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)
Now this is very much the realm of philosophy at the highest level! As someone who has taken a course on the philosophy of consciousness at university, I should be able to provide you with a good answer or, rather, an answer capturing the academical views of the mattter. However, the question is way too big and complicated to be handled properly in a place like this. So we cannot hope to clarify things as much as needed here, only touch upon the issues a little.
In case someone earlier in this thread has already said something along the lines I'm about to say, I apologize for not reading the lot before posting. I will merely point out a couple of the key issues on the subject.
To answer a question like the one stated in the title for this thread, here's the first thing you need to do: define "soul".
If you don't have a clear conception of what a "soul" is, then you cannot answer the question.
Suppose your answer to the above question is: Whatever we refer to when we say "I". That sounds pretty clear. But what does it mean, really? If you know the answer to THAT question, then I'm pretty sure you can answer the first question, too.
Semantically, a "machine" is a complex type of construction with a certain function (usually empowered by electricity) the whole of which is dead. Period. Such things definitely exists, so we need a name for them - machines. If there ever could be a "machine-like" entity that is "alive" (a body in which there resides an "I"), then we need to call that differently - not machines. A "sentient machine" or similar is essentially a contradiction in terms.
Edit: On an other note...
Do you want an utopia where everyone is safe, or do you want an utopia where everyone is free? If you think both are achieveble, you are naive. Every working society is necesseraly a compromise between the two, at which point it stops beeing an utopia.
I think this is basically true, for the simply reason that some people want things other people don't - like hurting them. Therefore, absolute freedom for everybody is impossible.
Torna su
Just saying.
