3DandBeyond wrote...
HYR 2.0 wrote...
Okay, so a lot of people are irked over the fact that the catalyst doesn't just pack it in after admitting his solution is broken.
Here's the thing... the harvest only becomes "obsolete" if this cycle proves they can unilaterally destroy or repurpose a true-AI race (the Reapers) they have come into conflict with, or choose synthesis and thereby eliminate the problem. In doing so, we prove we won't *always* be wiped out by synthetic opponents, and need not be preserved in Reaper form.
Not said at all by the catalyst. He says his solution no longer works. He doesn't say it will keep working until I find a new one. He says he has new solutions or needs a new one and then he has 3. He does not say his solution (the reapers) are obsolete. He says his solution no longer works. He tends to always speak in absolutes. He's a supposed logic device so he would use absolutes. Always, inevitable, no longer. He doesn't care for us to prove that "we won't always be wiped out by synthetics", he doesn't even care if any organics are wiped out by synthetics. He believes that synthetics will inevitably kill ALL organics. Again, absolutes. So, as a logic device, a solution that no longer works would be like him trying to continually add 1 + 1 to get 3. It can't happen, so he would not do it. A solution that does not solve his problem, could not and would not be used by him. It's absolute.
The catalyst's dialogue is confusing and sends a lot of mixed/unclear messages. In many ways, his visual representation as a small child is fitting, since he articulates himself so poorly and is frustrating to talk to.
So it falls on us to make sense of it.
What he says: "Without us to stop it, synthetics will wipe out all organics."
What he means: "Advanced organic species will create synthetic life and eventually come into a conflict with those synthetics that will lead to the organic species' extinction."
^ Synthetics won't go hunt down all organics for blood, it typically does not concern other parties other than the creators and the created, and synthetics will not necessarily always cast the first stone.
Also, when the catalyst says "No, you can't" (in response to Shepard's "I think we'd rather keep our own form) he's not speaking in the present, he is speaking in the past. We do, actually, have choice/hope to do so (courtesy the Crucible variables).
If Shepard decides not to use the Crucible, it necessitates the need for the harvest all over again. We fail to prove an exception to the organic races the catalyst observed during Leviathan era, but rather, we reinforce the notion that we are incapable of saving ourselves. In this case, it is a display of mental incapability, as the only organic who was physically capable enough to get far enough to make any solution take place is unable to overcome emotional issues causing inaction.
Nope. A non-working solution is no longer a solution. I'm organic and am supposedly less logical than he is and I don't see things in absolutes of off and on, yes and no, 0 and 1. And yet, I know that if I keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result, that is futile. He would never keep harvesting if that is true. At the moment he discovers the solution no longer works, he'd stop doing it.
The solution "works" just fine, it's just unnecessary if -- and only if -- organics prove they can be preserved without it.
3DandBeyond wrote...
HYR 2.0 wrote...
It's a classic case of machine-logic, and it even exists in real life. Example: a pro football team kicking an extra-point kick, after the clock has expired, and team already has enough points to win. It would seem to be a meaningless practice, and it is, but it is necessary for statistical reasons -- everything from black-box simulators to Vegas gambling.
Yes, it is machine logic. That football team is composed of real people who are following logic. They go for the point because they can and because there is some sort of thing that does matter. Using a non-working solution to solve a problem is not something that makes sense. Consider that football team and say that every time they try to kick for the extra point they use the worst place kicker they can find, and he always misses. By your logic, they should just keep using him, because at least he's kicking the ball.
You analogy has confused the ideas of both "working" and "solution." But I've already addressed that above.
To revisit my example... the athletes' only purpose is to play and win the game. However, even if they already have enough point to win and there is no time left on the clock, they must still kick the extra-point. If they refuse to, they will be forfeitted, and the other team would get the win.
That's basically what's going on with the Crucible.
3DandBeyond wrote...
And yet, the kid does understand concepts and does also understand he's creating conflict (which he wants to stop supposedly) and war (when he's tasked with achieving peace). You can't tell a machine that the color green is green and that blue is blue and then demand that the machine always pick blue when you ask for green. The kid is told to achieve peace and in so doing he creates the opposite of it. If he understands what peace is, we are supposed to expect he does not understand what war is.
He's not told to achieve peace, he's told to preserve organics in any way he can.
So even by your own admission he's creating conflict, right? Funny that a synthetic that is tasked with saving organic life and stopping conflict between synthetics and organics (specifically with organics as the victims), is using synthetics to create conflict that is taking organic life, killing organics.
Not killing, preserving into Reaper form. Granted, some die outright, but the overall goal is still accomplished.
Retour en haut
