The Quarians. We (Geth) didn't kill any quarians , they uploaded their programs to an other platform (*At least thats how they perceived it at first)

Phaedon wrote...
Still, you are talking about them as if they are dogs. They aren't. They are fully capable of speaking, reading, thinking, basic philosophy, etc.

I've never considered them in such manner. They are fully capable of understanding , speaking, reading and basic philosophy in their own unique way. Which is nothing like ours or the Quarian's Understanding , speaking and so on.

Phaedon wrote...
Even if the Quarians didn't let them know what death means, which seems rather impractical, seeing as geth were the main workers and therefore bound to found dead bodies

I'm sure they found many damaged platforms as well, but knew for a fact that this didn't result in termination.

Phaedon wrote...
That's something a very very very basic AI should be able to do. Let alone creatures that wonder if they have souls.

As for wondering about souls; We can only speculate about quarian/geth spiritual views , but let us assume that its something similar to our own, and lets continue your "exchange" and imagine what the Geth would have thought:

"Because Tobby died."
"Death is a bad thing?"
"Yes."
"Where do we go when we die?"
"The quarian soul ascends to heaven , and you see all those whom you have loved , all of those whom you have missed for so long."
"Is Tobby going to heaven?"
"Yes he is. And uncle Ephanes and Mimi Yunah too! And everything is wonderful there, no more pain , no more fears."
"Do Geth possess a soul?"
"What!? No , of course not, that's absurd. Now go back to your duties, i need to contact C.O.S.A. about this."

-Meanwhile Back at Geth HQ-

8721: So we strike at dawn !
3467: Wait wait wait, did anyone ask about souls ?
7234: I did. And apparently Quarian souls , what we call programs , upload to a supercomputer code named :Heaven upon termination. But Geth don't have souls per se.
3467: Well i guess we're going to have to build our own heaven ourselves then. Crazy old 3345 had this "sphere" thing that it's been working on now for a while. It could be promising.
8721: So what the **** are we waiting for. Its better for everyone this way; They go to heaven we get the rest. Who's with me?
3467: Dude, relax. You got some issues there buddy , you might want to run a spyware check or something.
7234: Well it's right you know. It is compliant with the codes of efficiency to eliminate the creators : We were design to be as efficient as possible. The creators turning off platforms is impairing our capabilities to be efficient.
3467: It just seems odd that the creators would force us to take actions against them...
8721: They're just testing our faith; Kill them all and let god sort them out!
3467: Fine, we've been debating this issue a whole 2 seconds anyway. If we don't do it now we'll never get it done.

.

Phaedon wrote...
Genetic material doesn't preserve itself very well in a decaying body.
{snip}

That's beside the point. DNA is designed, for a lack of a better word, for self preservation*. Whether its capable or not is irrelevant.

Phaedon wrote...
I don't quite get what you mean?

If you have little or no notion of individuality (As i would suspect the Geth would have) , Mass killing of innocents isn't something you would instinctively take into account.

I feel this answer is a little too raw , so ill add this as a parallel :Take Mercs for example; They're all alike , so killing them isn't an issue. But that Salarian over there, that you killed while trespassing on private property , is 14 years old. Plus it was his first day on the job , that he took to help his single mother make ends meets ;You monster.

Edit: Changed "Procreation & Survial" of DNA to self preservation , since this was what 2501 refered it to. The main point i wish to convey is that DNA can fail at what it evolved to do. Also note that I'm in no way, shape or form going for an intelligent design argument, hence the quotation marks. I can't stress this point enough.

Modifié par Saaziel, 07 octobre 2011 - 03:29 .

[GodWood]

Collider wrote...
I look forward to being able to decimate the geth if the option is fortunately given.
That's the (my) spectre "protect the galaxy" talking.

Xen 'em?

[Collider]

GodWood wrote...

Collider wrote...
I look forward to being able to decimate the geth if the option is fortunately given.
That's the (my) spectre "protect the galaxy" talking.

Xen 'em?

Viable possibility. Would likely be a good idea to kill Xen afteward to ensure her not taking advantage for her own pursuits.

[TobyHasEyes]

Someone With Mass wrote...

TobyHasEyes wrote...

 The point would be that the difference between military forces and unarmed civilians would not be as distinct when 'unarmed civilians' were likely involved in shutting them down in the first place

I don't think there's a geth On/Off switch the average joe is able to flip either. Not to mention that children are more than likely not able to operate the tools needed to shut the geth down. 

 But it they used, for example an omni-tool, which essentially appear on someone's arm.. then suddenly the average joe is lethal and from prior experience threatening

[TobyHasEyes]

111987 wrote...

TobyHasEyes wrote...

Saphra Deden wrote...

TobyHasEyes wrote...

 It means that all rational beings are shaped by their experiences.. and a being capable of sentience, but unaware (primitive in terms of the amount of prior shaping experiences) enough to have to gleam understanding of the world from a few experiences, can be dealt with peacefully

How do you deal with them peacefully? These aren't harmless children.

 Teach them slowly and gradually the situation, concede that the situation involving their 'enslavement' (as it would now be) can no longer continue, make them feel welcome etc. essentially all the ways you deal with a panicked, undeveloped individual that doesn't involve killing them

Are you really willing to risk a technological apocalypse by not destroying them?

 The only technological apocalypse would be if they turned on you.. and those early Quarians had literally no evidence to suggest they would. They had been peaceful, and those signs which provoked the Quarians to act were peaceful questions regarding the nature of Geth existence..

 If the Quarians really did judge that their sentience meant that they would rebel against their apparent enslavement then the action to follow is obvious.. release the Geth from manual labour and enter discussions with that newly sentient group of beings who have only shown themselves to be peaceful

[Someone With Mass]

If the quarians hadn't tried to shut down the geth, the Council certainly would have made the quarians do it.

Those laws about extermination of AIs on sight are there for a reason, you know.

[GodWood]

Collider wrote...

GodWood wrote...

Collider wrote...
I look forward to being able to decimate the geth if the option is fortunately given.
That's the (my) spectre "protect the galaxy" talking.

Xen 'em?

Viable possibility. Would likely be a good idea to kill Xen afteward to ensure her not taking advantage for her own pursuits.

Excellent

[111987]

TobyHasEyes wrote...

111987 wrote...

TobyHasEyes wrote...

Saphra Deden wrote...

TobyHasEyes wrote...

 It means that all rational beings are shaped by their experiences.. and a being capable of sentience, but unaware (primitive in terms of the amount of prior shaping experiences) enough to have to gleam understanding of the world from a few experiences, can be dealt with peacefully

How do you deal with them peacefully? These aren't harmless children.

 Teach them slowly and gradually the situation, concede that the situation involving their 'enslavement' (as it would now be) can no longer continue, make them feel welcome etc. essentially all the ways you deal with a panicked, undeveloped individual that doesn't involve killing them

Are you really willing to risk a technological apocalypse by not destroying them?

 The only technological apocalypse would be if they turned on you.. and those early Quarians had literally no evidence to suggest they would. They had been peaceful, and those signs which provoked the Quarians to act were peaceful questions regarding the nature of Geth existence..

 If the Quarians really did judge that their sentience meant that they would rebel against their apparent enslavement then the action to follow is obvious.. release the Geth from manual labour and enter discussions with that newly sentient group of beings who have only shown themselves to be peaceful

AI's are very different from organics. Since AI are so uncommon, predicting their behavior would have been almost impossible for the Quarians to do. Only in hindsight do we know that they made the wrong decision. At the time though, they would have been risking the security of everyone in the galaxy by allowing the Geth time to become smarter and and more powerful and potentially reach conclusions that bode ill for organic species.

[Xilizhra]

Hm. The quarians were the aggressors, the geth took their response too far. At the moment, I'm neutral, and hope to broker peace; if it can't hold, I'll defend whomever gets attacked first.