2407 réponses à ce sujet

[Iakus]

But everything is possible. When you make the statement "Well we made peace with the Geth that disproves everything the Catalyst said" you are closing your mind to all other possibilities and claiming in pure ignorance that any possible variation of new synthetic life will be exactly like the Geth. Or that the alliance that was created because they both faced a mutual threat.  To make the claim as you are that everything will remain the same from now till the heat death of the universe is equally close minded.

 

And by going along with the Reapers' analysis that synthetics will inevitably overthrow organics and scour the galaxy of all organic life closes off all possibility of any outcome outside of a robopocalypse.  

 

I do not claim everything will remain the same.  Maybe war will happen anyway, either with the geth or someone else.  And maybe not. I'd rather leave open the possibility of "not" I do not believe in pre-crime.  I'm not going to punish the galaxy, or even a portion of the galaxy for what might happen

[themikefest]

So you don't commit genocide, you simply allow it to continue?

 The geth would've been destroyed before Shepard even showed up if the reapers never interfered.
 

Why should you believe the geth?  Same reason you'd believe the quarians, krogan, batarians, turians, salarians, etc.  Or the same reason you don't.

None of those species sided with the reapers, right?
 
 

[gothpunkboy89]

And by going along with the Reapers' analysis that synthetics will inevitably overthrow organics and scour the galaxy of all organic life closes off all possibility of any outcome outside of a robopocalypse.  

 

I do not claim everything will remain the same.  Maybe war will happen anyway, either with the geth or someone else.  And maybe not. I'd rather leave open the possibility of "not" I do not believe in pre-crime.  I'm not going to punish the galaxy, or even a portion of the galaxy for what might happen

 

When the entire reason it was created was due to the repeat and I shall say this again. REPEAT BATTLE TO THE DEATH WITH SYNTHETIC LIFE which resulting more then once in the complete destruction of an entire race. Who attempted for many years to bring a sort of peace between organic and synthetic races while watching those efforts fail again and again.

 

vs

 

3 months of being allies with Geth while both groups face a mutual threat.

[Iakus]

 

None of those species sided with the reapers, right?
 

Which is a considerably more valid reason not to trust them than "they're just toasters"

 

 

The geth would've been destroyed before Shepard even showed up if the reapers never interfered.

And if you don't get to that one student at Grissom Academy in time, she bleeds out.  Should Shepard not interfere?

[Iakus]

When the entire reason it was created was due to the repeat and I shall say this again. REPEAT BATTLE TO THE DEATH WITH SYNTHETIC LIFE which resulting more then once in the complete destruction of an entire race. Who attempted for many years to bring a sort of peace between organic and synthetic races while watching those efforts fail again and again.

 

vs

 

3 months of being allies with Geth while both groups face a mutual threat.

Argument from Authority

 

It claims there's this terrible problem, but cites zero supporting evidence beyond it's own authority on the subject

 

Even the Leviathans in Bioware's sad attempt to shore up its endings, simply claim the problem was there.  Again, with no supporting evidence.  

 

Re: Geth, amusingly the Rannoch Reaper tries to cite Rannoch as evidence supporting the Reaper claim.

[themikefest]

Which is a considerably more valid reason not to trust them than "they're just toasters"

I don't call them toasters. I call the things walking flashlights
 

And if you don't get to that one student at Grissom Academy in time, she bleeds out.  Should Shepard not interfere?

Shepard gets there in time. Its a matter of activating the character in time.

So you're saying helping that one student is the same as the reapers interfering?

[Iakus]

 

Shepard gets there in time. Its a matter of activating the character in time.

So you're saying helping that one student is the same as the reapers interfering?

And Shepard gets to Rannoch in time.

 

I'm saying helping one student is the same as helping make peace between the quarians and geth.  You can stand by and watch the quarians kill them all.  Or you can intervene.

[themikefest]

And Shepard gets to Rannoch in time.

 

I'm saying helping one student is the same as helping make peace between the quarians and geth.  You can stand by and watch the quarians kill them all.  Or you can intervene.

 Since the reapers interfered, I will run my own interference by helping the quarians to counter the interference from the reapers. Now the quarians are back to the way it was before the reapers interfered. I grab a chair and a bag of popcorn watching the quarians destroy the machines. Isn't interference grand?

[Monica21]

IF that were the case, then it wouldn't have scared the cr*p out of the quarians when it was asked

 

If most of my Google searches are about Justin Bieber, Google starts to tailor its results to assume that I want to know things about Justin Bieber. You can see this when Google tries to auto-complete searches. This means that Google's algorithm is "learning" about what I want to know. It doesn't mean that Google is alive.

[BloodyMares]

 

And if you don't get to that one student at Grissom Academy in time, she bleeds out.  Should Shepard not interfere?

Grissom Academy is a human business and they ask for help. Nor quarians, nor geth ask for your help to resolve their conflict. You help Legion remove the Reaper code from the geth network, you destroy the Reaper that is a source of the signal. Other than that you've got no business there. Quarians decided to finish off the geth and the geth didn't really ask for your assistance. Why would you interfere? Alliance is not needed there, Spectres are not needed there, Shepard is not needed there. What excuse do you have to decide their fate for them? And Legion asks not to save them from the quarians, it asks if it can upload the Reaper code to upgrade all geth. Asks. And you can say no to save the quarians. What quarians and Legion do afterwards isn't your concern. If Shepard says yes to Legion then s/he agrees to commit a genocide against quarians because without metagaming you can't be sure that peace is an option.

[Iakus]

 Since the reapers interfered, I will run my own interference by helping the quarians to counter the interference from the reapers. Now the quarians are back to the way it was before the reapers interfered. I grab a chair and a bag of popcorn watching the quarians destroy the machines. Isn't interference grand?

Sure.  And I'll interfere just a little bit more and talk the quarians and geth into putting aside their differences until Space Cthulhu is dealt with.

 

If most of my Google searches are about Justin Bieber, Google starts to tailor its results to assume that I want to know things about Justin Bieber. You can see this when Google tries to auto-complete searches. This means that Google's algorithm is "learning" about what I want to know. It doesn't mean that Google is alive.

And the entire Morning War and three hundred years of exile happened because of a search algorithm?  

 

Grissom Academy is a human business and they ask for help. Nor quarians, nor geth ask for your help to resolve their conflict. You help Legion remove the Reaper code from the geth network, you destroy the Reaper that is a source of the signal. Other than that you've got no business there. Quarians decided to finish off the geth and the geth didn't really ask for your assistance. Why would you interfere? Alliance is not needed there, Spectres are not needed there, Shepard is not needed there. What excuse do you have to decide their fate for them? And Legion asks not to save them from the quarians, it asks if it can upload the Reaper code to upgrade all geth. Asks. And you can say no to save the quarians. What quarians and Legion do afterwards isn't your concern. If Shepard says yes to Legion then s/he agrees to commit a genocide against quarians because without metagaming you can't be sure that peace is an option.

And if Shepard talks the quarians down, they both live, and what they do afterwards isn't your concern.  

[Monica21]

And the entire Morning War and three hundred years of exile happened because of a search algorithm?  

 

*sigh* Okay. I'll answer my initial question for you, since you're unwilling or unable to do so.

 

The entire idea of a soul is bound up in the idea that there is life after death. That there is some part of consciousness that exists outside of our physical selves. My point in bring up Siri and search algorithms is that machines that talk and "think" aren't that far off. They're already doing that, to some degree. Google's algorithm learns what I want based on what I've done. If I start a lot of searches about the soul, the Google is going to anticipate that. Why would I think it's outside the realm of possibility that that's all the question was? The question could simply have been, "hey, we are of similar structure, with our two arms and two legs and walking upright, and you all talk about souls, so do I have one too?"

 

So, with regard to the soul specifically, I think it's a stupid question, and I think it was stupid for Bioware to have written it as the freak out moment. I'm not entirely certain that humans have souls. And if humans do have souls then do all organic creatures, or are we special somehow? If we are special then what makes us special? Do other organic creatures have to have some level of sapience? Does my cat have a soul? Does the tree outside my window have a soul? What's the cutoff for something having "a soul"? But my point is that if I'm this unsure of my own soul, and I'm alive and organic and made of flesh and blood and I have parents that gave me life and a mother that literally grew me and fed me and watched me grow up, I'm not going to be too concerned about whether a walking and talking machine has a soul. In fact, I'm going to be very sure that that machine does not have a soul.

 

The question about the soul is irrelevant to the Geth and is not an indicator of whether it is alive.

[ImaginaryMatter]

But everything is possible. When you make the statement "Well we made peace with the Geth that disproves everything the Catalyst said" you are closing your mind to all other possibilities and claiming in pure ignorance that any possible variation of new synthetic life will be exactly like the Geth. Or that the alliance that was created because they both faced a mutual threat.  To make the claim as you are that everything will remain the same from now till the heat death of the universe is equally close minded.

 

ME3 is a story though. A story where brokering peace is possible and is treated with complete sincerity. This has an impact on how players view the relationships between organics and AIs, especially considering the Rannoch arc is the microcosm for this conflict and is largely the only time the issue is explored. So, yes, the choice is extremely important in the perception of AI/organic conflict and, again, doubly important in the absence of anything else (the other AI/organic arc in the game involves EDI, which is doubly unhelpful).

 

When the Catalyst starts talking about the conflict players will naturally think about the past AI/organic events in the game, events that were important ends to series long arcs. That's the cause of the dissonance -- the Catalyst words are almost at complete odds with the player's own experience. That's the failure. Sure, you can argue that peace won't last but now you're entering speculation that does not follow intuitively from the events of the game.

[gothpunkboy89]

Argument from Authority

 

It claims there's this terrible problem, but cites zero supporting evidence beyond it's own authority on the subject

 

Even the Leviathans in Bioware's sad attempt to shore up its endings, simply claim the problem was there.  Again, with no supporting evidence.  

 

Re: Geth, amusingly the Rannoch Reaper tries to cite Rannoch as evidence supporting the Reaper claim.

 

Argument from Authority doesn't actually work here because the entire plot behind the game trilogy's existence is based on this fact. The Catalyst's authority is based on the people who created the very existence of that world who state that this is what happens. In essence God or which ever deity you worship directly telling you X issue will always happen because he created the entire universe with X issue in mind to happen. And you are calling him a liar and demanding proof of these facts.

 

The very existence of the AI is proof of the problem. The AI didn't just spontaneously spring into existence in a flash of light. A tear in the very fabric of reality didn't appear and the AI and the Reapers show up from some twisted alternate reality. Some poor bullied synthetic kid didn't go home sacrifice a synthetic goat on a pentagram and summon the synthetic devil and him minions into our universe to kill everything over and over again.

[Artona]

 

 

The Catalyst's authority is based on the people who created the very existence of that world who state that this is what happens. In essence God or which ever deity you worship directly telling you X issue will always happen because he created the entire universe with X issue in mind to happen. And you are calling him a liar and demanding proof of these facts.

 

C'mon, Catalyst didn't create those conditions that make conflict between organics and synthetics supposedly unavoidable, nor is it comparable to God. 

[gothpunkboy89]

Never did compare Catalyst to God. Compared Bioware the game developer to the game's equivalent of God.

[Ieldra]

*sigh* Okay. I'll answer my initial question for you, since you're unwilling or unable to do so.

 

The entire idea of a soul is bound up in the idea that there is life after death. That there is some part of consciousness that exists outside of our physical selves. My point in bring up Siri and search algorithms is that machines that talk and "think" aren't that far off. They're already doing that, to some degree. Google's algorithm learns what I want based on what I've done. If I start a lot of searches about the soul, the Google is going to anticipate that. Why would I think it's outside the realm of possibility that that's all the question was? The question could simply have been, "hey, we are of similar structure, with our two arms and two legs and walking upright, and you all talk about souls, so do I have one too?"

 

So, with regard to the soul specifically, I think it's a stupid question, and I think it was stupid for Bioware to have written it as the freak out moment. I'm not entirely certain that humans have souls. And if humans do have souls then do all organic creatures, or are we special somehow? If we are special then what makes us special? Do other organic creatures have to have some level of sapience? Does my cat have a soul? Does the tree outside my window have a soul? What's the cutoff for something having "a soul"? But my point is that if I'm this unsure of my own soul, and I'm alive and organic and made of flesh and blood and I have parents that gave me life and a mother that literally grew me and fed me and watched me grow up, I'm not going to be too concerned about whether a walking and talking machine has a soul. In fact, I'm going to be very sure that that machine does not have a soul.

 

The question about the soul is irrelevant to the Geth and is not an indicator of whether it is alive.

I've always interpreted that statement about a soul as somewhat metaphorical. It wasn't meant to be a metaphysical statement, but a shorthand for what it means to be alive and intelligent on a similar level as humans are.

 

Meanwhile, I agree it was stupid to phrase things that way - too easily misinterpreted in the wrong way, as your post indicates rather nicely. And had they intended that double-meaning, that would be beyond stupid. The question "is synthetic life really alive" was handled excessively badly in ME3, after a good start in ME2.

[Artona]

Never did compare Catalyst to God. Compared Bioware the game developer to the game's equivalent of God.

 

So... where Bioware developers "directly tell me X issue will always happen because they created the entire universe with X issue in mind to happen"?

[gothpunkboy89]

So... where Bioware developers "directly tell me X issue will always happen because they created the entire universe with X issue in mind to happen"?

 

The original Cycle the thrall races developed synthetic life to make their life easier. They advance and evolve then a war of existence develops between the creator and the created. This conflict resulted in at least a few instances of the creator being killed off completely by the created. Thus prompting the Leviathans even if only for selfish reasons to create a super powerful AI to figure out the problem and find a solution. It spends decades or maybe longer studying the development pattern of civilizations. It tries multiple attempts to create a lasting peace between the two groups. Each time that peace failing eventually.  So as a final solution to fix this issue it created the Cycle and the first Reaper to act as a sort of stasis for the problem. Keeping organic life in a cycle of developmental stasis harvesting and storing their essence in a near immortal Reaper before they can develop enough to create synthetic life that could rebel and kill them.

 

Throughout the countless ages the same repetition in civilizations appear time and time again. The very repetitions that caused the Catalyst to enact the Reaper solution.  The only reason the Catalyst appears to Shepard at the end as he sit broken and dying is that it perceives it's solution is failing. Offering Shepard multiple options on how to proceed. How ever it does try to convince Shepard to take the path it sees as the way to end the cycle completely forever (Synthesis) now that it is possible to do so. 

[rossler]

When the Catalyst starts talking about the conflict players will naturally think about the past AI/organic events in the game, events that were important ends to series long arcs. That's the cause of the dissonance -- the Catalyst words are almost at complete odds with the player's own experience. That's the failure. Sure, you can argue that peace won't last but now you're entering speculation that does not follow intuitively from the events of the game.

 

It is a being that controls the Reapers--the antagonist of the last three games. Of course everything it says it at odds with the protagonist's own experience.

[Monica21]

I've always interpreted that statement about a soul as somewhat metaphorical. It wasn't meant to be a metaphysical statement, but a shorthand for what it means to be alive and intelligent on a similar level as humans are.

 

Meanwhile, I agree it was stupid to phrase things that way - too easily misinterpreted in the wrong way, as your post indicates rather nicely. And had they intended that double-meaning, that would be beyond stupid. The question "is synthetic life really alive" was handled excessively badly in ME3, after a good start in ME2.

 

Oh, I agree. My response to him though, was concerning his reply to me that went something along the lines of "has your phone ever asked you if it had a soul?" as some measure of proof that choosing Destroy equal genocide. 

[BloodyMares]

I've always interpreted that statement about a soul as somewhat metaphorical. It wasn't meant to be a metaphysical statement, but a shorthand for what it means to be alive and intelligent on a similar level as humans are.

 

Meanwhile, I agree it was stupid to phrase things that way - too easily misinterpreted in the wrong way, as your post indicates rather nicely. And had they intended that double-meaning, that would be beyond stupid. The question "is synthetic life really alive" was handled excessively badly in ME3, after a good start in ME2.

The change of the writers is noticeable in this case. According to Tali in ME1, the original questions were "Am I alive? Why am I here? What is my purpose?" Although it's wierd that geth wouldn't have the data about their purpose.

[Iakus]

*sigh* Okay. I'll answer my initial question for you, since you're unwilling or unable to do so.

 

The entire idea of a soul is bound up in the idea that there is life after death. That there is some part of consciousness that exists outside of our physical selves. My point in bring up Siri and search algorithms is that machines that talk and "think" aren't that far off. They're already doing that, to some degree. Google's algorithm learns what I want based on what I've done. If I start a lot of searches about the soul, the Google is going to anticipate that. Why would I think it's outside the realm of possibility that that's all the question was? The question could simply have been, "hey, we are of similar structure, with our two arms and two legs and walking upright, and you all talk about souls, so do I have one too?"

 

But because Google can anticipate you asking questions about the soul does not indicate that Google will itself wonder if it has a soul.  

 

 

 

So, with regard to the soul specifically, I think it's a stupid question, and I think it was stupid for Bioware to have written it as the freak out moment. I'm not entirely certain that humans have souls. And if humans do have souls then do all organic creatures, or are we special somehow? If we are special then what makes us special? Do other organic creatures have to have some level of sapience? Does my cat have a soul? Does the tree outside my window have a soul? What's the cutoff for something having "a soul"? But my point is that if I'm this unsure of my own soul, and I'm alive and organic and made of flesh and blood and I have parents that gave me life and a mother that literally grew me and fed me and watched me grow up, I'm not going to be too concerned about whether a walking and talking machine has a soul. In fact, I'm going to be very sure that that machine does not have a soul.

 

What a soul is and whether a given species (even humans) is irrelevant.  What is relevant is if something has the sapience to ponder the question. "I think, therefore I am"  

 

Leave the question of who actually has a soul to priests and philosophers.  But I think a being capable of pondering the state of its own existence is as alive as I am

 

 

The question about the soul is irrelevant to the Geth and is not an indicator of whether it is alive.

 

The answer is irrelevant.  The question is.  And that is what scared the cr*p out of the quarians

[Iakus]

Argument from Authority doesn't actually work here because the entire plot behind the game trilogy's existence is based on this fact. The Catalyst's authority is based on the people who created the very existence of that world who state that this is what happens. In essence God or which ever deity you worship directly telling you X issue will always happen because he created the entire universe with X issue in mind to happen. And you are calling him a liar and demanding proof of these facts.

 

It works perfectly.  Its information is anecdotal at best.  No hard evidence is presented,  

 

And calling the Catalyst "God" is pretty LOL.  It's a broken machine.  It is a liar.  Or at best grossly mistaken.  And yes I demand proof, especially if it's calling on such horrible "solutions"

 

 

The very existence of the AI is proof of the problem. The AI didn't just spontaneously spring into existence in a flash of light. A tear in the very fabric of reality didn't appear and the AI and the Reapers show up from some twisted alternate reality. Some poor bullied synthetic kid didn't go home sacrifice a synthetic goat on a pentagram and summon the synthetic devil and him minions into our universe to kill everything over and over again.

 

The existence of the AI is proof only of a powerful, but foolish precursor race.  Nothing more.  If the AI was proof of it's own rantings, it would have scoured the galaxy of organic life long ago.

[StarcloudSWG]

The Catalyst IS scouring the galaxy of organic life. It's just doing so in a measured, controlled way that ensures there's always organic life to commit genocide against.

 

It was programmed to believe synthetic life inevitably destroys all organic life. It realized it was itself synthetic life. Therefore its purpose is to destroy all organic life. It just takes an extra step and preserves the data about the organic life it's exterminating, and it makes sure there's some organic life to exterminate in the future.

 

Without organic life to exterminate, it would lose its purpose for existence.