192 réponses à ce sujet

[Hey]

Ideally id take the kid out to a club. See some live music. Get a little bit buzzed. Maybe smoke a j and tell some lies...

Just push pause for a sec then get back to the genocide in a bit see if he doesnt reorganize his ****

[Humanoid_Typhoon]

I'm gonna be honest OP, when I read your title the first thing that came to mind was, Ramble On by Led Zeppelin. '...the tale that can't be told..."

[inko1nsiderate]

Bill Casey wrote...

If anything, the Catalyst underestimated organic life...

Which is sort of brilliant.  Hubris was the fatal flaw of the Catalyst's creators, synthetic hubris (eg underestimating organic life) should be part of the Catalyst's nature.

Modifié par inko1nsiderate, 01 novembre 2012 - 07:57 .

[Biotic Sage]

I think diagnosing the reaction to ME3's ending as a visceral, existential freakout is brilliant and probably hits closer to home than most people would like to admit.

As for my personal "spiritual" beliefs, I am a theological noncognitivist and a lot of what you wrote about resonates with me. Your assertion about assumptions is spot on, but the paradox of making this assertion, or any assertion, is that you inevitably have to make assumptions to do so. Philosophy is such a complex matrix of paradoxes and catch-22's, but for some reason I can't stay away from it. These days, most of the time I am of the mindset to just surrender to my humanity rather than attempt to transcend it...however a split second later I always think, "But deciding to surrender to my humanity is just as inherently tied to human nature as attempting to transcend it." Like you said, no matter what you do, you can't be anything other than human, or think in any other way than an organic, specifically a human. Therefore everything is subjective and biased, everything is seen through the same limiting lens of humanity; it is impossible for humans to see through another lens. We are simply one more facet to the multifaceted and unknowable universe. And yes this is scary, but not nearly as scary to me as engaging in willful blindness to the truth that the universe is unknowable and that objective meaning is nonexistent. Heh, ironically this itself is the only "truth."

So in short: great read, OP.  I would congratulate you on working so hard to write it, but we both know that it was inevitable for your cognitive processes to churn out this little gem because it is in your nature.

Modifié par Biotic Sage, 01 novembre 2012 - 09:49 .

[CosmicGnosis]

I guess this is why so many people simply don't care about the Catalyst and its mission. It's too far-removed from anything that they care about. They are more concerned about the present, not what will happen billions of years from now. Yes, what will happen, not may happen.

I also find it amusing that people often consider the Reapers a "force of nature", to a certain extent, but the reality is that Shepard is the force of nature that the Reapers are battling. To the Catalyst, Shepard represents chaos, the universe they can't control. Shepard's victory ensures organic extinction.

To be clear, I'm not saying that the Catalyst is the good guy and that Shepard is the bad guy. I'm saying that there are no good or bad guys. The conflict just is.

Modifié par CosmicGnosis, 01 novembre 2012 - 02:19 .

[CosmicGnosis]

Biotic Sage wrote...

I think diagnosing the reaction to ME3's ending as a visceral, existential freakout is brilliant and probably hits closer to home than most people would like to admit.

Yeah, it may not be what BioWare intended, but that's what it feels like. I think that's enough to validate this interpretation.

[CosmicGnosis]

MyChemicalBromance, do you have any thoughts about the Leviathans and how they relate to the themes of nihilism and free will?

Modifié par CosmicGnosis, 01 novembre 2012 - 09:43 .

[Asharad Hett]

This thread is why the rest the galaxy hates humans. They use too many words.

[MyChemicalBromance]

CosmicGnosis wrote...

MyChemicalBromance, do you have any thoughts about the Leviathans and how they relate to the themes of nihilism and free will?

After thinking about this for awhile, I will say that it's hard to say much with how little information we actually have on them.

(I will point out that the Catalyst having organic creators was something I predicted before we had any idea about the Leviathans, and that this wasn't just a lucky guess. The fact that the Catalyst cares so much about organic life indicates its goals were given to it by an organic. It also puts claims of it having malicious intent down a notch.)

We know they wanted to solve the created-creator problem because dead races could not "pay tribute," but it's unclear to me exactly what "tribute" is, or what it is to them. Can they not survive without it? Is it Eezo? Is it just thinking happy thoughts? The answers to those questions obviously show whether they created the Catalyst out of existential fear, or if it was just because synthetic rebellion was an inconvenience.

Assuming it was inconvenience, we then have to consider the state of the Leviathans at that point. It would appear that they had become biologically immortal, possibly no longer feeling any existential dread at all. I know it's hard to imagine getting to that point, but let's remember the timescales we're talking about. They could easily have been controlling the Galaxy for millions of years when the Catalyst rebelled, not to mention the amount of time the survivors have had. For reference, humans have only been around 200,000 years.  Our species has existed for one half of one percent the amount of time that has passed since the Derelict Reaper (ME2) died. If it's possible for a sentient organic to evolve beyond fear of death, the Leviathans are pretty could candidates.


In a way, I kind of think of them like dogs. Dogs have achieved a ridiculous standard of living by using what humanity has created, but at the same time, I've yet to meet a dog that convinced me it felt existential dread. The Leviathans achieved their galactic empire via their thralls, but the only (theorized) reason the thralls could take them anywhere was because of the technology they created. The Leviathans didn't need to create life, they just simply used what was there, much in the same way a dog doesn't need to manufacture a can-opener to live in Suburbia.

We do however know that at least some of the Leviathans feared death, evidenced by the great lengths the survivors are going through to keep themselves hidden from the Reapers.



What I like about the Leviathans is that they don't really matter to the bigger story. The fact that the origins of the Reapers don't matter reinforces the Catalyst’s points; it, and the Reapers, are fighting against something that would exist whether or not they did.

I also can't help but feel that the "pawns" are actually the Keepers. The Keeper actions in the tunnels at the end, coupled with the fact that they only follow signals from the Citadel, lends credence to this theory.



And as for free will, if that's something you care about, what the Leviathans demonstrate is that enslavement by Organics is no better than enslavement by Synthetics. It also shows that without the Reapers, we would be slaves to whoever evolved first. The Reapers are in fact analogous to a real-world theory as to why the Galaxy isn't teeming with life after all this time.

Modifié par MyChemicalBromance, 02 novembre 2012 - 02:56 .

[CosmicGnosis]

This thread deserves more attention...

[RogueBot]

Bioware certainly seems to have a nihilistic attitude towards the future of their company, judging by their last 3 releases.

[inko1nsiderate]

RogueBot wrote...

Bioware certainly seems to have a nihilistic attitude towards the future of their company, judging by their last 3 releases.

Zing!

[Ieldra]

I didn't answer to this thread for a long time because for a long time, I felt unable to reply anything but "I agree" to it.

I have since then discovered another connection between the ending - and the "existential freakout" that was many people's reaction to it - and what you've written in the OP.

First, let me ask a question: why is it so important to us that the meanings we ascribe to things have unlimited scope, that they are absolute? As an atheist, I've always thought we create the meaning to our life ourselves, and if that itself is ultimately meaningless it doesn't matter, because it's still what I want to take away from life and it's mine. I am, in a metaphorical sense, the maker and the master of the universe I am living in, and where I interact with others our universes intersect to a bigger or smaller degree. Why is that not enough?

Or perhaps I should phrase the question differently: why have we humans evolved in a way such that absolutes that exist independently from us are important to us? I think the simple answer is: because thinking in absolutes affirms community in a way no other mental mechanism can. We humans are a hypersocial species, we can create connections, community with any other of our species, no matter their origin, to the point that "humanity" becomes a meaningful concept where it wouldn't for any other species on this planet even had they a brain of comparable complexity. We are existentially dependent not only on meaning, but on having meaning in common with others, and defending that against the competing influences of other communities.

How does that connect to ME3's endings? Well, ME3's ending leaves you alone. It doesn't attempt to affirm community by sending a specific message, giving the story a specific meaning. It leaves you alone to make one for yourself. It made the fanbase explode into a scattering of individuals that only later reconnect based on - now different - perceived similarities in the meanings they take away - create - from the story. ME3's endings have ended internet friendships and created others, and this is the reason. Since we cannot slip out of our human mindset, the endings have made us all uncomfortable, but those who are most comfortable to make up their own headcanon, thus creating the meaning the story has for themselves, are less uncomfortable with it than those who expected to be told a classic story's end, affirming a meaning they already believed in.

In other words, the endings threw us all into an existential void and called on each of us to fill that void. In a sense, we were called to become as gods, for that is what gods do: they create meaning in the existential void, not in an absolute sense of course, because that's not possible, but in a limited way that carves a little existential home out of it, for ourselves and perhaps others who might choose to follow in our footsteps. Just as Shepard carves an existential home for galactic civilization out of the nothingness by making one of three decisions - or by affirming the ultimate meaninglessness of everything by choosing Refuse.

But however we've dealt with it, we have all become a little more alone in the universe after ME3's ending, because we have felt the existential void on our skin.

[jtav]

I'm not even sure it's that complicated for me. I love telling stories even when I'm not writing. The ability to "write" a story and craft a character is something I value. And ME3 is sorely lacking there. Throughout the story I'm being told, "Feel sad about the kid. Cerberus is evil. Liara is the best ever" and so forth with the subtlety of a sledgehammer rather than being left to make up my own mind. The ending, as shoddy as it is, gives me my agency back. If I hate the rather simplistic story I've been given, it's suddenly in my power to change it into something more in keeping with my taste and values. So I did. With the EC, I now have plenty of room to imagine a glorious future. Even bringing Shep back. The very vagueness some hate was my salvation.

[Little Princess Peach]

I think the ending got confused and lost the purpose to what it was supposed to do

[AlanC9]

Ieldra2 wrote...

How does that connect to ME3's endings? Well, ME3's ending leaves you alone. It doesn't attempt to affirm community by sending a specific message, giving the story a specific meaning. It leaves you alone to make one for yourself. It made the fanbase explode into a scattering of individuals that only later reconnect based on - now different - perceived similarities in the meanings they take away - create - from the story. ME3's endings have ended internet friendships and created others, and this is the reason. Since we cannot slip out of our human mindset, the endings have made us all uncomfortable, but those who are most comfortable to make up their own headcanon, thus creating the meaning the story has for themselves, are less uncomfortable with it than those who expected to be told a classic story's end, affirming a meaning they already believed in.

Hmmm.... this makes me want to PM drayfish, who spends all his time on the board insisting that ME3 simply has to have a message, and it's an evil one.

Note that the aesthetics of the last scene are all about Shepard being outside. Outside the battle, outside of history and the cycles...... maybe outside of meaning too.

[Ieldra]

jtav wrote...
I'm not even sure it's that complicated for me. I love telling stories even when I'm not writing. The ability to "write" a story and craft a character is something I value. And ME3 is sorely lacking there. Throughout the story I'm being told, "Feel sad about the kid. Cerberus is evil. Liara is the best ever" and so forth with the subtlety of a sledgehammer rather than being left to make up my own mind. The ending, as shoddy as it is, gives me my agency back. If I hate the rather simplistic story I've been given, it's suddenly in my power to change it into something more in keeping with my taste and values. So I did. With the EC, I now have plenty of room to imagine a glorious future. Even bringing Shep back. The very vagueness some hate was my salvation.

And here you're touching the likely reason the endings are as they are. I don't think landing us in that existential void was intentional. It was a side effect. The ME3 team knew there would inevitably be a lot of people who wouldn't care about any message sent with their ending, just as you and I dislike the cult of the conventional, the anvilicious feel-good morality and the unsubtle emotional manipulation. Thus they made an ending with no fixed message at all - everyone could take away from the ending what they liked. 

Unfortunately, too many people expected the opposite. They wanted *their* values confirmed by the ending. Well, I would have loved to see my values confirmed by it, but I knew I would never get that. So having no fixed message and giving me the agency to envision the meaning of the ending is actually the best thing I could hope ME3's ending to have.

This is rather apparent in my reaction to the original endings: I'm an Enlightenment person. The very last thing I wanted, the thing that would come across to me as as depressing as the current endings come to those who expected their values confirmed, that was a dark age. It wasn't the openness of the original endings I disliked. It was the element which was not open, and that it was common to all endings, that I felt like a slap in the face. I hated the message.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 02 novembre 2012 - 04:19 .

[MyChemicalBromance]

"Don't you understand? You've lost. Everyone you know and love, everyone you've ever met; you will all die."

[DeepChild]

First I'd like to congratulate OP on a fantastic post.  It was an engaging and challenging read.  
Hopefully this response is received in the same spirit of honest and friendly discourse.  

TL;DR

(RE: nothing matters)
If death is the end of "knowing", and therefore nothing matters, then it follows that it is no loss to believe otherwise and organize one's life around falsehoods.
If, however, it is possible that death is not the end of "knowing", and therefore consequences may be far reaching and perhaps even eternal, it follows that it may be a great loss to believe nothing matters and to behave accordingly.

(RE: Mass Effect)
If the writers intended to convey nihilistic emptiness to the audience, they deserve the fan rage they got.  In light of the original endings, and assuming there will be nothing forthcoming that changes drastically the substance of the conclusion to the story, this may well be the writers' intention.

I subsribe to a belief opposite nihilism and would far prefer a conclusion to my favorite story that embraced that view instead.


(Nothing matters)

Death is something that every last one of us will confront someday. It is the end of “knowing,” a point where every observable definition of “self” ceases to exist.

The description you give of death is certainly terrifying.  It is also possible.  It is not certain.  There are other possibilities, none of which can be either proven or disproven.  The absolute end of "knowing", as described, is a logical conclusion to a natural life, such as the life of an animal.  However, that assumes there is no force, no being, no consciousness that transcends our knowledge of nature.  I'd argue that, as imperfect as we are (as is well described in the original post), we should not assume our knowledge of nature is so complete as to exclude any possibility of such a force, being, or consciousness.  

More importantly, the existence of death causes us to reflect on the nature of life. What is the point of life? If life just ends, what could it possibly mean? In response to the absurdity of existence, we create false absolutes. Truth, meaning, justice, honor, society, freedom, religion, human rights, and even time itself are all constructions of the human mind*. We build our world to create order, because that is the way we wish to see the world.

Truth cannot be a construct of the human mind.  Truth does not require a mind to exist.  Truth exists independent of any mind, any place, anything.  The statement, "The universe exists", is either true or false.  It doesn't matter who asks, who answers, or if it is asked at all.  It doesn't matter what the answer is.  There is an answer, and therefore truth exists.  
Any argument I've seen that seeks to refute this has at its core the idea that "we cannot know everything, therefore we cannot know anything for certain".  In effect this removes all value from knowledge or thought.  Why would one who believes such a thing bother to debate?  Why think at all?  I see no personal value in an argument that suggests wisdom is no better than abject foolishness.  Even more, the collective wisdom of millenia of civilization and through all of human history is no better than a lunatic's ramblings as both are of equal worth.  Which is to say none. 


(Mass Effect)

As I said earlier, Bioware touched on a subject that is in conflict with the doctrines of human civilization, namely, the idea that nothing really matters. In a game about choice affecting results (the quintessential method of human cognition), this could not have hit a more ill-prepared audience. Even though the destruction of meaning was immediately followed by the promise of meaning, few were capable of reconciling it with their reactions. Instead, Bioware was treated to a piece of existential rage from its fanbase, rage normally reserved gods, religions, and governments caught in their own lies.

If this was truly their intention, then indeed they should have known what was coming their way.  "[R]age normally reserved [for] gods, religions, and governments caught in their own lies."  I can't think of a more poignant phrasing.
Considering the focus on choice, consequences, character, relationships, loyalty, and many more very human concepts, quite antithetical to the nihilism discussed, that pervaded the Mass Effect series the ending came as a particularly vicious slap in the face.  

Why did they do this?

My thoughts exactly.

Why does anyone make any decision? The fact is that it is very alluring to tell this story. This story makes all other stories null, and places itself as the only path to hope. The unfortunate thing here is that Mass Effect made us very attached to those other stories...People weren’t ready for it.  Of course, people can never be ready for the revelation that nothing matters....Given this information I think they chose this design decision because it would make Mass Effect special, in a way that other media could not be. Surely it hurt more than a movie ever could; actually feeling like you made decisions makes it hurt more when they are revealed to be meaningless. Personally, the ending did not make me happy, but I’d prefer it a thousand times to a conventional ending.

It certainly affected me more than any movie has.  I can see why someone who embraces the idea that nothing matters would likewise embrace a narrative conclusion that seems to espouse the same notion.  Personally I find the idea abhorrent, as is clearly expected.  I also find it untrue, or at the very least unnecessary.  As already mentioned, if nothing matters, then neither does my opinion on this game (nor would the game matter a whit).  However, I find the opposite equally possible, equally immune to disproval, and far more appealing.  Everything matters.  Life matters.  Character, relationships, love, loyalty, knowledge, humor, bravery, kindness, heroism, faith, tenderness, hope, dreams, sacrifice all matter.  I matter.  And I would prefer a conclusion to Mass Effect which embraced that.
Thanks again to OP for such a great and thoughtful post.  

Modifié par DeepChild, 02 novembre 2012 - 08:39 .

[Conniving_Eagle]

Where have I read this thread before?

[AlanC9]

DeepChild wrote...

Any argument I've seen that seeks to refute this has at its core the idea that "we cannot know everything, therefore we cannot know anything for certain".  In effect this removes all value from knowledge or thought.  Why would one who believes such a thing bother to debate?  Why think at all?  

Because it's not necessary or even particularly useful to find "truth." An approximation that works better than what you had before is still more useful even if it isn't "true."

[Iakus]

[quote]Ieldra2 wrote...

[quote]
Unfortunately, too many people expected the opposite. They wanted *their* values confirmed by the ending. Well, I would have loved to see my values confirmed by it, but I knew I would never get that. So having no fixed message and giving me the agency to envision the meaning of the ending is actually the best thing I could hope ME3's ending to have.

This is rather apparent in my reaction to the original endings: I'm an Enlightenment person. The very last thing I wanted, the thing that would come across to me as as depressing as the current endings come to those who expected their values confirmed, that was a dark age. It wasn't the openness of the original endings I disliked. It was the element which was not open, and that it was common to all endings, that I felt like a slap in the face. I hated the message.
[/quote]

I don't need my values "confirmed" by the ending.  But I do need them to be compatable.  Unfortunately they allow for neither.  Nor can I even jsutify it by 'Well, at least Shepard has to live with the deicsion" because in virtually ever ending, no, he/she doesn't.

I could even live with the game ending in a "dark age" as long as I could say "I won with honor"

[Ieldra]

MyChemicalBromance wrote...
"Don't you understand? You've lost. Everyone you know and love, everyone you've ever met; you will all die."

Yeah....and the heat death of the universe will eventually annihilate everything every civilization has ever made.

I ask again: So what? Do we need eternity? Are we all going to kill ourselves just because we know that ultimately nothing matters? Isn't it enough that some things matter - for ourselves, for a time, until we die?

[Ieldra]

iakus wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...
Unfortunately, too many people expected the opposite. They wanted *their* values confirmed by the ending. Well, I would have loved to see my values confirmed by it, but I knew I would never get that. So having no fixed message and giving me the agency to envision the meaning of the ending is actually the best thing I could hope ME3's ending to have.

This is rather apparent in my reaction to the original endings: I'm an Enlightenment person. The very last thing I wanted, the thing that would come across to me as as depressing as the current endings come to those who expected their values confirmed, that was a dark age. It wasn't the openness of the original endings I disliked. It was the element which was not open, and that it was common to all endings, that I felt like a slap in the face. I hated the message.

I don't need my values "confirmed" by the ending.  But I do need them to be compatable.  Unfortunately they allow for neither.  Nor can I even jsutify it by 'Well, at least Shepard has to live with the deicsion" because in virtually ever ending, no, he/she doesn't.

I could even live with the game ending in a "dark age" as long as I could say "I won with honor"

And I could have lived with an ending as open as the original ones, if that suggestion of a dark age hadn't existed. We both needed the ending to be compatible with some ideas:
For you: I can imagine that I won with honor
For me: I can imagine that civilization is not reset to the galactic stone age.

The difference is that the EC gave me what I needed, but left you hanging.

[Seboist]

Nah, they simply told an incoherent story that they were winging at every turn.