423 réponses à ce sujet

[The Governator]

GuardianAngel470 wrote...

 Before you post I want you to know that I love the quarians.  They reflect many of the things I like about myself, as well as many of my interests.  This isn't a bashing thread.

The geth and quarian conflict was started by the quarians, we can all agree on that I hope.  The quarians reacted to the fact that the geth had achieved sapience by attempting to deactivate, permanently, all geth systems.  This is what's called genocide, and completely unacceptable (unless you are a ****, in which case you think it is perfectly acceptable).  The geth responded in kind, decimating the quarian population.  they got exactly what they were trying to do to the geth. Thus, they got what they deserved.  

That's my train of logic, convoluted as it is.  

Gray area.  The Geth did not achieve true sapience then and I would not consider them sapient now.  It seems to be wildly overstating it for Bioware to start treating them (from a Paragon perspective) as a 'species' or as true life forms.  Having knowledge without understanding is not sapience.  Their reaction to the Quarians' action was instinct, not measured and considered at all.  Declaring the Quarians having received their just deserts is...well, if it were real it would be deplorable. 

The Quarians did not then, and many still do not believe that they were doing anything more than silencing machines.  The story I recall is that a few Quarians acted in panick to protect the rest of their species.  That does not mean the ENTIRE race deserved the repercussions of a decision made by a few rash individuals.  Those individuals may have come to regret their decision had they lived long enough to fully grasp it, but they acted in desperation and their thoughts were not murderous but protective, even if a bit naive.

I would be reluctant to destroy peaceful Geth even though I do not consider them life forms because they have the possibility of becoming true life forms.  I understand why the rest of the galaxy is angry at Quarians, because their scientists were irresponsible, but that I view it as a tragedy.  They tried to ensure safeguards, but they failed. 

So much could be bandied back and forth as to the true measure of sapience.  Higher cognitive function, reason and emotions are some of what I would use as qualifiers...things that Geth, as individual platforms clearly lack save possibly Legion.  They seem incapable of independent thought.

I do not have all the answers, and maybe I don't even have one.  But without doing a dissertation, that is why I largley disagree with you.

[marshalleck]

Darht Jayder wrote...

It is not truly whether you consider the Quarians to be people or not.  Sentient species implies evolution to the point of being able to percieve subjectively.  The Geth clearly can and have even developed a culture so to speak.  They are so diversified in fact that there are now different groups with different beliefs.  Just because the act as a collective, they clearly are capable of individual perception.  The Quarians had no way of knowing how far the Geth had evolved and before actually finding ou, they tried to wipe them out. 

They had many reasons to believe the geth were not sapient. They had design documents, they had access to all of the geth programming, they'd been using geth for generations (presumably?) and none of them had until that point shown any sign of being anything other than an advanced machine. The burden of proof so to speak in this case would be to prove that the geth are sapient, not prove that they are not. The geth were specifically designed with limitations in place that should have prevented them from becoming truly intelligent-- however, the complex interactions of myriad complex systems resulted in an unpredictable emergent intelligence arising.

Modifié par marshalleck, 08 mars 2010 - 09:03 .

[marshalleck]

Darht Jayder wrote...

True but the Quarians had reason to believe that the Geth had gained sapience without their knowledge and against their expectations.  Upon discovering this...they tried to wipe them out.  End of story.  The Quarians knew it and tried to "fix" thier mistake through destruction......hmmmm sound kind of like Reapers now that I think about it.  It was the wrong way to go.

It's just not that simple. You said it yourself, only a few showed signs of having exceded their programming. The majority did not. It was not believed to be a wide-spread phenomenon so the logical conclusion was a policy of containment.

You can blame the quarians for underestimating the geth if you want, but that's a condemnation that can only be made with the advantageous benefit of hindsight.

Modifié par marshalleck, 08 mars 2010 - 09:08 .

[CmdrFenix83]

Darht Jayder wrote...

It is not truly whether you consider the Quarians to be people or not.  Sentient species implies evolution to the point of being able to percieve subjectively.  The Geth clearly can and have even developed a culture so to speak.  They are so diversified in fact that there are now different groups with different beliefs.  Just because the act as a collective, they clearly are capable of individual perception.  The Quarians had no way of knowing how far the Geth had evolved and before actually finding ou, they tried to wipe them out. 

Yeah, it really is.  I wouldn't consider a machine to be a person, no matter how smart it was, or what it was capable of.  A machine is a machine.  I don't care how much of organic life they've come to imitate, they're machines.  The Quarians acted no different than we would as a species.  A few isolated incidents indicate that their farm/construction equipment is aware of its' own existence, Quarian leadership makes the call to shut them down before they all go self-aware and rebel.  Not kill, not destroy, shut down.  Turn them all off so we can study what the heck went wrong and how to fix it.  This is exactly what Arnold says happened during T2 with Skynet(I watched this last night which is why I remember it so well). 

In both cases, the machines defend themselves and move to exterminate their creator race.  The entire discussion boils down to "Are Geth malfunctioning machines, or living beings?"  You can discredit this point as many times as you like, but every single person's opinion is based on that question.  Those that side with the Geth do so because they consider them alive and believe that as such, they have rights.  Those that don't(like myself) side with the Quarians.  It's just that simple, and neither side is going to convince the other of anything, making this entire debate just a pointless waste of time.

[The Governator]

I don't consider many debates to be wasteful. Debates enhance mental acuity and broaden horizons.

[marshalleck]

CmdrFenix83 wrote...

In both cases, the machines defend themselves and move to exterminate their creator race.  The entire discussion boils down to "Are Geth malfunctioning machines, or living beings?"  You can discredit this point as many times as you like, but every single person's opinion is based on that question.  Those that side with the Geth do so because they consider them alive and believe that as such, they have rights.  Those that don't(like myself) side with the Quarians.  It's just that simple, and neither side is going to convince the other of anything, making this entire debate just a pointless waste of time.

Actually, there is a third option. You can believe that both sides were justified to an extent, and both sides made mistakes which led to an incredibly tragic loss of billions of lives (both synthetic and organic).

Modifié par marshalleck, 08 mars 2010 - 09:11 .

[CmdrFenix83]

Darht Jayder wrote...

Actually I think it would be closer to the truth to say that the Quarians had no way of knowing how many had.  They only knew about a few and assumed the others had not evolved that far and it was a huge mistake to make that assumption.  That is why they got their asses handed to them.

The Quarians knew about the neural network.  They know how the Geth got smarter in larger numbers.  It isn't a stretch of the imagination at all that they believed these incidents of Geth asking alarming questions were isolated to ones working together in large numbers. 

[CmdrFenix83]

marshalleck wrote...

CmdrFenix83 wrote...

In both cases, the machines defend themselves and move to exterminate their creator race.  The entire discussion boils down to "Are Geth malfunctioning machines, or living beings?"  You can discredit this point as many times as you like, but every single person's opinion is based on that question.  Those that side with the Geth do so because they consider them alive and believe that as such, they have rights.  Those that don't(like myself) side with the Quarians.  It's just that simple, and neither side is going to convince the other of anything, making this entire debate just a pointless waste of time.

Actually, there is a third option. You can believe that both sides were justified to an extent, and both sides made mistakes which led to an incredibly tragic loss of billions of lives (both synthetic and organic).

Billions, actually, but I suppose you're correct, to an extent.  That still assumes you consider the Geth to be living being and not just an imitation of them. 

[The Governator]

There may be no proper analog, but I view Geth as the potential for life, without actually being life, similar to unfertilized seeds from either gender being wasted before being introduced in a proper setting. As stated, I would be reluctant to do peaceful Geth any harm, but I would not consider it anything higher than contraception.

[marshalleck]

CmdrFenix83 wrote...


Billions, actually, but I suppose you're correct, to an extent.  That still assumes you consider the Geth to be living being and not just an imitation of them. 

Depends. I think what this argument boils down to is "do machines have souls?" I say no, I don't think they do. But I don't think people have souls either. I believe in a materialistic origin of intelligence. In organics, it arises from the complex arrangement and interaction of chemicals and structures of the brain. In machines, it arises from complex interactions of adaptive software. The end result is the same. The main difference of course is that only one form of intelligence exists in reality.

Modifié par marshalleck, 08 mars 2010 - 09:19 .

[CmdrFenix83]

Darht Jayder wrote...

If the Geth were malfunctioning machines...they would have just randomly started killing the Quarians.  They didn't do this until their existence was jeapordized and acted in self defence.  On top of this it is not like the Geth have launched an offensive against the migrant fleet suggesting that they may even be more "humane" than the Quarians themselves are.  The Geth simply want the right to exist.

The malfunction was their sapience altogether.  That is the malfunction.  A machine doing something beyond what it's designed to do is a malfunction.  The Geth just did what anything aware of itself does and moves to defend itself.  "No disassemble!"  Your entire point is reliant on considering the Geth as living creatures.  "humane" "genocide" "kill".  I still counter that you cannot 'kill' a machine.  Destroy, deactivate, discontinue.  These things you can do.

Quarians create machines.  Machines malfunction.  Quarians order recall.  Malfunctioning machines yell "No disassemble!" and kill their owners.  Malfunctioning machines deem entire creator race to be a threat to their continued existence, and move to exterminate.  Quarian people, after dying by the billions, flee beyond Quarian space.  Machines resume pantomiming living creatures while following their programming.  Citadel Council desides to kick the survivors while they're down by revoking their embassy and preventing them from ever colonizing a world within their space(re: Ekuna).

Modifié par CmdrFenix83, 08 mars 2010 - 09:25 .

[CmdrFenix83]

marshalleck wrote...

CmdrFenix83 wrote...


Billions, actually, but I suppose you're correct, to an extent.  That still assumes you consider the Geth to be living being and not just an imitation of them. 

Depends. I think what this argument boils down to is "do machines have souls?" I say no, I don't think they do. But I don't think people have souls either. I believe in a materialistic origin of intelligence. In organics, it arises from the complex arrangement and interaction of chemicals and structures of the brain. In machines, it arises from complex interactions of adaptive software. The end result is the same. The main difference of course is that only one form of intelligence exists in reality.

I don't believe in the soul or any other religious BS.  That's not the point.  Advanced programming imitating life isn't life, at least not in my opinion.  The debate then comes to "Are machines that imitate living beings considered alive themselves?"

[marshalleck]

CmdrFenix83 wrote...

marshalleck wrote...

CmdrFenix83 wrote...


Billions, actually, but I suppose you're correct, to an extent.  That still assumes you consider the Geth to be living being and not just an imitation of them. 

Depends. I think what this argument boils down to is "do machines have souls?" I say no, I don't think they do. But I don't think people have souls either. I believe in a materialistic origin of intelligence. In organics, it arises from the complex arrangement and interaction of chemicals and structures of the brain. In machines, it arises from complex interactions of adaptive software. The end result is the same. The main difference of course is that only one form of intelligence exists in reality.

I don't believe in the soul or any other religious BS.  That's not the point.  Advanced programming imitating life isn't life, at least not in my opinion.  The debate then comes to "Are machines that imitate living beings considered alive themselves?"

If we had the technology to assemble a human--nucleotide by nucleotide, cell by cell, organ by organ, limb by limb, all functioning in a perfect holistic union that exactly replicates a natural-born human--would it be a person?

I say yes, it would. And the person would be subject to all inherent rights and responsibilities as any other human.

So now the question becomes, if we used machine parts to perfectly replicate all aspects of human form and  consciousness, would I consider it a person, subject to all the same rights and responsibilities as a natural-born human? I would say yes, again.

Modifié par marshalleck, 08 mars 2010 - 09:37 .

[The Governator]

Hey Commander,



I respect all points of view but the ones that denigrate others. Please do not call it 'religious BS'. Thank you.

[CmdrFenix83]

marshalleck wrote...

If we had the technology to assemble a human--nucleotide by nucleotide, cell by cell, organ by organ, limb by limb, all functioning in a perfect holistic union that exactly replicates a natural-born human--would it be a person?

I say yes, it would. And the person would be subject to all inherent rights and responsibilities as any other human.

So now the question becomes, if we used machine parts to perfectly replicate all aspects of human form and  consciousness, would I consider it a person, subject to all the same rights and responsibilities as a natural-born human? I would say yes, again.

In other words, a clone, or someone genetically built from the ground up(IE, Miranda).  It's a bit more fuzzy(in the case of Miranda, in fact, I'd call what her father did to be wrong on many levels), but no, I would say a clone shouldn't have any rights whatsoever. 

In terms of the Geth, however, they weren't built to be alive.  Data, from ST:TNG, I would consider alive(but still a machine and not real life), as that was his purpose.  The Geth were built to be the equivalent to the robotics we use today in car factories and the like.  If they suddenly became self-aware, I wouldn't consider them to be alive, it would be a malfunction. 

I do find it intersting that you use the 'human form' in your post though, because their starships, Collosi, and Armatures most certainly aren't human form, they're just a different type of mobile platform.  I did state earlier that I wondered if the Geth's humanoid form lended heavily to the sympathy they've garnered, and it seems I have been proven correct.

Modifié par CmdrFenix83, 08 mars 2010 - 09:46 .

[CmdrFenix83]

The Governator wrote...

Hey Commander,

I respect all points of view but the ones that denigrate others. Please do not call it 'religious BS'. Thank you.

You're welcome to believe what you want.  My GF and entire family are devoutly religious, and I don't care what they decide to worship.  However, you'll never convince me that it's anything more than BS created by people to shape and control the lives of others.  This is offtopic, however, and should end here.

[GuardianAngel470]

The Governator wrote...

GuardianAngel470 wrote...

 Before you post I want you to know that I love the quarians.  They reflect many of the things I like about myself, as well as many of my interests.  This isn't a bashing thread.

The geth and quarian conflict was started by the quarians, we can all agree on that I hope.  The quarians reacted to the fact that the geth had achieved sapience by attempting to deactivate, permanently, all geth systems.  This is what's called genocide, and completely unacceptable (unless you are a ****, in which case you think it is perfectly acceptable).  The geth responded in kind, decimating the quarian population.  they got exactly what they were trying to do to the geth. Thus, they got what they deserved.  

That's my train of logic, convoluted as it is.  

Gray area.  The Geth did not achieve true sapience then and I would not consider them sapient now.  It seems to be wildly overstating it for Bioware to start treating them (from a Paragon perspective) as a 'species' or as true life forms.  Having knowledge without understanding is not sapience.  Their reaction to the Quarians' action was instinct, not measured and considered at all.  Declaring the Quarians having received their just deserts is...well, if it were real it would be deplorable. 

The Quarians did not then, and many still do not believe that they were doing anything more than silencing machines.  The story I recall is that a few Quarians acted in panick to protect the rest of their species.  That does not mean the ENTIRE race deserved the repercussions of a decision made by a few rash individuals.  Those individuals may have come to regret their decision had they lived long enough to fully grasp it, but they acted in desperation and their thoughts were not murderous but protective, even if a bit naive.

I would be reluctant to destroy peaceful Geth even though I do not consider them life forms because they have the possibility of becoming true life forms.  I understand why the rest of the galaxy is angry at Quarians, because their scientists were irresponsible, but that I view it as a tragedy.  They tried to ensure safeguards, but they failed. 

So much could be bandied back and forth as to the true measure of sapience.  Higher cognitive function, reason and emotions are some of what I would use as qualifiers...things that Geth, as individual platforms clearly lack save possibly Legion.  They seem incapable of independent thought.

I do not have all the answers, and maybe I don't even have one.  But without doing a dissertation, that is why I largley disagree with you.

Their capacity for abstract thought tells me they are sapient.  Just barely, but they are.  Also, the codex tells you they are.  And how can you, as a paragon, not see them as sapient? 

The convo with legion about the N7 armor alludes that they do indeed experience emotion, and they have been capable of higher cognitive function since the Morning War, or did you forget that the whole thing started because the geth asked if they had a soul?  They are definitely capable of reason, so there are your three points of sapience. 

In regards to the "few" quarians that chose to shut down the geth, you must not have talked to Tali in ME1 for a while but she tells you that AN ORDER went out to permanently deactivate all geth.  It's possible the reason for the deactivation wasn't fully explained the entirety of the population but the quarians, every quarian who owned a geth, followed that order, thus making every quarian who owned a geth guilty of attempted genocide.  My understanding is that having a geth as a household servant was common.

Finally, just because their sapience isn't the same as ours (they require multiple programs to be sapient whereas we are individually sapient) doesn't mean they aren't deserving of the same rights as organics.  Also, I started a thread on this a while back but the geth sapience is modeled after organic brains.  Humans and other creatures with brains on our planet have brains built up of neurons interconnected in what's call a NEURAL NETWORK which, funnily enough, is exactly how the geth work.  In essence, they are equivalent to several neurons in a body linked to other neurons in other bodies.

[marshalleck]

CmdrFenix83 wrote...

I do find it intersting that you use the 'human form' in your post though, because their starships, Collosi, and Armatures most certainly aren't human form, they're just a different type of mobile platform.  I did state earlier that I wondered if the Geth's humanoid form lended heavily to the sympathy they've garnered, and it seems I have been proven correct.

I did specify human form because our conversation has become tangential to what the thread was originally about. That whole post was not intended in any way to have any bearing on the geth situation because there are clear differences.

Essentially, if I could in no way discern a naturally-born human from one that was replicated (organically or synthetically), could I rationally justify depriving it the rights and status of a human being on the basis of being told one is 'real' and one is 'fake'? No, I could not.

Clearly that can't apply to the geth and the quarians.

Modifié par marshalleck, 08 mars 2010 - 09:55 .