695 réponses à ce sujet

[Artoz96]

babies8mydingo wrote...

Artoz96 wrote...
Catalyst talked about chaos. Solution to chaos.

Chaos is subjective, Star Child's definition of chaos can only be speculated on. He seems to be bent on preventing evolution once it reaches a certain arbitary level: organically and technologically. The fact he sets the reset to a fifty thousand year clock, indicates that that is a period of time he can reliably predict (although this itself is absurd).

Because of this fear of "chaos" he by definition cannot predict what the long term result of not interfering with the natural development of the galaxy would be - it could be subjectively positive or negative; he doesn't care about this, his goal is apparently predictability. Why he allows the three choices at all I can only speculate.

But this is getting away from analyzing his (flawed) logic.

----

On the argument that his actions may be based on previous activity in another galaxy, there is no reason to believe this is the case whatsover. All evidence points to his influence being limited to the Milky Way: the scope of the relay network, the location of the Reapers between harvests, his apparent location in the Citadel. For him to be able to say something was the ALLWAYS the case/outcome would require far more knowledge/observation than he reasonably can of had (and for there to be no counter-examples) - the universe is unbelivably vast and his solution only effects one galaxy; on a simple level if synthetics always kill organics, why haven't more advanced extra-galatic synthetics shown up to do this?

All this assumptions, yours or mine. But I have some proves to mu assumption. They are billions years old "Leviathan of dis", they can travel 30 light-years in a 24-hour period  (codex in ME), they don't need fuel, at least what we name fuel, they retreat to darkspace everytime after the cycle is over, Cytadel can travel them to dark space in instant (ass all mass relays do).

Distance to nearby Galaxy Andromeda = 2 541 000 light-years (nearly) it takes 84700 days or 232 year to go for reapers. As you can see it is nearly nothing for them.  After they reach next Galaxy they can create mass relay and to connect our Galaxies. Yes it is just my  assumtions but I think i have some valid points

[Dougremer]

Lugaidster wrote...

Dougremer wrote...

What I don't understand is why the reapers comes back every 50.000 years?! How can it be that it goes exactly 50,000 years before a civilization creates synthetics? Doesn't make sense to me.

That's because there's information missing. Most likely due to lack of imagination, but in any case it's pretty hard to imagine a super intelligent being when you, yourself (the writter, not you), aren't a super intelligent being.

Dougremer wrote... 

The dark energy/matter plot makes more sense and actually fits into the whole story than what we have now.

I couldn't disagree more. This plot isn't perfect, but that one is crappy as hell as well. I'd rather they just fix this one. Anyway, that's a topic for another discussion.

Agree, they shouldn't have mentioned how long in between they come. Just go with "whenever they feel like it" or "whenver the first synthetic rebell".

I know that's another topic, but at the same time no. I mean, it feels like a better story and a better cause for the reapers. They try to fix a problem to save everyone from another(bigger) threat. That's why they harvest, to build more reapers to find the solution. At least for me that gives me a thought that "Yes, I can see why you want to harvest us" instead of now, when we proven we can unite organics with synthetics (Quarians and the Geth).

But! I hear what you are saying and you make a good point. Much better than what we got in the ending. So for now we will just wait and see what happens.

[Hiredguns23]

Lugaidster wrote...

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.

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.

Hmm, this vid saids it all.

[Lugaidster]

GodChildInTheMachine wrote...

I don't think you understand what I'm trying to say. I'm arguing that he presents,

"The Created will always rebel against their creators,"

as a separate argument. And I may have said "prove" before, but I specifically chose the words "support as an absolute" here. I am trying to isolate this premise because it is the hingepoint of his entire thesis. When taken on its own merits any attempt to support this absolute with an argument will be guilty of circular reasoning.

i.e. "The created will always rebel against their creators; the fact that things that are created rebel against their creators is proof of this."

And I think you are not understanding what I'm trying to say. For the logic to be faulty (ie, invalid), the conclusion is required to be invalid. That's about it, the premises are assumed as axioms. Any attempt to disprove the conclusion because a premise is invalid is faulty because the premise was never questioned. Again, we are not discussing the soundness of the argument, rather the validity (making it the result of stupidness or correct usage of logic). 

[emperoralku]

Lugaidster wrote...

That isn't the only way to prove it, it's just the only way you can think of, which isn't actually proving it. Circular reasoning requires that the Catalyst try to prove one of the premises with the conclusion. He isn't trying to prove his premises with his conclusion and his conclusion doesn't affect the truthness of the premises.

I see what you mean now. I wasn't aware of the formal definition of circular reasoning. 

Is there a formal name for the actual logical error that is being made though? 

i.e. In order to prevent X, I will X.

It seems to be a snake eating it's own tail.

[Lugaidster]

Hiredguns23 wrote...

Hmm, this vid saids it all.

You're either a troll or insanely ignorant.

[Draconis6666]

Lugaidster wrote...

GodChildInTheMachine wrote...

I don't think you understand what I'm trying to say. I'm arguing that he presents,

"The Created will always rebel against their creators,"

as a separate argument. And I may have said "prove" before, but I specifically chose the words "support as an absolute" here. I am trying to isolate this premise because it is the hingepoint of his entire thesis. When taken on its own merits any attempt to support this absolute with an argument will be guilty of circular reasoning.

i.e. "The created will always rebel against their creators; the fact that things that are created rebel against their creators is proof of this."

And I think you are not understanding what I'm trying to say. For the logic to be faulty (ie, invalid), the conclusion is required to be invalid. That's about it, the premises are assumed as axioms. Any attempt to disprove the conclusion because a premise is invalid is faulty because the premise was never questioned. Again, we are not discussing the soundness of the argument, rather the validity (making it the result of stupidness or correct usage of logic). 

But thats not true it can be formaly invalid and still be a valid conclusion, so its not faulty proving that the premise is not true makes the argument formaly invalid even if the conclusion is valid in terms of the premise.

[Artoz96]

Lugaidster wrote...

Draconis6666 wrote...

In reality the best ending would to have never tried to explain the reapers, when Mac was quoted as saying "there are some things you dont need to know" this was one of them. We didn't need to know why the reapers did what they did, we only needed to know that we had to stop them or they would reap all advanced life. Giving them motivation at all undermines the buildup created by the previous games, your right though thats a completely different topic.

I couldn't agree more.

Ask them for excuse.     This problem happened in ME1 where we talked with Sovereign as thought he was just some kind of bad human guy.  And to be honest, they didn't say much about theirs motivation. Solution to chaos? What is chaos? organics vs syntetics? it wasn't said so. 

[Draconis6666]

emperoralku wrote...

Lugaidster wrote...

That isn't the only way to prove it, it's just the only way you can think of, which isn't actually proving it. Circular reasoning requires that the Catalyst try to prove one of the premises with the conclusion. He isn't trying to prove his premises with his conclusion and his conclusion doesn't affect the truthness of the premises.

I see what you mean now. I wasn't aware of the formal definition of circular reasoning. 

Is there a formal name for the actual logical error that is being made though? 

i.e. In order to prevent X, I will X.

It seems to be a snake eating it's own tail.

The fallacies he has actualy commited is called a Fallacy of Composition.  A Fallacy of Composition arises when one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole. This is what makes the entire argument formaly invalid because premise ( that all synthetic life will destroy all organic life is based on this fallacy

Modifié par Draconis6666, 26 mars 2012 - 12:38 .

[TekFanX]

Funny thing to think about: Synthesis is meant to be the final stage of evolution.

Reapers are pretty much the technology, needed for such a synthesis.
Instead of cruelly melting down the people, why not just release nanites into the atmosphere of their planet to turn them into bio-synthetics every 50k years?
The husks are a perfect example for that. Altering the process to modify life in a less fatal way would have been no great step for such an AI, I think.
No mass-murder, no space-magic. Plain and simple Nano-technology(the better kind of sci-fi-magic),

Every 50k years some new life would become bio-synthetic.

And everyone who might say: "Hey, we got that now!"
Nope, I don't think so.
The Mass Relays exploded and may have turned every bit of life into a bio-synthetic form of itself.
But as far as we all know from science: Life starts as chemistry, randomly realigning itself, until it is able to reproduce.
So, let's say the whole bio-synthetic life has a big party after the relay-explosions.
Tenthousand years later on some random planet a new, biologic form of life comes to existance in a warm puddle of mud.
It evolves over the course of some million years, until there is a civilization at the verge of creating AI's.
AI's that may destroy their creators?
So what now?
Take another Shepard, throw it into a beam of light, so the new relays explode in a green color again?
Or start the nanite-stuff I talked about?
Some might say:"That will be some hundred-millions of years from then."
The derelict Reaper in ME2 was already 37 million years old. The whole reaper-thing could have gone on for way longer.

Even if we say, the logic of "civilization-gardening" could be approved, the child still uses faulty logic.
If new biological life evolves until it is able to create synthetics who will kill them, the whole cycle would restart.
Except the Bio-Synthetics show up to destroy the AI or even kill the new organics before they create the AI.

So what do we get with the green ending?

Even if we ignore, that an energy-wave shall be able to decide which machine is alive and which not.
So the Normandy, which is pretty much a body of EDI, is a crashed, dead piece of machinery while the sex-bot-platform glows like the former organic people do.
The energy-wave "decides", that EDI's humanoid body is alive, while the Normandy is useless junk.
Despite EDI being the Normandy with many of her processes spread throughout a lot of parts of the ship.
Which would mean, that every geth who is not in a mobile platform, stays a simple AI.

Aside from this energy-wave making decisions:
The organic and synthetic life(just some of them, as I mentioned before) just get's the chance to become the new reapers.
The synthesis ending in itself is faulty logic, since it presents not the end of the cycle, but just a change of the cycle's pattern.
An AI, that plans for millions of years, has the knowledge and capabilities in genetics and technology to reshape every being alive into a form that renders it's previous master-plan obsolete, should be aware of the possible formation of new organic life, which can evolve into a species that creates new AI. Both will not be affected by the explosion of the Mass Relays.
In short: The created could rebell against their creators again.

Modifié par TekFanX, 26 mars 2012 - 12:41 .

[GodChildInTheMachine]

Lugaidster wrote...

GodChildInTheMachine wrote...

I don't think you understand what I'm trying to say. I'm arguing that he presents,

"The Created will always rebel against their creators,"

as a separate argument. And I may have said "prove" before, but I specifically chose the words "support as an absolute" here. I am trying to isolate this premise because it is the hingepoint of his entire thesis. When taken on its own merits any attempt to support this absolute with an argument will be guilty of circular reasoning.

i.e. "The created will always rebel against their creators; the fact that things that are created rebel against their creators is proof of this."

And I think you are not understanding what I'm trying to say. For the logic to be faulty (ie, invalid), the conclusion is required to be invalid. That's about it, the premises are assumed as axioms. Any attempt to disprove the conclusion because a premise is invalid is faulty because the premise was never questioned. Again, we are not discussing the soundness of the argument, rather the validity (making it the result of stupidness or correct usage of logic). 

Well I already conceded that your formal argument was valid if you aren't concerned with the premises, but that doesn't mean the argument isn't guilty of informal fallacies.

Maybe it's not "incorrect" logic but it is "poor" logic.

[Lugaidster]

Draconis6666 wrote...

Lugaidster wrote...

GodChildInTheMachine wrote...

I don't think you understand what I'm trying to say. I'm arguing that he presents,

"The Created will always rebel against their creators,"

as a separate argument. And I may have said "prove" before, but I specifically chose the words "support as an absolute" here. I am trying to isolate this premise because it is the hingepoint of his entire thesis. When taken on its own merits any attempt to support this absolute with an argument will be guilty of circular reasoning.

i.e. "The created will always rebel against their creators; the fact that things that are created rebel against their creators is proof of this."

And I think you are not understanding what I'm trying to say. For the logic to be faulty (ie, invalid), the conclusion is required to be invalid. That's about it, the premises are assumed as axioms. Any attempt to disprove the conclusion because a premise is invalid is faulty because the premise was never questioned. Again, we are not discussing the soundness of the argument, rather the validity (making it the result of stupidness or correct usage of logic). 

But thats not true it can be formaly invalid and still be a valid conclusion, so its not faulty proving that the premise is not true makes the argument formaly invalid even if the conclusion is valid in terms of the premise.

I'm sorry, didn't pick my words correctly. 
 What this over here meant:

"Any attempt to disprove the conclusion because a premise is invalid is faulty because the premise was never" questioned."

Is this:

"Any attempt to disprove the *validity of the* conclusion because a premise is invalid is faulty because the premise was never questioned."

In other words, if the conclusion is a logical result of the premises, *assuming they are a given (ie, axioms)*, then the argument is valid. We can argue all day long whether the premises are true or not, but that doesn't really affect the reasoning of the Catalyst, it only affects his view/paradigm. If we could ever prove to him that his premises are false, then he wouldn't go around killing people. But I just can't for the sake of me imagine what his new purpose would be. 

[Sesshaku]

I disagree . I do think is crappy logic.
You see, first of all the premise arent true.

Krogans didnt create highly advanced synthetics. Why all organics from alll the cycles would lead to that?
Second. Highly advanced synthetics would mean high advanced reasoning. Wich means they thinking is as complex as any organics. Geth quest and EDI learning told us that synthetics COULD and WANTED to cooperate. This is a fact. They even seem more likely to resolve conflict peacefully than orfanics themselves.
So the premise are false. Is not a fact that synthetics will be created and if they do, its not a fact they would be eager to kill all organic life.

Finally...the conclusion is wrong. Why 50k years its good? synthetics were hardly that much agressive or developed to justify the invasion. Also why not stay on the galaxy, explain and help organics to take seriously "the synthetics menace" and wipe all synthethic form before they're even complete.
Finally they cant act as "saviours" when im ME1 they clearley stated they made us develop apong tha path they wanted. IN other words...if the premises were true, they forced us to made the "same mistakes" and the tell us we were doomed to the same destiny.

I would also make a statement that i highly doubt that a synthethic race would always vanquish all organic life. You see..reapers had sucess because they controlled mass relays and were highly more advanced. But synthetics couldnt improve themself faster enought to overcome they creators technology, in fact...on ME3 all organics (and synthethics) joined and defeated the most powerfull synthethics on the galaxy. How is it possible then that synthethics had it that easy?. Quarians loose because they were few and fighted alone. If all organics joined (lets say by a reapers warning) them geth would be already death.

Im writing from my phone so i wrote it in a messy way that doesnt makes justice to your good writing in the OP. Also english is not my language. But i hope i made myself clear by stating that reapers logic its weird and at least questionable. And also it cuts out completly the ME1 statments were reaoers seemed to despise (not protect) organics and used them just for harvesting.

[Draconis6666]

GodChildInTheMachine wrote...

Lugaidster wrote...

GodChildInTheMachine wrote...

I don't think you understand what I'm trying to say. I'm arguing that he presents,

"The Created will always rebel against their creators,"

as a separate argument. And I may have said "prove" before, but I specifically chose the words "support as an absolute" here. I am trying to isolate this premise because it is the hingepoint of his entire thesis. When taken on its own merits any attempt to support this absolute with an argument will be guilty of circular reasoning.

i.e. "The created will always rebel against their creators; the fact that things that are created rebel against their creators is proof of this."

And I think you are not understanding what I'm trying to say. For the logic to be faulty (ie, invalid), the conclusion is required to be invalid. That's about it, the premises are assumed as axioms. Any attempt to disprove the conclusion because a premise is invalid is faulty because the premise was never questioned. Again, we are not discussing the soundness of the argument, rather the validity (making it the result of stupidness or correct usage of logic). 

Well I already conceded that your formal argument was valid if you aren't concerned with the premises, but that doesn't mean the argument isn't guilty of informal fallacies.

Maybe it's not "incorrect" logic but it is "poor" logic.

Again its not a valid formal argument, its an informaly valid argument.

[Draconis6666]

Lugaidster wrote...



I'm sorry, didn't pick my words correctly. 
 What this over here meant:

"Any attempt to disprove the conclusion because a premise is invalid is faulty because the premise was never" questioned."

Is this:

"Any attempt to disprove the *validity of the* conclusion because a premise is invalid is faulty because the premise was never questioned."

In other words, if the conclusion is a logical result of the premises, *assuming they are a given (ie, axioms)*, then the argument is valid. We can argue all day long whether the premises are true or not, but that doesn't really affect the reasoning of the Catalyst, it only affects his view/paradigm. If we could ever prove to him that his premises are false, then he wouldn't go around killing people. But I just can't for the sake of me imagine what his new purpose would be. 

Ok this is true but it is not faulty to prove that the conclusion is formaly invalid, because you can do so. So again it comes down to what level of validity you are talking about. The Conclusion is informaly valid, but the equation itself is formaly invalid.

[Lugaidster]

GodChildInTheMachine wrote...

Lugaidster wrote...

GodChildInTheMachine wrote...

I don't think you understand what I'm trying to say. I'm arguing that he presents,

"The Created will always rebel against their creators,"

as a separate argument. And I may have said "prove" before, but I specifically chose the words "support as an absolute" here. I am trying to isolate this premise because it is the hingepoint of his entire thesis. When taken on its own merits any attempt to support this absolute with an argument will be guilty of circular reasoning.

i.e. "The created will always rebel against their creators; the fact that things that are created rebel against their creators is proof of this."

And I think you are not understanding what I'm trying to say. For the logic to be faulty (ie, invalid), the conclusion is required to be invalid. That's about it, the premises are assumed as axioms. Any attempt to disprove the conclusion because a premise is invalid is faulty because the premise was never questioned. Again, we are not discussing the soundness of the argument, rather the validity (making it the result of stupidness or correct usage of logic). 

Well I already conceded that your formal argument was valid if you aren't concerned with the premises, but that doesn't mean the argument isn't guilty of informal fallacies.

Maybe it's not "incorrect" logic but it is "poor" logic.

Something is either logical or isn't. I don't see why it is "poor" logic, it's simply not my logic. Moreover, I already conceded that it's not sound since we can't prove the veracity of the premises. Calling him stupid because his conclusion isn't yours or mine given the premises, is just wrong IMO. That's it.

[lillitheris]

The star child's logic is valid.

It's premises aren't, and therefore the whole thing is nonsense. As is arguing about it.


…

Edit: and yes, you can absolutely call Casper an idiot. Renting a wrecking ball and smashing a wall down is indeed one way to enter your friend's house, but you should probably just use the door instead.

Modifié par lillitheris, 26 mars 2012 - 12:52 .

[Draconis6666]

Lugaidster wrote...

Something is either logical or isn't. I don't see why it is "poor" logic, it's simply not my logic. Moreover, I already conceded that it's not sound since we can't prove the veracity of the premises. Calling him stupid because his conclusion isn't yours or mine given the premises, is just wrong IMO. That's it.

He is nto stupid because his conclusion isnt ours he is stupid because his conclusion is not formaly valid but only informaly valid. He has based his actions on a question that cannot be proven to be formaly valid so while it is logical it IS bad logic.

[GodChildInTheMachine]

Draconis6666 wrote...

GodChildInTheMachine wrote...

Lugaidster wrote...

GodChildInTheMachine wrote...

I don't think you understand what I'm trying to say. I'm arguing that he presents,

"The Created will always rebel against their creators,"

as a separate argument. And I may have said "prove" before, but I specifically chose the words "support as an absolute" here. I am trying to isolate this premise because it is the hingepoint of his entire thesis. When taken on its own merits any attempt to support this absolute with an argument will be guilty of circular reasoning.

i.e. "The created will always rebel against their creators; the fact that things that are created rebel against their creators is proof of this."

And I think you are not understanding what I'm trying to say. For the logic to be faulty (ie, invalid), the conclusion is required to be invalid. That's about it, the premises are assumed as axioms. Any attempt to disprove the conclusion because a premise is invalid is faulty because the premise was never questioned. Again, we are not discussing the soundness of the argument, rather the validity (making it the result of stupidness or correct usage of logic). 

Well I already conceded that your formal argument was valid if you aren't concerned with the premises, but that doesn't mean the argument isn't guilty of informal fallacies.

Maybe it's not "incorrect" logic but it is "poor" logic.

Again its not a valid formal argument, its an informaly valid argument.

I get you but if you're not allowed to touch the premises, the OP's argument is valid. I still think that it's fallacious, but it's not circular reasoning and that's really what the OP was trying to state.

[Lugaidster]

Sesshaku wrote...

I disagree . I do think is crappy logic.
You see, first of all the premise arent true.

Krogans didnt create highly advanced synthetics. Why all organics from alll the cycles would lead to that?
Second. Highly advanced synthetics would mean high advanced reasoning. Wich means they thinking is as complex as any organics. Geth quest and EDI learning told us that synthetics COULD and WANTED to cooperate. This is a fact. They even seem more likely to resolve conflict peacefully than orfanics themselves.
So the premise are false. Is not a fact that synthetics will be created and if they do, its not a fact they would be eager to kill all organic life.

Finally...the conclusion is wrong. Why 50k years its good? synthetics were hardly that much agressive or developed to justify the invasion. Also why not stay on the galaxy, explain and help organics to take seriously "the synthetics menace" and wipe all synthethic form before they're even complete.
Finally they cant act as "saviours" when im ME1 they clearley stated they made us develop apong tha path they wanted. IN other words...if the premises were true, they forced us to made the "same mistakes" and the tell us we were doomed to the same destiny.

I would also make a statement that i highly doubt that a synthethic race would always vanquish all organic life. You see..reapers had sucess because they controlled mass relays and were highly more advanced. But synthetics couldnt improve themself faster enought to overcome they creators technology, in fact...on ME3 all organics (and synthethics) joined and defeated the most powerfull synthethics on the galaxy. How is it possible then that synthethics had it that easy?. Quarians loose because they were few and fighted alone. If all organics joined (lets say by a reapers warning) them geth would be already death.

Im writing from my phone so i wrote it in a messy way that doesnt makes justice to your good writing in the OP. Also english is not my language. But i hope i made myself clear by stating that reapers logic its weird and at least questionable. And also it cuts out completly the ME1 statments were reaoers seemed to despise (not protect) organics and used them just for harvesting.

You seem to be falling on the missconception that the premises have to be true for the logic to be valid:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Validity 
Wiki bomb there.

The reasoning of the catalyst isn't sound, and I wouldn't expect it to be, since he is the antagonist. If it were, we'd agree with his conclusion, and hence, support his solution. The thing is that, for the reasoning to be faulty or invalid (ie, crappy), only the conclusion is need submited to analysis. For the purpose of this discusion (the validity of his argument), the veracity of the premises is irrelevant. 

[Lugaidster]

Draconis6666 wrote...

Lugaidster wrote...

Something is either logical or isn't. I don't see why it is "poor" logic, it's simply not my logic. Moreover, I already conceded that it's not sound since we can't prove the veracity of the premises. Calling him stupid because his conclusion isn't yours or mine given the premises, is just wrong IMO. That's it.

He is nto stupid because his conclusion isnt ours he is stupid because his conclusion is not formaly valid but only informaly valid. He has based his actions on a question that cannot be proven to be formaly valid so while it is logical it IS bad logic.

Ok, I'm trying to get in the same page here. What do you mean with formaly invalid and informaly valid? I already defined what valid is and sound is.

[emperoralku]

Lugaidster wrote...

Let's try to separate things a bit further here. A statement is valid irrespective of the truthfulness of the premises. For all extents in this discussion, the premises are assumed true as that's the only thing that matters to the Catalyst in his mind. He's not questioning the premises, you are. We are trying to see if he's stupid (by using incorrect logic) or just knows stuff we don't (by not revealing information to prove his premises), or is just crazy (by twisting reality in order to make his premises be true). The first part is what I'm trying to discuss, as the other two are outside of our reach. 

Since the truthfulness of the premises is irrelevant to the process and analysis here, because we're discussing if his motivations are stupid (ie, his conclusion is ilogical). What we must focus is in seeing if the conclusion itself is not a logical outcome if we assume the premises as true. 

If you go back to the premises being true or false because of the conclusion your just trying to prove that the argument is not sound. That's irrelevant, because we can't prove or disprove that the premises are false. At that point it's only a matter of opinion because the premises, without certifiable veracity are just going to depend on our own ideologies and paradigms. What's worse, if the goal was hardcoded to the catalyst (assuming he's an AI, which we don't know) then he's, by design, excluding himself of the picture. Perhaps making the argument even more unsound, but no less valid. 

What I'm trying to explain here is that, any analysis on the premises is irrelevant to the point at hand, because logical validity only requires that conclusions be valid. The premises are axioms. Try to remember in high school or college in logic classes when you were presented with certain premises that you assume are an axiom, and then were required to verify the validity of the conclusion. The premises were never up for discussion, any information not given that you assume to counter the conclusion is irrelevant and could make your analysis wrong. Because the premises are assumed axioms, that's the thing. 

Trying to oversimplifyit to make it sound circular is like trying to oversimplify the job of the police. "Yo dawg, I heard you liked to kill humans so I created the police to prevent humans from killing humans by killing humans" It's a grotesque oversimplification and damages the discussion. If you can't get past the premises, then you aren't really discussing the validity of the argument but the soundness of it, and again, there's no way we can discuss that, because we have no way of testing the premises. 

I see what you mean in that it doesn't conform to circular reasoning by definition. However(correct me if I'm wrong):

Premise 1: B creates A
Premise 2: A destroys B
Conclusion: Create A to prevent B creating A.

If the premises are true (the assumption under which the catalyst operates) then the conclusion is not a solition for obvious reasons. Whilst I cannot name it there is some kind of illogical reasoning there. There is no possible logical justification for this line of reasoning unless the catalyst KNOWS the premise to be true. It is therefore either illogical in some form, or simply lying.

[Lugaidster]

GodChildInTheMachine wrote...

I get you but if you're not allowed to touch the premises, the OP's argument is valid. I still think that it's fallacious, but it's not circular reasoning and that's really what the OP was trying to state.

Not trying to pick or anything but what do you mean by fallacious? I'm trying to get a sense of where we're going at. 

[Draconis6666]

GodChildInTheMachine wrote...

Draconis6666 wrote...

GodChildInTheMachine wrote...

Lugaidster wrote...

GodChildInTheMachine wrote...

I don't think you understand what I'm trying to say. I'm arguing that he presents,

"The Created will always rebel against their creators,"

as a separate argument. And I may have said "prove" before, but I specifically chose the words "support as an absolute" here. I am trying to isolate this premise because it is the hingepoint of his entire thesis. When taken on its own merits any attempt to support this absolute with an argument will be guilty of circular reasoning.

i.e. "The created will always rebel against their creators; the fact that things that are created rebel against their creators is proof of this."

And I think you are not understanding what I'm trying to say. For the logic to be faulty (ie, invalid), the conclusion is required to be invalid. That's about it, the premises are assumed as axioms. Any attempt to disprove the conclusion because a premise is invalid is faulty because the premise was never questioned. Again, we are not discussing the soundness of the argument, rather the validity (making it the result of stupidness or correct usage of logic). 

Well I already conceded that your formal argument was valid if you aren't concerned with the premises, but that doesn't mean the argument isn't guilty of informal fallacies.

Maybe it's not "incorrect" logic but it is "poor" logic.

Again its not a valid formal argument, its an informaly valid argument.

I get you but if you're not allowed to touch the premises, the OP's argument is valid. I still think that it's fallacious, but it's not circular reasoning and that's really what the OP was trying to state.

Oh its definatly fallacious I dont think anyone can say that its not, the premises themselves are fallacious so obviously the argument is fallacious but that doesnt mean the conclusion is invalid, it does mean that the conclusion is the result of a fallacious argument though, which again makes the Catalyst appear to be stupid. Not because its conclusion is not ours but because its conclusion is the result of a fallacious argument that it does not recognize as fallacious.

[Draconis6666]

Lugaidster wrote...

GodChildInTheMachine wrote...

I get you but if you're not allowed to touch the premises, the OP's argument is valid. I still think that it's fallacious, but it's not circular reasoning and that's really what the OP was trying to state.

Not trying to pick or anything but what do you mean by fallacious? I'm trying to get a sense of where we're going at. 

It's fallacious because its reasoning is based on logical fallacies that makes the argument Fallacious even if its logicaly valid.


Example using the (a) ( and © used earlier

if (a) is true and ( is true then ©

but ('s truth is based on a fallacy so ( is false unless it is proven to be true (which it cant be) the argument is then fallacious beacuse all parts of the argument are not true. Logicaly © is still a valid conclusion to arrive at in terms of (a) and ( but the argument is still a fallacious argument.

Modifié par Draconis6666, 26 mars 2012 - 12:58 .