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[Comrade Wakizashi]

NeroonWilliams wrote...

Comrade Wakizashi wrote...

So we have no evidence to prove the Catalyst is either right or wrong. Doesn't that mean the logical conclusion is not believing it is right? I mean, theories need to be proven before they are accepted. They are not generally accepted until they are proven wrong. I think the only logical and just thing to do is NOT believing the Catalyst and saving the galaxy from its clutches. Because if there is no evidence towards either side, why blindly trust the theory?

For the same reason that we pay police and other security officers to search for and prevent terrorist actions.  A terrorist has to evade all such efforts just the one time they actually make an attack in order to be successful.  Counter-terrorists must be successful 100% of the time or they will be viewed as a failure.

In the previous analogy the AI is acting as a counter-terrorist versus the "terrorist" of a singularity that has decided to destroy ALL organic life rather than just supplanting its creators.  Such a synthetic lifeform only has to arise ONCE in order to accomplish its goal.  Theoretical or not, that is something you don't want to take the chance of dismissing because "you can't prove to me that it could happen".

And that's the exact reasoning used by "counter-terrorists", for example in the United States, to disregard basic civil and human rights, imprisoning innocents without due process, torturing, invading other countries and massacring entire populations, just "to be sure". Just like in the American War on Terror, it makes the "defender" into a equally big, maybe even bigger, evil than the "attacker" himself.

It's good that you bring up the anti-terrorist point. For it proves exactly my point of what is wrong with such a way of thinking. If we go with the War on Terror, a simple glance at the casualty rates can easily tell you that "anti-terror" has caused more death and destruction than "terror" itself ever did.
Multiply this by a few million, and we have the Reaper logic.

Modifié par Comrade Wakizashi, 17 janvier 2014 - 03:24 .

[Comrade Wakizashi]

Ieldra2 wrote...
 
And actually, you're wrong about the scientific method. You can't prove a theory's correctness with finality. What you need is compelling evidence that your theory is a plausible description of reality and that existing knowledge doesn't falsify is. 

I've never spoken about proving correctness with finality. Most scientific theories are considered "proven" if you have given a plausible indication of it, and if there are no compelling facts stating otherwise. I know that, and it doesn't really matter here.

No matter how exactly you choose to put it into words, the fact remains that the Catalyst has no evidence, or no "plausible description of reality that isn't falsified by reality" to back up its claims. Its experiences millions of years ago do not count as enough evidence towards its claims. Its elementary that for a scientific theory to be accepted in any way, you need to have enough quantitative and qualitative data to back your theory up. Especially in the quantitative part, the Catalyst is severely lacking.

You cannot simply take a clutch of events and than project them over all eternity and be like: "this is a natural law forever and ever from now on". Well, you can (many medieval priests and kings were entirely convinced that feudalism as the will of God would last forever and ever), but it's in no way a scientific claim.

[Ieldra]

Vigilant111 wrote...
@Ieldra2: the logical flaw in question isn't one where generalization has gone wrong, any rational being can recognize that in a way that any rational being would not agree with the reaper quote: "You are chaos".

No? Every one of us is the result of random chance, of genes randomly recombined. Synthetics are planned organisms built to a specification. I find it a rather plausible claim. 

Why do you say the position "reaperization means death" is unsound? I can relate to it quite well. I mean, is a husk really alive? If the ascendance provided by reapers really is that incredible then why even fight the reapers? and yes you are absolutely right that from the Catalyst's perspective the hazing to reaperhood isn't so bad considering what a wonderful afterlife you get afterwards, but from Shepard's point of view, yeah, it is death, as he or she said so on Rannoch

Is an uploaded mind dead? You may not believe that an existence as an "infomorph" (as the roleplaying game "Eclipse Phase" calls such a thing) can be meaningful and that the death of the body equals the death of the individual, but this is already an interpretation, your answer to this question that the ME trilogy asks you. Even outside the Reaper ecology, you will find much support for the alternative claim within the MEU, that identity is memory and that uploading a mind is a transformation at most, and not death. 

I would likely find an existence as an enslaved uploaded mind - as things are in a Reaper - a fate worse than death, but that's more due to the enslavement than to the destructive uploading, and actually, Descartes famous line is most applicable here: I think, therefore I am.....not dead.   

[CronoDragoon]

Comrade Wakizashi wrote...
You cannot simply take a clutch of events and than project them over all eternity and be like: "this is a natural law forever and ever from now on". Well, you can (many medieval priests and kings were entirely convinced that feudalism as the will of God would last forever and ever), but it's in no way a scientific claim.

You don't need to project them over all eternity. You only need to project into the future for ONE occurrence. This event only needs to happen ONCE for the Catalyst to be right.

And the Catalyst does have evidence, unless you are trying to claim the Reapers could not have extinguished organic life if they so chose.

[Comrade Wakizashi]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Vigilant111 wrote...
@Ieldra2: the logical flaw in question isn't one where generalization has gone wrong, any rational being can recognize that in a way that any rational being would not agree with the reaper quote: "You are chaos".

No? Every one of us is the result of random chance, of genes randomly recombined. Synthetics are planned organisms built to a specification. I find it a rather plausible claim. 

Why do you say the position "reaperization means death" is unsound? I can relate to it quite well. I mean, is a husk really alive? If the ascendance provided by reapers really is that incredible then why even fight the reapers? and yes you are absolutely right that from the Catalyst's perspective the hazing to reaperhood isn't so bad considering what a wonderful afterlife you get afterwards, but from Shepard's point of view, yeah, it is death, as he or she said so on Rannoch

Is an uploaded mind dead? You may not believe that an existence as an "infomorph" (as the roleplaying game "Eclipse Phase" calls such a thing) can be meaningful and that the death of the body equals the death of the individual, but this is already an interpretation, your answer to this question that the ME trilogy asks you. Even outside the Reaper ecology, you will find much support for the alternative claim within the MEU, that identity is memory and that uploading a mind is a transformation at most, and not death. 

I would likely find an existence as an enslaved uploaded mind - as things are in a Reaper - a fate worse than death, but that's more due to the enslavement than to the destructive uploading, and actually, Descartes famous line is most applicable here: I think, therefore I am.....not dead.   

Becoming a Reaper is hardly being an "uploaded mind". The individuals that made up the Reaper do not have self-awareness or any control over themselves. Their minds probably don't even exist anymore. Harvesting means death, only your genetic code gets saved. Wether that's enough for you, I leave up to you. It's certainly not enough for me.

[Comrade Wakizashi]

CronoDragoon wrote...

Comrade Wakizashi wrote...
You cannot simply take a clutch of events and than project them over all eternity and be like: "this is a natural law forever and ever from now on". Well, you can (many medieval priests and kings were entirely convinced that feudalism as the will of God would last forever and ever), but it's in no way a scientific claim.

You don't need to project them over all eternity. You only need to project into the future for ONE occurrence. This event only needs to happen ONCE for the Catalyst to be right.

And the Catalyst does have evidence, unless you are trying to claim the Reapers could not have extinguished organic life if they so chose.

Of course you need to project it over all eternit. That is exactly what the Catalyst does: believing that it will inevitably happen if it doesn't intervene, inevitably in all eternity there will be a synthetic takeover if not for the Reapers. That is the reasoning the Catalyst uses.

[CronoDragoon]

Comrade Wakizashi wrote...
Becoming a Reaper is hardly being an "uploaded mind". The individuals that made up the Reaper do not have self-awareness or any control over themselves. Their minds probably don't even exist anymore. Harvesting means death, only your genetic code gets saved. Wether that's enough for you, I leave up to you. It's certainly not enough for me.

You are free to think this, but you do so against what the games say.

[Comrade Wakizashi]

CronoDragoon wrote...

Comrade Wakizashi wrote...
Becoming a Reaper is hardly being an "uploaded mind". The individuals that made up the Reaper do not have self-awareness or any control over themselves. Their minds probably don't even exist anymore. Harvesting means death, only your genetic code gets saved. Wether that's enough for you, I leave up to you. It's certainly not enough for me.

You are free to think this, but you do so against what the games say.

Not really. How would you keep your mind if you are reduced to one of the millions of humans that are turned into goo and added to the construction of a Reaper? Do you think the people of Horizon and Freedom's Progress that were built into the Human-Reaper Larva retain their independent minds?

[Ieldra]

Comrade Wakizashi wrote...
You cannot simply take a clutch of events and than project them over all eternity and be like: "this is a natural law forever and ever from now on". Well, you can (many medieval priests and kings were entirely convinced that feudalism as the will of God would last forever and ever), but it's in no way a scientific claim.

Yet again the strawmen. That's not what the Catalyst does. It has observed a pattern, plausibly assumed that this pattern would repeat itself, and designed an intervention based on it. In every cycle, it waits with its intervention until the signs of the pattern appear. Should they not appear, it would know something was different about this cycle, but apparently they always appeared, and it always intervened.

I'm not saying this was brought across to the player well, but you actually can project patterns into the future with some confidence if you have enough knowledge of the dynamics. Famous example: The Foundation Cycle's psychohistory. There are a few methodical problems in this specific case, and the writers were not competent enough in the basic methology themselves which is all too apparent, but that doesn't invalidate the merit of the basic principle.

[Obadiah]

CronoDragoon wrote...

Comrade Wakizashi wrote...
You cannot simply take a clutch of events and than project them over all eternity and be like: "this is a natural law forever and ever from now on". Well, you can (many medieval priests and kings were entirely convinced that feudalism as the will of God would last forever and ever), but it's in no way a scientific claim.

You don't need to project them over all eternity. You only need to project into the future for ONE occurrence. This event only needs to happen ONCE for the Catalyst to be right.

And the Catalyst does have evidence, unless you are trying to claim the Reapers could not have extinguished organic life if they so chose.

*cough* in addition, I'm pretty sure it wasn't just the "occurrence" of the conflicts projected. Along with a detailed cause-and-effect analysis (including key events, actors, and their potential occurence in future similar circumstances) of events that lead to each conflict, the Catalyst probably just asked some re-activated AI on the losing side just how far they would be willing to go to save themselves if they knew they would lose.

If we're willing to consider destroying all AI as a potential solution with the Crucible, why wouldn't Synthetics consider the same to organics?

Take the Geth. They were attacked with overwhelming force by the Quarians in ME3, and decided to join the Reapers and basically wipe out all highly advanced life. If the Reapers weren't there, what other drastic steps would/could they have been willing to take?

Modifié par Obadiah, 17 janvier 2014 - 03:56 .

[Comrade Wakizashi]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Comrade Wakizashi wrote...
You cannot simply take a clutch of events and than project them over all eternity and be like: "this is a natural law forever and ever from now on". Well, you can (many medieval priests and kings were entirely convinced that feudalism as the will of God would last forever and ever), but it's in no way a scientific claim.

Yet again the strawmen. That's not what the Catalyst does. It has observed a pattern, plausibly assumed that this pattern would repeat itself, and designed an intervention based on it. In every cycle, it waits with its intervention until the signs of the pattern appear. Should they not appear, it would know something was different about this cycle, but apparently they always appeared, and it always intervened.

I'm not saying this was brought across to the player well, but you actually can project patterns into the future with some confidence if you have enough knowledge of the dynamics. Famous example: The Foundation Cycle's psychohistory. There are a few methodical problems in this specific case, and the writers were not competent enough in the basic methology themselves which is all too apparent, but that doesn't invalidate the merit of the basic principle.

I'm sorry, but it's never stated that the Catalyst observes patterns and only intervenes when the patterns are there. The Reapers intervene in temporal intervals, every 50,000 years. It has nothing to do with patterns in existance, but with time. Whenever the interval of 50,000 years pass, the Reapers intervene to harvest. Whatever the situation of the galaxy at that moment.

[NeroonWilliams]

Comrade Wakizashi wrote...

NeroonWilliams wrote...

Comrade Wakizashi wrote...

So we have no evidence to prove the Catalyst is either right or wrong. Doesn't that mean the logical conclusion is not believing it is right? I mean, theories need to be proven before they are accepted. They are not generally accepted until they are proven wrong. I think the only logical and just thing to do is NOT believing the Catalyst and saving the galaxy from its clutches. Because if there is no evidence towards either side, why blindly trust the theory?

For the same reason that we pay police and other security officers to search for and prevent terrorist actions.  A terrorist has to evade all such efforts just the one time they actually make an attack in order to be successful.  Counter-terrorists must be successful 100% of the time or they will be viewed as a failure.

In the previous analogy the AI is acting as a counter-terrorist versus the "terrorist" of a singularity that has decided to destroy ALL organic life rather than just supplanting its creators.  Such a synthetic lifeform only has to arise ONCE in order to accomplish its goal.  Theoretical or not, that is something you don't want to take the chance of dismissing because "you can't prove to me that it could happen".

And that's the exact reasoning used by "counter-terrorists", for example in the United States, to disregard basic civil and human rights, imprisoning innocents without due process, torturing, invading other countries and massacring entire populations, just "to be sure". Just like in the American War on Terror, it makes the "defender" into a equally big, maybe even bigger, evil than the "attacker" himself.

It's good that you bring up the anti-terrorist point. For it proves exactly my point of what is wrong with such a way of thinking. If we go with the War on Terror, a simple glance at the casualty rates can easily tell you that "anti-terror" has caused more death and destruction than "terror" itself ever did.
Multiply this by a few million, and we have the Reaper logic.

Forgive me for being too clever and feeding the troll by using a geopolitical hot topic in a logic discussion, but you've just used the same illogical strawman in an attempt to disprove that which you don't like.  You don't have to agree with the methodology, but dismissing logic because you don't like the means of combating the problem does NOT invalidate the logic.

Let's try a different example:

Team A and Team B have each scored zero goals in the championship game and we are in sudden death.  Team A is (for whatever reason) woeful at offense today and keeps turning the ball over to Team B.  Team B on the other hand takes shot after shot on Team A's goal.  How many times does the goalie for Team A have to miss the stop for Team B to win?

Modifié par NeroonWilliams, 17 janvier 2014 - 04:06 .

[Ieldra]

Comrade Wakizashi wrote...

CronoDragoon wrote...

Comrade Wakizashi wrote...
Becoming a Reaper is hardly being an "uploaded mind". The individuals that made up the Reaper do not have self-awareness or any control over themselves. Their minds probably don't even exist anymore. Harvesting means death, only your genetic code gets saved. Wether that's enough for you, I leave up to you. It's certainly not enough for me.

You are free to think this, but you do so against what the games say.

Not really. How would you keep your mind if you are reduced to one of the millions of humans that are turned into goo and added to the construction of a Reaper? Do you think the people of Horizon and Freedom's Progress that were built into the Human-Reaper Larva retain their independent minds?

Legion explicitly says that a Reaper is "billions of organic minds, uploaded and conjoined within an immortal machine body". Reaperization is a process of "destructive analysis", as an alternative version of the Reaper reveal at the end of ME2 tells you, where the information making up your mind is analyzed and uploaded into the Reaper. I don't know why they cut that version, since it's very apparent it's the only explanation that makes any sense even after the change.

Of course I don't know the ecology of the uploaded minds within a Reaper. Since the Catalyst controls the Reapers, they're likely enslaved, but it's implied they're alive and retain characteristics specific to their species and culture.

[Comrade Wakizashi]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Comrade Wakizashi wrote...

CronoDragoon wrote...

Comrade Wakizashi wrote...
Becoming a Reaper is hardly being an "uploaded mind". The individuals that made up the Reaper do not have self-awareness or any control over themselves. Their minds probably don't even exist anymore. Harvesting means death, only your genetic code gets saved. Wether that's enough for you, I leave up to you. It's certainly not enough for me.

You are free to think this, but you do so against what the games say.

Not really. How would you keep your mind if you are reduced to one of the millions of humans that are turned into goo and added to the construction of a Reaper? Do you think the people of Horizon and Freedom's Progress that were built into the Human-Reaper Larva retain their independent minds?

Legion explicitly says that a Reaper is "billions of organic minds, uploaded and conjoined within an immortal machine body". Reaperization is a process of "destructive analysis", as an alternative version of the Reaper reveal at the end of ME2 tells you, where the information making up your mind is analyzed and uploaded into the Reaper. I don't know why they cut that version, since it's very apparent it's the only explanation that makes any sense even after the change.

Of course I don't know the ecology of the uploaded minds within a Reaper. Since the Catalyst controls the Reapers, they're likely enslaved, but it's implied they're alive and retain characteristics specific to their species and culture.

Even if that were true (but I don't count cut content as canon, because it's not in the canon game), would it be better than living as a human being, even with the risk of eventual annihilation by a synthetic?
Eternal life as an enslaved abomination (if we follow what you believe) or imminent death and harvesting of your genetic material is hardly a working alternative to continuing normal organic existance, even with the question of wether or not synthetics will eventually wipe us out remaining open.

[Ieldra]

Comrade Wakizashi wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

Comrade Wakizashi wrote...
You cannot simply take a clutch of events and than project them over all eternity and be like: "this is a natural law forever and ever from now on". Well, you can (many medieval priests and kings were entirely convinced that feudalism as the will of God would last forever and ever), but it's in no way a scientific claim.

Yet again the strawmen. That's not what the Catalyst does. It has observed a pattern, plausibly assumed that this pattern would repeat itself, and designed an intervention based on it. In every cycle, it waits with its intervention until the signs of the pattern appear. Should they not appear, it would know something was different about this cycle, but apparently they always appeared, and it always intervened.

I'm not saying this was brought across to the player well, but you actually can project patterns into the future with some confidence if you have enough knowledge of the dynamics. Famous example: The Foundation Cycle's psychohistory. There are a few methodical problems in this specific case, and the writers were not competent enough in the basic methology themselves which is all too apparent, but that doesn't invalidate the merit of the basic principle.

I'm sorry, but it's never stated that the Catalyst observes patterns and only intervenes when the patterns are there. The Reapers intervene in temporal intervals, every 50,000 years. It has nothing to do with patterns in existance, but with time. Whenever the interval of 50,000 years pass, the Reapers intervene to harvest. Whatever the situation of the galaxy at that moment.

This was always an approximate timeframe. It was the task of Sovereign to determine the time of the next invasion, so it couldn't have been predetermined.

BTW, I suggest you read this, and of it, before making further false claims.

[CronoDragoon]

Comrade Wakizashi wrote...
Not really. How would you keep your mind if you are reduced to one of the millions of humans that are turned into goo and added to the construction of a Reaper? Do you think the people of Horizon and Freedom's Progress that were built into the Human-Reaper Larva retain their independent minds?

But that's not what you said, so don't move the goalposts. You said nothing but genetic data is preserved, which is untrue. All those independent minds are joined into one "race" mind using synthetic data mimicking the organic memory equivalent using destructive analysis.

[jtav]

Here's the problem: we're told the singularity is inevitable but what we're actually shown is that non-Reaper AIs are no more threatening than any other species. Rannoch can end with everybody happy; Tuchanka can't. EDI is a valued team member and her romance with Joker is fairly stable. If the Catalyst has a point, then we have to see it onscreen, not merely have it asserted after the fact. I choose Synthesis, but I think the singularity is rank nonsense.

[Comrade Wakizashi]

NeroonWilliams wrote...

Forgive me for being too clever and feeding the troll by using a geopolitical hot topic in a logic discussion, but you've just used the same illogical strawman in an attempt to disprove that which you don't like.  You don't have to agree with the methodology, but dismissing logic because you don't like the means of combating the problem does NOT invalidate the logic.

It does invalidate the logic. It makes the "solution" of the problem even worse than the problem itself. A solution that causes more bad than the actual problem is no solution at all. Reaperization is worse than death at the hands of a synthetic enemy. Just like massacring millions is worse than the continuing threat of potential terrorist attacks.

Also, regarding your "goalie reference", it does not stand in this discussion. In a match there are clear adversaries that are fully aware of them being adversaries and are all committed to the defeat of the other. In the question of organic-synthetic "conflict", it is not as clear-cut as that.There is a possibility that it might happen, but that possibility it not bigger than the possibility it will not happen. It is possible that galactical civilization will be wiped out by a rain of asteroids from deep-space, but that doesn't mean it is feasible. Likewise, it is indeed possible that the Catalyst is right. Does that mean it justifies the harvesting of advanced civilization against their will?

[CronoDragoon]

jtav wrote...

Here's the problem: we're told the singularity is inevitable but what we're actually shown is that non-Reaper AIs are no more threatening than any other species.

"Other than the synthetics with the power to wipe out organics there are no synthetics with the power to wipe out organics" is not great logic.

[Ieldra]

Comrade Wakizashi wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

Comrade Wakizashi wrote...

CronoDragoon wrote...

Comrade Wakizashi wrote...
Becoming a Reaper is hardly being an "uploaded mind". The individuals that made up the Reaper do not have self-awareness or any control over themselves. Their minds probably don't even exist anymore. Harvesting means death, only your genetic code gets saved. Wether that's enough for you, I leave up to you. It's certainly not enough for me.

You are free to think this, but you do so against what the games say.

Not really. How would you keep your mind if you are reduced to one of the millions of humans that are turned into goo and added to the construction of a Reaper? Do you think the people of Horizon and Freedom's Progress that were built into the Human-Reaper Larva retain their independent minds?

Legion explicitly says that a Reaper is "billions of organic minds, uploaded and conjoined within an immortal machine body". Reaperization is a process of "destructive analysis", as an alternative version of the Reaper reveal at the end of ME2 tells you, where the information making up your mind is analyzed and uploaded into the Reaper. I don't know why they cut that version, since it's very apparent it's the only explanation that makes any sense even after the change.

Of course I don't know the ecology of the uploaded minds within a Reaper. Since the Catalyst controls the Reapers, they're likely enslaved, but it's implied they're alive and retain characteristics specific to their species and culture.

Even if that were true (but I don't count cut content as canon, because it's not in the canon game), would it be better than living as a human being, even with the risk of eventual annihilation by a synthetic?
Eternal life as an enslaved abomination (if we follow what you believe) or imminent death and harvesting of your genetic material is hardly a working alternative to continuing normal organic existance, even with the question of wether or not synthetics will eventually wipe us out remaining open.

Oh, I wasn't trying to justify the harvesting. As I said above, I would likely find an existence as an enslaved uploaded mind a fate worse than death, but that was not the point. The point is that this existence is definitely NOT death, so the claim the Reapers are simply killing the harvested species is false.

 

[Comrade Wakizashi]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Comrade Wakizashi wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

Comrade Wakizashi wrote...
You cannot simply take a clutch of events and than project them over all eternity and be like: "this is a natural law forever and ever from now on". Well, you can (many medieval priests and kings were entirely convinced that feudalism as the will of God would last forever and ever), but it's in no way a scientific claim.

Yet again the strawmen. That's not what the Catalyst does. It has observed a pattern, plausibly assumed that this pattern would repeat itself, and designed an intervention based on it. In every cycle, it waits with its intervention until the signs of the pattern appear. Should they not appear, it would know something was different about this cycle, but apparently they always appeared, and it always intervened.

I'm not saying this was brought across to the player well, but you actually can project patterns into the future with some confidence if you have enough knowledge of the dynamics. Famous example: The Foundation Cycle's psychohistory. There are a few methodical problems in this specific case, and the writers were not competent enough in the basic methology themselves which is all too apparent, but that doesn't invalidate the merit of the basic principle.

I'm sorry, but it's never stated that the Catalyst observes patterns and only intervenes when the patterns are there. The Reapers intervene in temporal intervals, every 50,000 years. It has nothing to do with patterns in existance, but with time. Whenever the interval of 50,000 years pass, the Reapers intervene to harvest. Whatever the situation of the galaxy at that moment.

This was always an approximate timeframe. It was the task of Sovereign to determine the time of the next invasion, so it couldn't have been predetermined.

BTW, I suggest you read this, and of it, before making further false claims.

Why would you need an approximate timetable if you only keep patterns in mind. It would be highly unlikely that in the past millions of years every single galactical civilization was in pretty much the same position of the "pattern" at around 50,000 years since the last harvesting.

[Ieldra]

jtav wrote...
Here's the problem: we're told the singularity is inevitable but what we're actually shown is that non-Reaper AIs are no more threatening than any other species. Rannoch can end with everybody happy; Tuchanka can't. EDI is a valued team member and her romance with Joker is fairly stable. If the Catalyst has a point, then we have to see it onscreen, not merely have it asserted after the fact. I choose Synthesis, but I think the singularity is rank nonsense.

I agree with this, but this is - as I said above - a problem of storytelling, not of logic. We needed to be shown and weren't, so we are justified in rejecting the claim. However, the Catalyst's logic is still internally consistent and can't be disproven by deduction. It is neither self-defeating, circular logic, obvious nonsense or any other of the plainly nonsensical claims made about it.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 17 janvier 2014 - 04:17 .

[Comrade Wakizashi]

CronoDragoon wrote...

jtav wrote...

Here's the problem: we're told the singularity is inevitable but what we're actually shown is that non-Reaper AIs are no more threatening than any other species.

"Other than the synthetics with the power to wipe out organics there are no synthetics with the power to wipe out organics" is not great logic.

In this case it is. If there are no synthetics with the power to wipe out organics, how would they go about wiping out organics? In other words: the "pattern" is not there in the current cycle. The Reapers are here simply because 50,000 years have passed and it's time for the next harvest.

[Comrade Wakizashi]

Ieldra2 wrote...

jtav wrote...
Here's the problem: we're told the singularity is inevitable but what we're actually shown is that non-Reaper AIs are no more threatening than any other species. Rannoch can end with everybody happy; Tuchanka can't. EDI is a valued team member and her romance with Joker is fairly stable. If the Catalyst has a point, then we have to see it onscreen, not merely have it asserted after the fact. I choose Synthesis, but I think the singularity is rank nonsense.

I agree with this, but this is - as I said above - a problem of storytelling, not of logic. We needed to be shown and weren't, so we are justified in rejecting the claim. However, the Catalyst's logic is still internally consistent and can't be disproven by deduction.

I agree with that, in fact. I've never said the Catalyst's logic isn't consistent by itself. On the contrary, it is highly logical and rational in its own right. But consistency and truth are not the same thing. One can easily be consistent and rational while being completely wrong at the same time.

Modifié par Comrade Wakizashi, 17 janvier 2014 - 04:17 .

[NeroonWilliams]

Comrade Wakizashi wrote...


Even if that were true (but I don't count cut content as canon, because it's not in the canon game), would it be better than living as a human being, even with the risk of eventual annihilation by a synthetic?
Eternal life as an enslaved abomination (if we follow what you believe) or imminent death and harvesting of your genetic material is hardly a working alternative to continuing normal organic existance, even with the question of wether or not synthetics will eventually wipe us out remaining open.

(I don't count anything that isn't in the actual game as canon either)

You are failing to take into account that YOU as an individual don't matter in the slightest to the AI.  The only thing that matters to it is its core goal: to ensure that organic life continues to exist.  If you (as a member of a species capable of producing a singularity capable of wiping out all organic life) oppose it, then you need to be thwarted in your attempts to interfere with its mission.  If you are being harvested it is not for YOUR benefit.  It is for the benefit of the species who are NOT being harvested.