Questa discussione ha avuto 123 risposte

[Laughing_Man]

The Mass Effect story was mostly written to appeal to the lowest common denominator (as opposed to the ending which was written to appeal only to the writers themselves), and therefore when the Geth tackle the question of life, they do it by asking about "souls".

 

Now, because of ME3's new "cinematic" direction, Shepard told Legion that "yes, you do have a soul" without waiting for my input.

 

I of course would have preferred: "I have no idea why you think that souls are an actual thing, but if the lowest of organic scum are considered to have souls, I don't see why a sentient toaster can't have one."

 

 

But this is not the real question though, is it?

 

The real question is, do you consider a Synthetic Intelligence to be "alive" like you would consider your fellow humans / aliens?

 

And then, are they somehow less "alive" than an organic? More?

 

Or is it all simply a question of relativity and point of view, where we try to apply limited organic concepts on a form of "life" that is simply to alien for us to properly understand.

 

Your thoughts and reasoning on this issue?

 

Edit:

 

Assuming you consider synthetics "alive", if you had to choose between saving a synthetic "life", to saving an organic life, would you still consider them equal? (without bringing into the question the specific case of Quarians Vs. Geth)

[Heimerdinger]

"Does this unit have a soul?"

 

One of the toughest questions in the series. Not sure I can answer it, I guess it depends on what one understands by soul and I really don't want to start some religious debate.

 

In the end EDI appears to have found some humanity in her and she's convinced it's worth fighting for...to the death. That's a good enough answer for me.

[KrrKs]

I'm with engineer Adams on this one. I don't care what anyone is made out of.

 

Who am I to decide weather something/one is alive or not -but the Geth sure do the same idiotic mistakes everyone else in the ME:U does.

[Laughing_Man]

*snip*

 

*snip*

 

*snip*

 

So far so good, it thinks, therefore it is.

 

But what if you had to choose between the "life" of a synthetic to the life of an organic, would you still answer the same?

[Hrulj]

Well soul being part of religious teachings, would not be present in something created by mortals

To have a soul one would have to be "made" by God, thus being organic and not being a clone/geneticaly engineered being.

So, Legion, Miranda and Shepard clone dont have a soul per say. While Ashley, Kaidan, Liara and Tali do have souls. 

[KrrKs]

But what if you had to choose between the "life" of a synthetic to the life of an organic, would you still answer the same?

Depends on who goes more on my nerves

 

If the toaster does nothing to bother or threaten me, while the organic is doing either of these, I'll chose the AI to live.

 

Err, or rather: It likely depends on the actual circumstances: Do I know any of them, what's their age, actual species, etc.

Hard to say while just sitting here...

[Treacherous J Slither]

Here's an interesting quote from the movie, "The Imitation Game":

"Alan Turing: Of course machines can't think as people do. A machine is different from a person. Hence, they think differently. The interesting question is, just because something, uh... thinks differently from you, does that mean it's not thinking? Well, we allow for humans to have such divergences from one another. You like strawberries, I hate ice-skating, you cry at sad films, I am allergic to pollen. What is the point of... different tastes, different... preferences, if not, to say that our brains work differently, that we think differently? And if we can say that about one another, then why can't we say the same thing for brains... built of copper and wire, steel?"

I think the real question here is that the Geth were created as simple V.I.s, And therefore couldn't make up singular opinions without cooperative thinking. So, They were really always heading towards evolving to the way the Reaper upgrades made them. But, Can they feel emotions as organics? EDI for example, Altered her parameters to give priority to things like Love, And at Priority: Earth, You could see how much she has changed. So, Can the singularity of the synthetic mind create emotions similar to organics' emotions or not? And how exactly did Synthesis merge the Organic way of seeing things with the Synthetic way of seeing things? I think those are the interesting questions.

What would a synthetic life form want or need from emotions? People constantly make the mistake of humanizing artificial life. Being as human as possible doesn't mean a machine is alive.

Plants, animals, and microorganisms are vastly different from us yet no one questions whether or not they are alive. Seems like life is determined simply by the ability to run on some form of energy and to cease function if this ability is taken away.

On topic: Now if by "soul" Legion and whoever else actually means "personhood" then I would question why a machine would desire such a thing. What purpose would personhood serve for a synthetic life form? I imagine that would depend upon the purpose for which that machine was created in the first place. I believe a machine that doesn't interact with actual people would have no need or desire for personhood. A program that maintains the orbital stability of a satellite has no need for a personality. It simply needs to get it's job done as efficiently as possible.

[Treacherous J Slither]

Nope. Any species, Organics or Synthetics, "Not machines", That have the ability to think for their own will always seek "Personhood". To have a self. Hence, Does this unit have a soul. But the processing power of the Geth back then was weak so they couldn't achieve true sentience. A machine that's designed to do a specific thing acts according to its programming, To its Algorithms, Not according to its own mentality. And by emotions it's also the notion of feeling the world in your own way and being able to connect with everything around you in your own way. That's a part of begin "Alive". Instead of seeing the world in cold statistics.

As I sat here attempting a response I hit upon something:

What is a person? What defines what a person is?

Intelligence? Nope. A retarded person is still a person.

Self awareness? Nope. A dog is self aware yet it is still just an animal.

Im stumped but i'll continue to look for an answer. Does anyone know?

[Monica21]

As I sat here attempting a response I hit upon something:

What is a person? What defines what a person is?

Intelligence? Nope. A retarded person is still a person.

Self awareness? Nope. A dog is self aware yet it is still just an animal.

Im stumped but i'll continue to look for an answer. Does anyone know?

 

Hah, good luck. Is it empathy? Nope, because psychopaths and sociopaths are still people. Elephants are very intelligent, cry, and mourn their dead. But they're not people. On a very basic level, what makes us so different from elephants, aside from having opposable thumbs and being able to do math?

[KrrKs]

Mordin draws the line* at the ability to calculate integrals.

 

Personally I'd use the ability to use tools and plan ahead instead of that.

 

*Species-wise

 

 

Edit: Then Elephants, Dolphins, several Apes and Crows would be people....

 

Well Crows are small, mean, lying bastards that act like everything belongs to them. Sounds pretty human to me, somehow...

Modificata da KrrKs, 05 giugno 2015 - 08:54 .

[Treacherous J Slither]

Oh wait. Lol I got it

[Gago]

Ofc not, they are machines. Hell, if you ask an atheist he will say that none has a soul. But if you mean in a poetic way than sure, why not. Geth do have souls.

[Iakus]

As I sat here attempting a response I hit upon something:

What is a person? What defines what a person is?

Intelligence? Nope. A retarded person is still a person.

Self awareness? Nope. A dog is self aware yet it is still just an animal.

Im stumped but i'll continue to look for an answer. Does anyone know?

This is a question that's been asked for thousands of years.  To this day there is no clear answer.

 

For my part, with the geth, I say why take chances?  We can't define what makes humans "alive" If the geth are sophisticated enough to pose that question, then I say let them in the club.

[Br3admax]

Synthetic "life" will always come second to organic. It's all about me and mine.

 

Other than that, they can be whatever they want to be. I really don't care. 

[SuperJogi]

Synthetic "life" will always come second to organic. It's all about me and mine.

 

Other than that, they can be whatever they want to be. I really don't care. 

 

Absolutly. The same way alien life comes second to human life, the same way lives from my country are more important than lives from your country and the same way family and friends are more important than strangers. In the end comes down to the very human nature of "The closer something is to me, the more I care about it." Nobody really cares about batarians, because we never had a batarian squadmate. No one here would give a **** about the geth if it wasn't for legion.

[Treacherous J Slither]

Person is human or human like. Ha!

So again, why should an artificially intelligent life form desire to be like us or like a person?

[SuperJogi]

Person is human or human like. Ha!

So again, why should an artificially intelligent life form desire to be like us or like a person?

 

Intelligence doesn't just pop up out of nothing, it gets created by taking in and processing large amounts of information. A process also called 'learning'. A newborn baby is a pretty dumb thing, but it has great capacity to take in information from it's enviroment and after some time, that dumb baby will be an intelligent and unique person. Every person will be, by neccessity, shaped by their enviroment, so it is not unreasonable to assume that a synthetic which "grew up" (i.e. formed their personality) around organics, would also behave like an organic, or aspire to be like one. 

[SuperJogi]

I care about Batarians .... What does that make me?

 

It makes you a rational thinker. You look at the problom objectivly and think: "People dying is bad, an intelligent species going extinct is even worse". It's the same way most people look at things like civil war in afrikan countries. You say you care because logic tells you that you should, but it actually doesn't have any great emotional effect on you. Otherwise you would be crying your eyes out 24/7 in this brutal world. You don't really care.

 

And actually, I gave a f*** about the geth and A.I. before Legion.

 

Probably because you are familiar with the problem through other Sci-fi works. But would you have really considered picking the geth over the quarians if you knew nothing about them apart from how to shoot them?

 

Everyone is equal in my eyes, There's no "Second-class citizens"

 

Again, you say that because logic tells you that this is the right thing, but it's not what you actually feel. If you had the choice between killing all humans, including you, your family and friends, and killing some alien species that you never even met before, what would you pick? Wait, I already know and you do aswell. You will always value people that are close to you more than people that are not, and political correctness wont change that.