695 réponses à ce sujet

[Lugaidster]

Let me start by saying that I'm not here to defend the ending, I believe that it could have been handled way better, but I've seen way too many times people disregarding the Reapers purpouse because it's circular logic. Commonly going to this meme:



However, I believe that the conclusion everyone's making is false. The reason for that is that the catalyst isn't killing organic life to stop synthetics killing organic life. That's an oversimplification. It's killing some organic life to prevent synthetics to kill all organic life. That premise might be wrong, but it's not a logical fallacy as there's no contradiction.

The best analogy I can come up with is prunning trees. When the trees are growing, sometimes the best way to ensure proper growing is by pruning it (ie, killing some branches) instead of leaving the tree to die because some branches take all the food killing all the otherones. (This does happen in some fruit trees and you have to prune it to ensure that all fruits are good).

Again, I'm not defending the ending nor am I defending the motive of the reapers, but it's completely a different thing to call it stupid logic when it's not. It's arguable, but certainly not stupid.

Edit:

I'm going to ellaborate a little more as people seem to keep getting the wrong idea.

Everyone thinks the Catalyst is stupid because his premises are false, those being:

(a) Organic civilizations will eventually create synthetics
( The created will always rebel against their creators wiping *all* organic life in the process.

From then, he elaborates that this poses a problem, which becomes apparent because of the second premise, thus, he presents his solution:

© The reapers will come every so often to harvest and store advanced civilizations in reaper form leaving primitive organics alone.

Whether or not you believe that the premises are true or false, that conclusion is a logical product of those premises. As such, you can at most regard the reaper as crazy, not stupid. That is because of how logic works. The only way for the reasoning of the Catalyst to be invalid is that both premises be true and the conclusion be false. But that's simply not possible because the conclusion is a correct product of the premises. It's not the only product of the premises, it's just correct. One example of this:

(1) 1 + 1 = 3
(2) 1 + 3 = 4
Therefore (=>)
(3) 1 + 1 + 1 = 4

The conclusion on it's own is wrong, but it is a valid product of the premises. As such, it is correct to assume that the logic reasoning behind that conclusion is correct, and even sound if you can accept the premises as valid:

T => T = T
F => T = T
F => F = T
T => F = F (this is the only case of invalid reasoning)

So going back to the reaper cases, the only way for the reaper to be stupid is that his premises are both true and his conclusion is false or incorrect based on the premises:

(a) and ( => ©

Making a truth table, the only possible way that is invalid is in this cases:

(a) = T, ( = T, © = F

All the other cases will yield valid and correct logical reasoning. 

This is not to say I agree with the Catalyst's conclusion. Let's go back to the example I made for one second:

(1) 1 + 1 = 3
(2) 1 + 3 = 4
Therefore (=>)
(3) 1 + 1 + 1 = 4 

Given the premises, (3) is a correct conclusion, but not the only one:

(4) 1 + 1 + 1 = 1 + 3, (5) 4 - 1 = 3

As you can see, (4) and (5) are also a fair conclusion. The example may seem simplistic, but it goes to show that there are many ways to arrive to a correct conclusion. Which means that the solution for the "problem" the reapers have may have more. 

You may regard the reaper as crazy, because his premises may be false to you, but crazy and stupid are not interchangeable. Trying to convince him that he's wrong is aking to proving those premises as false, which is impossible. It is worded in such a way that the only real solution to the reapers is destroying them or removing their sentient ability. Besides, he wouldn't be a very convincing antagonist if you agreed with him.

More Information, that adds to the discussion at hand:

taelus.calimshan wrote...

Maybe I can help some with this:

Assume a situation where you have three statements, A, B, and C. A conclusion based on a premise is the idea that if A and B are true, then C is also true. Circular logic states that if A and B are true, C is true, and if C is true, it forces A, B, or both to be true. Thus "circular". The OP is saying that the Star Child's conclusion, C, does not affect or drive A and/or B so the logic is not circular.

The OP is not saying anything about parts A and B, which is where most people are taking issue. The arguments being posed are that his premise A ("The created always rebel against the creators") has fault. That can be true, but it doesn't change the correctness of the logic of the Star Child because the Star Child is assuming A and B to be true.

On another note, because of the nature of the statements about wiping out all organic life (which I'll call condition , the premises are inarguable. It can neither be proven nor disproven, and so drawing conclusions from it is equally invalid, but it's being done anyway in this case. Again, that doesn't make the Star Child's conclusion incorrect given the assumed data, it just makes the assumed data suspect.

Hope that helps, but I realize it probably doesn't :-)

 

PS: I'll insist, this post is *not* a defense of the ending of the game. I believe the theme to be good one but the execution to be horrible. Of the new proposed solutions the only real ones (to me) are Destroy and Control, the former of which as attached to a pointless (to me) clause which is destroying current synthetics altogether. But the endings discussion can be aborded on another thread.

Modifié par Lugaidster, 26 mars 2012 - 04:20 .

[Draconis6666]

The problem is that its a rediculous solution anyway, if the purpose is to preserve organic life you should cull all synthetic life not the other way around, so your right its not circular logic, its not even logic its just blatant stupidity.

Modifié par Draconis6666, 26 mars 2012 - 01:54 .

[Unit-Alpha]

Yeah, why not decimate synthetics? Especially if they are the reason organics are going to die, not the other way around.

Modifié par Unit-Alpha, 26 mars 2012 - 01:55 .

[2484Stryker]

You're right. Although I could make the argument that all life capable of developing civilizations do end up being killed by the Reapers. It's just a matter of time. Obviously the Catalyst is also speaking of lower lifeforms...yes?

[sistersafetypin]

Draconis6666 wrote...

The problem is that its a rediculous solution anyway, if the purpose is to preserve organic life you should cull all synthetic life not the other way around, so your right its not circular logic, its not even logic its just blatant stupidity.

No matter how you slice it, it doesn't make sense. I mean you could just as easily say... "We realized that all Organic life eventually goes to war and causes death so we decided to kill off organics entirely every 50,000 years."

Modifié par sistersafetypin, 26 mars 2012 - 01:56 .

[FoxShadowblade]

I think you might be killed by your sibling, it's happened before. So I'm going to kill you so you don't get killed by your sibling.

I don't even call it logic, the starchild is just stupid.

[Admiral H. Cain]

Except that he does use circular logic.

He created advanced synthetics to kill advanced organics, so that the advanced organics wouldn't create synthetics which would then kill all organics.

I'm failing to see a connection between "pruning trees" and committing genocide over and over and over, but maybe that's just me.

[Sangheili_1337]

It doesn't have to be circular logic in order for the catalyst's premise to make zero sense.

[The Angry One]

It *is* circular logic, that the Reapers don't exterminate all organic life themselves is irrelevant, especially since *no synthetic ever has*.

[cavs25]

what i was going to say was already said...sooo yep star child is dumb

[Cosmar]

If the Starchild were to offer up proof that he was right, maybe I'd be somewhat more ok with that. But as it is he just says it bluntly, when, so far, in this cycle, nothing has happened to prove him right.

The geth NEVER wanted to go to war with anyone *until* Sovereign started messing with them.

Without proof that his unfair blanket statement is correct, I just couldn't swallow it.

[ediskrad327]

yet they leave the geth intact

[rowan93]

I think in a way it makes sense. Kill the top tier races so they can't develop true ai so that ai won't become rampant and threaten ALL life. Sure the geth are ok now, but what about in a million years, things could change, and they could threaten everything in the galaxy.

I don't think it was explained very well, and the star kid conversation should have had some investigate options.

[2484Stryker]

Admiral H. Cain wrote...

Except that he does use circular logic.

He created advanced synthetics to kill advanced organics, so that the advanced organics wouldn't create synthetics which would then kill all organics.

I'm failing to see a connection between "pruning trees" and committing genocide over and over and over, but maybe that's just me.

lol He said it was logical, but obviously it's also extremely irrational.  And it truly isn't circular logic: if the Reapers wiped out all life just so that synthetics couldn't be created and in turn wipe out all life, then THAT would be circular logic.

Again, I think the OP isn't arguing in favor of the Catalyst's logic, he's merely clarifying it.

[Admiral H. Cain]

From the link in my signature:

"Now throughout Mass Effect 3 there are plenty of mentions about the Catalyst, it’s the whole focus of the game, but never, never, was it foreshadowed as being some all-powerful Super AI. And even if Bioware had spent the entire game foreshadowing that fact, it still wouldn’t make up for the fact that the appearance of this character completely screws the rest of the preceding Mass Effect games by opening up plot holes so huge that they could be classified as quantum singularities. For instance, the Catalyst claims that the Reapers are his solution. So then why, in Mass Effect 1, did the Catalyst not simply call the Reapers himself? Why did Sovereign need to do it himself? In fact why was Sovereign even still in the Milky Way when the Catalyst could simply have monitored organic life himself and summoned the Reapers. Why did the Catalyst allow the Protheans to reprogram the Keepers?

You see, the existence of this Catalyst renders not only the entire ending of the game as pointless and confusing, but retroactively does the same thing to everything that’s come before. And I remind you, that this is in the final few moments of the game, on the Dramatic Arc I showed you, this is the Resolution. Bioware was supposed to be tying up loose ends here, resolving plot points and character arcs, not creating all new ones in the final few seconds. I’ve never seen a good story that managed to incorporate a last minute change like this and still be good. Even stories with twist endings, like The Usual Suspects and The Sixth Sense all foreshadow the twist in subtle ways so that when the twist comes we can look back and say “Oh yeah, now it all makes sense” rather than “that was such bull****”. Just ask M Night Shyamalan what happens when you use twist endings without any previous foreshadowing.

I think the absolute worst part of the Catalyst is that it completely destroys the menace of the Reapers.

“You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it.”

That is such a perfect line. It delivers so much menace in just 14 words…a single sentence. It sets the stakes for the protagonist, grants the villain a perfectly ominous entrance, and delivers real emotional weight to the situation. That is the kind of beautifully simplistic, yet artfully delivered line I hope I can come up with in one of my own stories someday. But enough fawning over that, the point is, the Reapers were damn good villains. In Mass Effect 1, Sovereign says “Each of us is a nation.” They are so far above us that it was frightening, the fact we didn’t know why the Reapers were exterminating advanced organic life every 50,000 years is what made it so scary. That was what made them a good villain. They were unknowable. And nobody was asking to know them. That was a question we absolutely didn’t need to know the answer to.

But then the AI God comes along and basically reveals they are the Terminators to his Skynet.

Not only does this entire scene completely discredit Shepard as a character, but it also represents a jarring shift in theme. The Mass Effect series explores several key themes: The attempts to stop the Reapers, a seemingly unstoppable force brought into play the idea of Self Determination vs Fate. Encounters with artificial life forms like Sentient AI’s and the synthetic Geth bring the question what constitutes life? Is life merely the end result of evolutionary forces, or is it a state of mind and being? Can Synthetic and Organic life coexist peacefully?

But the biggest one of all, is the idea that it is our differences that make us strong. This is what all three games explored, in one way or another. Mass Effect 1 was about getting the galaxy at large to recognize Humanity’s worth, to put aside their distrust of a new species, and in the end work together to stop Sovereign. ME2 had the player running around recruiting people of various races, beliefs and backgrounds, and to get those people to work together as a team. Finally this theme reached a galactic scale in ME3, as the player was tasked with creating a multiracial coalition to fight the Reapers and to put aside old grievances and suspicions, and work together for a common good. And in these horrible, final moments of Mass Effect 3, this key theme is brutally murdered, tossed into a woodchipper, and then fed to the hogs. I’m going to spare you the obtuse, over-wrought dialogue that the AI God spews, and just give you a brief rundown of what he says:

Yes, as stupid as it sounds, this is what the supposedly hyper-intelligent AI tells Shepard. According to the literal Deus Ex Machina we meet, he created the Reapers, a species of Synthetic life forms, to destroy all organic life every 50,000 years to prevent organics from creating synthetic life that will eventually kill organics. What kind of circular ****ing logic is that? Is this AI stuck in some kind of feedback loop? It’s so impenetrably convoluted that it defies all attempts to try and rationalize it, so you know what? I’m not even going to try, I’m just going to let it sit there like the failure of basic human reasoning that it is, and let it think about what its done.

And the stupidity just keeps snowballing as he presents us with three options:

1) Control the Reapers – The theme of Self Determination goes right out the window as we forcibly take control of a sentient species. Sure, they’re trying to kill us but it would have been nice to at least debate the merits here.

2)Merge Organic and Synthetic life - Remember the whole Strength through Diversity theme? This completely obliterates that by stating the only way to achieve lasting piece is to make everyone the same. Really? That’s what you think will achieve peace? I seem to remember another guy who had similar ideas. This is not only the most offensive option, but the one that makes the least sense. How exactly does this fusion take place? Why does Shepard need to die to activate it? Why is this horrible idea, akin to genocide, presented as the best possible option (it requires a 100% playthrough to get)?

3)Destroy the Reapers, but in doing so extinguish all Synthetic Life (including the Geth, your allies) – Of all the crappy options, this is the one that makes the most sense, in the same kind of way poking out one eye with a stick instead of both makes sense. So, we destroy the Reapers, and all Synthetic Life…but at least that makes some kind of sense, because killing the Reapers has always been the goal, and Shepard has been willing to sacrifice a lot to see it come to fruition. That’s his character.

A character that is viciously torn apart in the final moments of the game. Even though the players control Shepard, there are certain inalienable qualities to his character that are present whether the player chooses Paragon or Renegade options. Shepard has continually being going against all odds, succeeding where everyone expected failure. If someone told Shepard there were no options, he/she made their own god damn options. Throughout ME 1, everyone in a position of power insists that the Reapers are a myth, and that Shepard should ignore it. In ME2, he’s told his mission to stop the collectors is a suicide mission, and that no one will return. ME3 sees Shepard confronted with the very real possibility that nothing he does will be able to stop the Reapers as he watches them lay waste to Thessia. Yet in all these instances, he finds a way to persevere, to find new options, or to die in the attempt. He never, never accepts the inevitable nor does he simply accept what people tell him as the truth, especially when the galaxy is at stake.

Yet now Shepard goes completely against his character and accepts everything the AI is telling him, despite the mind boggling circular logic he employs. Shepard doesn’t look for another option, or even ask a single solitary question. I mean, not only is this against his character, it’s against human nature. If some mystical god thing landed in your backyard, said you have three options to make the world a better place, but you have to die to make it happen our first instinct would be to say: “Wait…what was that last part?” I mean sure, many of us would be willing to make the sacrifice if necessary, but I think we’d all want to know why we had to die before we did it. Apparently not Shepard, he just can’t wait to throw himself into an abyss:"

[Grellow]

ediskrad327 wrote...

yet they leave the geth intact

Well synthetics aren't going to make organics to kill all syntheyics.

[yllamana]

FoxShadowblade wrote...

I think you might be killed by your sibling, it's happened before. So I'm going to kill you so you don't get killed by your sibling.

I don't even call it logic, the starchild is just stupid.

It's not saying that at all. It's saying that if you reach puberty then you'll destroy all life, everywhere, forever. So it's going to kill you before then so that others will be able to go through childhood. If it doesn't then everyone in the galaxy will be dead and nobody will have a childhood ever again.

[Unit-Alpha]

rowan93 wrote...

I think in a way it makes sense. Kill the top tier races so they can't develop true ai so that ai won't become rampant and threaten ALL life. Sure the geth are ok now, but what about in a million years, things could change, and they could threaten everything in the galaxy.

I don't think it was explained very well, and the star kid conversation should have had some investigate options.

But why not just take out synthetic life?

It's easier: computer viruses and such.
Fewer possible problematic outcomes: synthetics are easier to predict.
Cleaner
Etc.

[The Angry One]

ediskrad327 wrote...

yet they leave the geth intact

And upgrade them.

Think about it for a second. Here are the Reapers. They fear the technological singularity. They think AI will grow out of control to the point that even they will be surpassed.
So let's give the Geth Reaper code, uplift them to Reaper level then let them run around unchecked! Nothing can go wrong with this plan!

[JulienJaden]

It may be oversimplifying it but it is sufficiently accurate in describing the ridiculous nature of the "solution". If the Reapers simply were there, all the time, as watchful guardians nobody can communicate with that go and eliminate any self-aware synthetic and the race that invents them, that would be an explanation one could use.

But they hide for 50.000 years at a time, then come back and kill every advanced race. It's stupid. It is a stupid explanation. Reproduction, self-preservation or something like that would have made SO MUCH MORE sense because that would make Sovereign's statement of them being "incomprehensible" sound like arrogance (which, one could argue, can come with self-awareness and, well, wiping species from the face of the galaxy for a couple million years). As it stands, it makes his statement sound like utter stupidity because the Catalyst explains it in one sentence and it is comprehensible, it just doesn't make any sense, neither for an organic, nor in terms of efficiency (which, I guess, is what a machine would go for).

[sistersafetypin]

Can't fix stupid. I forget which comedian says that... But it applies here

[ediskrad327]

The Angry One wrote...

ediskrad327 wrote...

yet they leave the geth intact

And upgrade them.

Think about it for a second. Here are the Reapers. They fear the technological singularity. They think AI will grow out of control to the point that even they will be surpassed.
So let's give the Geth Reaper code, uplift them to Reaper level then let them run around unchecked! Nothing can go wrong with this plan!

man i hate the starchild so much >_<

[Admiral H. Cain]

2484Stryker wrote...

Admiral H. Cain wrote...

Except that he does use circular logic.

He created advanced synthetics to kill advanced organics, so that the advanced organics wouldn't create synthetics which would then kill all organics.

I'm failing to see a connection between "pruning trees" and committing genocide over and over and over, but maybe that's just me.

lol He said it was logical, but obviously it's also extremely irrational.  And it truly isn't circular logic: if the Reapers wiped out all life just so that synthetics couldn't be created and in turn wipe out all life, then THAT would be circular logic.

Again, I think the OP isn't arguing in favor of the Catalyst's logic, he's merely clarifying it.

Is there a difference between all life and some life in this circumstance? He's still using synthetics to kill organics to prevent them from being killed by synthetics, right?

Modifié par Admiral H. Cain, 26 mars 2012 - 02:03 .

[CaptainZaysh]

 

[SnakeStrike8]

Lugaidster wrote...

The best analogy I can come up with is prunning trees. When the trees are growing, sometimes the best way to ensure proper growing is by pruning it (ie, killing some branches) instead of leaving the tree to die because some branches take all the food killing all the otherones. (This does happen in some fruit trees and you have to prune it to ensure that all fruits are good).

This would hold up ordinarily, but the Reapers aren't killing 'some' humans or 'some' turians. They're killing all humans and all turians, and they do this so that the geth won't kill us first. In essence, the Reapers are racing to Reap us all before the 'other' synthetics slot us.
To use your own analogy, the situation is akin to a gardener coming up on a lawn of grass that has rose bushes growing on it. The gardener decides that because the roses have thorns, they have the capacity to threaten the growth of the grass. So he decides to torch the entire lawn with white phosphorous and napalm and hope that some seeds survive to grow later.
Instead of, y'know, just removing the rose bushes.