For somebody who is so adamant that words in a discussion must be clearly defined, you seem to be very insistent on using your own made up definitions of things.
Part of why I stopped bothering to talk with them awhile ago.
It's always boring when someone starts arbitrarily redefining words while retreating to the pendantic when their arguments fall through. It's faux-intellectualism, and a particularly low calorie kind.
It's boring, quite frankly.
Sounds like someone didn't catch the joke of the Sokal affair.
(Likes for whoever knows what that's about.)
Physicist Alan Sokal was able to get a deliberately nonsensical paper published in a major postmodernist journal called Social Text simply by making it sufficiently flattering to the views of the journal editors; the paper was called "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity," and despite being filled with mathematical and scientific errors that would have been blatantly obvious to anyone with a passing familiarity of the relevant science and math it was published. At one point in the paper, Sokal draws an absurd analogy between the liberal feminist slogan "pro-choice" and the axiom of choice, which is a standard part of "hegemonic" Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory. The moral: Most postmodernist scholarship is indistinguishable from utter nonsense.
They were obviously not clear to everyone, given the complaints about ninjamancing. That's the whole reason why we got the icons.What's the difference, really? Origins has lines that are clearly specific to initiating a romance. Even if you want to decide the tone and intention of these lines for yourself, these are still the lines that must be used to get to paramour mode.
But a person, for example, exhibits characteristics that protons don't, so describing the person helps explain the phenomena. The person makes decisions; each proton doesn't act independently.Isn't almost everything an aggregation of things? If none truly exist except the most fundamental of things, then conversation would become very laborious in describing the constituent parts every single thing instead of just describing them together as combinations of things.
Sokal demonstrated that you can write nonsense if you try to write nonsense. Sokal demonstrated that the publishers of that journal weren't particularly familiar with the details of other fields (and possibly their own). Sokal demonstrated how easily gameable the scholarly peer review process is.Sounds like someone didn't catch the joke of the Sokal affair.
(Likes for whoever knows what that's about.)
You don't falsify single premises. You falsify whole hypotheses, which include myriad assumptions.
I don't recall having objected to abduction in this thread. Induction, yes. Abduction, no. Since abduction doesn't draw firm conclusions, it doesn't have the same problems induction does.
I speak in favour of features I like.Part of why I stopped bothering to talk with them awhile ago.
It's always boring when someone starts arbitrarily redefining words while retreating to the pendantic when their arguments fall through. It's faux-intellectualism, and a particularly low calorie kind.
It's boring, quite frankly.
So we change some variables and try again. Using abduction to chose which.To your first point, that's useless. Having every single experiment falsify the entire of human science to date is meaningless. It tells us nothing about the world other than that one or more of the things we believe about it is false.
It explicitly doesn't guarantee the conclusions. Abduction is a great tool for finding which assumptions to test next.Abduction does draw firm conclusions - because it changed what it means to draw them. It is predicated partly on dismissing what it really means to have reliable information.
I don't actually think that this would fit in the Mass Effect's narrative or world for that matter at all. It works, for example, in Elder Scrolls games so well because you can potentially be ANYONE or ANYTHING. In a way, your character doesn't really matter all that much. If you've played Morrowind, you'll notice that once Nerevarine served his purpose he was never to be heard again in the following installments. Same with Hero of the Kvatch. He had committed so many extraordinary things, yet he was barely mentioned at all in Skyrim, almost as if he never existed. His existence was indeed quoted, but mostly as a footnote if you could even call him that. Now, take Mass Effect and it doesn't really work all that well with it because of the way the characters are set up. In Mass Effect, you have the protagonist and then supporting, main characters (a.k.a. The Crew [from da hood]). In Skyrim there is no such thing. You do not have to follow a particular path to complete the game, or you don't even have to finish the main quest at all, but you could still have invested well over 100 hours and earned quite a name for yourself.
I said it's not a thing. It doesn't exist on its own. It is merely an aggregation of other things.
As such, referring to communication, or describing the features of communication, rather than talking about its constituent parts, adds nothing, and serves only to confuse people.
If we're talking about expression, let's talk about expression. If we're talking about interpretation, let's talk about interpretation. If we're talking about intent or motivation, let's talk about those things.
But talking about communication just muddies the water.
That's all I was saying about communication.
Communication is those things when being done between multiple people however, which is an important distinction. It's also easier to use one word to describe all things happening at once rather than half a dozen words in the same sentence every time I want to talk about it.
It doesn't muddy the water except for with you. That's completely your own fault if you confuse people because you refuse to use the common use of terminology in modern English.
Like I said, if I claimed not to believe in apples then it's my fault when people don't understand if my definition of an apple isn't the fruit. If you decide you want to arbitrarily redefine or reject words from the language, you're going to be terrible at communication and as a result, terrible at making a convincing argument for anybody you're trying to convince.
I'm not a scientist by trade (or a philosopher of science) so it's been a long time since I've worked with formal logic. I hope I remember the operators correctly.
The idea is basically as follows. Popper sets out falsification as simple modus ponens:
*snip*
I unfortunately don't have a scientific background, so some of it may have gone over my head.
But I do have some questions:
A. I can easily accept that some scientific theories and hypotheses are wrong, and are only accepted because currently they explain sufficiently some things that seem to work according to them. However, aren't we getting closer to the truth with successive elimination of a false theory due to new discoveries?
More so, a relatively simple hypothesis like the phlogiston theory, is hardly more than a guess, because it was invented to answer a very specific set of questions or results. However, modern scientific theories have to account for much more than that, and assuming that they do - it seems to me that the likelihood of them being completely false is exponentially lower. The more of the code you can break with one cipher, the more accurate your cipher is.
B. Is there a point to this? I mean, sure the scientific method may not be perfect, but it is consistent for the most part, and the actual results it has to show for all the sometimes questionable theory and hypotheses are very impressive. Is this merely a philosophical question similar to "is anything 'real'"? Or is this supposed to be a defense for irrational explanations for the universe like various religious / spiritual theories?
The danger is when people say things like "you're not very good at communicating." What does that mean? Am I not good at expressing myself, or interpreting others, or both?Communication is those things when being done between multiple people however, which is an important distinction. It's also easier to use one word to describe all things happening at once rather than half a dozen words in the same sentence every time I want to talk about it.
It doesn't muddy the water except for with you. That's completely your own fault if you confuse people because you refuse to use the common use of terminology in modern English.
Like I said, if I claimed not to believe in apples then it's my fault when people don't understand if my definition of an apple isn't the fruit. If you decide you want to arbitrarily redefine or reject words from the language, you're going to be terrible at communication and as a result, terrible at making a convincing argument for anybody you're trying to convince.
The danger is when people say things like "you're not very good at communicating." What does that mean? Am I not good at expressing myself, or interpreting others, or both?
It would be better if people didn't think of communication as a thing people did.
Some things are more like an art than a science. (Perhaps because we are not yet advanced enough to do the actual math for it...)
"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."Some things are more like an art than a science. (Perhaps because we are not yet advanced enough to do the actual math for it...)
The danger is when people say things like "you're not very good at communicating." What does that mean? Am I not good at expressing myself, or interpreting others, or both?
It would be better if people didn't think of communication as a thing people did.
The problem is that you refuse to use much of the commonly accepted terminology of modern English. This means that naturally you're just going to be not good at communication as a whole so yes, it's both.
Given all the current variables of the situation, the most viable solution is for you to simply accept what the rest of us are using. Thinking it would be better if the entire world changed to suit you is not productive in any fashion.
Unfortunately for your argument, when you're not good at communication it means not convincing anybody of your side. You say you want to make it appear as though dissent exists but evidence in this thread suggests you have crafted such a poor argument that people around here are now more convinced against silent protagonists.
If anything, you've created a more strongly unified voice against what you want because while you might have convinced a few people not posting, they're not a voice that's going to be seen or heard.
This discussion of science is getting off topic, because science deals with the objective reality of the real world.
The game doesn't have a verifiable objective reality. We can happily use processes within the game (to produce a better gameplay experience for ourselves) that would be absurd to use in the real world.
That's the argument though. Just because we can technically use these processes, does not mean that we will. Much like how you ignore the action combat, we ignore making up our tone (and the accompanying inconsistencies) because it's a skill that we either can't or aren't willing to do. Either way, a feature that goes unused by the entire audience save for a select few, isn't much of a feature. Therefore, you cannot claim that assuming tone is a feature worth considering when deciding between a silent or voiced protagonist.
We get on philosophy and science every time because you insist on denying the existence of the very constructs of our argument.
The danger is when people say things like "you're not very good at communicating." What does that mean? Am I not good at expressing myself, or interpreting others, or both?
It would be better if people didn't think of communication as a thing people did.
It means that you're expressing ideas in such a way that other's won't understand them and you're interpreting others incorrectly. I thought that would have been obvious by the example of arbitrarily redefining the word apple. If you define terms in ways that differ from common English, you'll express concepts that other's won't comprehend and you'll misinterpret concepts expressed by others.
In effect, you're deliberately making yourself difficult to communicate with.
That's significantly more normative than I would typically allow, but he had the right idea. If we can't describe something in a meaningful way, why are we describing it?
If you're saying that defining things in terms of loose or artistic properties aren't meaningful, then I disagree.
"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."
That's significantly more normative than I would typically allow, but he had the right idea. If we can't describe something in a meaningful way, why are we describing it?
Not being able to do something efficiently never stopped humanity as a whole from trying to do it anyway.
We know that it's a thing most people do all the time, we know that some are more successful at it than others, we can even explain much of the psychology behind it and why different people react in certain ways to certain types of interactions, what we can't do is explain it sufficiently in one line of text.
But the debate is ongoing, as opposed to there being no dissent at all.The problem is that you refuse to use much of the commonly accepted terminology of modern English. This means that naturally you're just going to be not good at communication as a whole so yes, it's both.
Given all the current variables of the situation, the most viable solution is for you to simply accept what the rest of us are using. Thinking it would be better if the entire world changed to suit you is not productive in any fashion.
Unfortunately for your argument, when you're not good at communication it means not convincing anybody of your side. You say you want to make it appear as though dissent exists but evidence in this thread suggests you have crafted such a poor argument that people around here are now more convinced against silent protagonists.
If anything, you've created a more strongly unified voice against what you want because while you might have convinced a few people not posting, they're not a voice that's going to be seen or heard.
What one line of text can describe very well, however, is one line of text.Not being able to do something efficiently never stopped humanity as a whole from trying to do it anyway.
We know that it's a thing most people do all the time, we know that some are more successful at it than others, we can even explain much of the psychology behind it and why different people react in certain ways to certain types of interactions, what we can't do is explain it sufficiently in one line of text.
But the debate is ongoing, as opposed to there being no dissent at all.
What debate do you think is ongoing? There's about a handful of potentially insightful comments debating silent protagonists buried under a protracted discussion of the existence of groups, communication, and human behavior. Anyone not versed in scientific philosophy will likely get confused and walk away, the vast majority of the remaining audience will probably tire of the pedantic tangents and go elsewhere, and the few with the will to follow this whole debate are probably hardcore fans with immutable opinions.
The only dissent you're creating is likely towards you and the features you endorse.
What one line of text can describe very well, however, is one line of text.
I suggest we stop there.
And lose out on all the interesting subjects and potential advancements purely out of fear that our descriptions won't be perfectly accurate?
But the debate is ongoing, as opposed to there being no dissent at all.
If the goal is to eventually get the features you like implemented into the game one way or another, then having a one man dissent or no dissent at all are about equally as inefficient methods of going about doing that. BioWare isn't going to cater to a single BSN poster, or even a small handful of them being very vocal.
You would need to get more people on your side to create more dissent, but you're failing in that regard because of how you're wording everything.
Given that more people are talking about how they are now less convinced that a silent protagonist is any good the more we debate than there are agreeing with you, it would seem that you not making any argument would have been more effective for your side. On top of that, the fact that me and Robot need to start arguing the existence of things like communication means that the debate is now taken away from silent protagonists and there is no more dissent at all, because we haven't been on topic in pages in this thread.
That should suggest a change in the approach is something to consider, because your current one appears to have minimal effect.
I would consider Alistair doing this as far less damaging to the playthrough than Hawke or Shepard doing it. Those are the characters over which we're actually supposed to have some control.
However, the breaking of the conversation could actually make Alistair "hardened", which is problematic if you didn't mean for this to happen.
Being able to control Alistair's reaction to something would be weird. What if your joke offended him? Maybe he's just really touchy on that subject (whatever is was).
From my understanding of the character, Alistair was good-natured, polite and stable. The sudden breaking of conversation goes against this. Maybe i'm off on this but that part of the conversation didn't seem charastic of Alistair at all.
I found the pictures incredibly unclear. I didn't know how to piece together the icon and the paraphrase to determie what the line was actually going to be.
Well, visual aids aren't for everyone. It's possible for you, you need the entire sentence spelled out. Either that or they need to work better with the icons.
What does that mean, "how it's meant to play out"?
Take the statement "You stink". By itself or with a ! icon, the scene would possibly play out with PC waving a hand infront of their nose stating "You stink", dead-pan, and the receiving NPC would know they need to take a bath. If the icon was a 
icon, the PC would respond similarly with a smile on their face and in their voice so the NPC not only knew it was a joke or jab but possibly also the extra garlic was the right choice.
Do you mean what the consequences of the choice will be? I don't want to know that. I certainly don't want to be able to control it.
No, i think of it as representing the frame of mind of the PC during that part of the scene. Where, with the example noted above, the ! icon would mean a direct, no bullsh*t statement, while a icon would mean the PC's feeling jovial so the statement's going to be said as a joke.
The romance icon added in DA2 is a travesty. I really wish we could turn it off.
Hahahah. The icon might be a travesty but for people like me, it's occasionally helpful. I'm clueless when it comes to understanding social queues, especially those involving high-stake situations like romance.
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