Psionic in Utopia

[aono]

Why would you want to create "fake" people?

What do you mean by "fake people"? They don't have souls. They are "fake" people as much as plane is "fake" bird.
Even if we suppose (and nowhere in-game it's given) that every autonomus robot have it's creator form. But actually it's quite useful - because it can use everything created for creators.
Why would buddhist or Sith oppose using robots?

 

[aono]

Within the context of this discussion, Spiritualism represents a belief system that supports and prioritizes deep introspection and a belief that perception begets reality, rather than the other way around.

"Perception begets reality" anecdotically is one of thesises of quantum mechanics. So quantum mechanics is spiritual domain as well. And psychology, because materialists haven't right to study introspection. And of course adversiment. You can't create materialistic adversiment, because the very idea of adversiment looks spiritualistic.
Sorry, have a materialist right to be anything but 17th century radical physist?..

A Sith, viewed as a Spiritualist, is entirely capable of valuing wealth and power- because they like it. Their introspection has led them to a personal discovery that to them, wealth and power feeds their passions, and that through those passions they can bend reality to their whims and accumulate more wealth and power.

Let's imagine materialist who wants wealth and power. He knows there is a powerful emotion-responsible field around him/he have microscopic symbionts in his blood, it's scientific facts for him. He don't believe in all that "soul" crap, he haven't moral brakes, and he checking what emotions gives him more power (or we actually demanding materialists to forfiet introspection and reflexy at all?).
How his actions and results would be differ from Sith's?

 

[Quark98]

I agree with that so how does materialism lead toward synthetics? Making "fake" people is somehow the ultimate expression of the material plane?

I understand your arguments about spiritualism and robots, but what's an inverted scenario for materialists? Or what's the opposite?

I believe that materialists in this case are more inclined to make Synthetic individuals where as a spiritualist someone would avoid is due to the ethics on both sides. A Materialist would make a synthetic as a tool, creating sentience makes that tool valuable since it creates a tool that takes more work for itself and away from the master leaving the materialist who made it have more time to look into other parts of their work. Spiritualists on the other hand would be less inclined to do so as creating a thing with sentience may be seen as "playing god" as you are creating a machine which has a semblance of free will, a personality and a capability of creating for itself a right or wrong. Although nearly every religion believes that tools and created/non living things are soulless and therefore if a soul has the capability of acquiring a moral compass its a mockery of life and not truly living and borderline blasphemy if not blasphemy itself.

Another thing is materialists almost always do not believe in the concept of a life after death. Therefore the material world in front of us is the only existence that we get and to escape non-existence since most materialists also don't believe in the concept of the soul can be achieved if we download our conscience into a computer and then put that conciseness into a synthetic body to achieve an infinite time of existing on this world and a permanent time in this universe/multiverse. Nearly all spiritualists on the other hand believe in that there is a life after death and that to achieve a synthetic immortality besides the fact that one would committing suicide and casting their souls into the afterlife earlier than is their time is holding back the soul from the afterlife weather that be eternal paradise/damnation or a new life in the form of reincarnation.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

I agree with that so how does materialism lead toward synthetics? Making "fake" people is somehow the ultimate expression of the material plane?

I understand your arguments about spirtualism and robots, but what's an inverted scenario for materialists? Or what's the opposite?

Basically, the reasons are asymmetrical.

What I mean by that is while Materialists cannot discover psionics (in an "institutional" sense) because of cultural preconceptions, Spiritualists cannot accept robotics because of theirs.

Spiritualists are unhappy with the presence of autonomous artificial intelligence (i.e. Robotic POPs) because they believe them to morally objectionable, and those moral objections outweigh any possible utility of the robots. "Fake people" are not worth using, and if forced to accept their use, the population will be tremendously uncomfortable- perhaps because AI can't have "souls", or perhaps because they simply do not believe a robot is capable of having an introspective inner world the same way an organic can.

Materialists are fine with the use of robots- whether or not they believe them to be "real" or "fake" people (which is more-or-less decided by if you give them Citizen Rights or not), they're useful, and for Materialists that utility outweighs any moral concerns.

 

[Opizze]

Basically, the reasons are asymmetrical.

What I mean by that is while Materialists cannot discover psionics (in an "institutional" sense) because of cultural preconceptions, Spiritualists cannot accept robotics because of theirs.

Spiritualists are unhappy with the presence of autonomous artificial intelligence (i.e. Robotic POPs) because they believe them to morally objectionable, and those moral objections outweigh any possible utility of the robots. "Fake people" are not worth using, and if forced to accept their use, the population will be tremendously uncomfortable- perhaps because AI can't have "souls", or perhaps because they simply do not believe a robot is capable of having an introspective inner world the same way an organic can.

Materialists are fine with the use of robots- whether or not they believe them to be "real" or "fake" people (which is more-or-less decided by if you give them Citizen Rights or not), they're useful, and for Materialists that utility outweighs any moral concerns.

So what's the spiritual component of your materialist example then?

And i understand you're saying its asymmetrical, but that seems like a cop out, so please give an example including the spiritual component of the materialist ethic in this instance.

 

[aono]

Spiritualists on the other hand would be less inclined to do so as creating a thing with sentience may be seen as "playing god" as you are creating a machine which has a semblance of free will, a personality and a capability of creating for itself a right or wrong. Although nearly every religion believes that tools and created/non living things are soulless and therefore if a soul has the capability of acquiring a moral compass its a mockery of life and not truly living and borderline blasphemy if not blasphemy itself.

There is very vocal actual demanding to stop declare every spiritualist religious or beliving into God.

Spiritualists are unhappy with the presence of autonomous artificial intelligence (i.e. Robotic POPs) because they believe them to morally objectionable, and those moral objections outweigh any possible utility of the robots.

Once again - how is this presupposition following from "Spiritualism represents a belief system that supports and prioritizes deep introspection and a belief that perception begets reality"? WHY somebody who prioritizes deep introspection and believe that perception begets reality, following a declaration about spiritualists MUST believe robots are morally objectionable? Why every Sith or Jedi will thought so? Are R2D2 and C3P0 - morally objectionable?

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

What do you mean by "fake people"? They don't have souls. They are "fake" people as much as plane is "fake" bird.
Even if we suppose (and nowhere in-game it's given) that every autonomus robot have it's creator form. But actually it's quite useful - because it can use everything created for creators.
Why would buddhist or Sith oppose using robots?

"Perception begets reality" anecdotically is one of thesises of quantum mechanics. So quantum mechanics is spiritual domain as well. And psychology, because materialists haven't right to study introspection. And of course adversiment. You can't create materialistic adversiment, because the very idea of adversiment looks spiritualistic.
Sorry, have a materialist right to be anything but 17th century radical physist?..


Let's imagine materialist who wants wealth and power. He knows there is a powerful emotion-responsible field around him/he have microscopic symbionts in his blood, it's scientific facts for him. He don't believe in all that "soul" crap, he haven't moral brakes, and he checking what emotions gives him more power (or we actually demanding materialists to forfiet introspection and reflexy at all?).
How his actions and results would be differ from Sith's?

I'm not sure if its just a language barrier thing or a matter of perspective or if you're intentionally misunderstanding things, but the level of disconnect between what I'm saying and what you're interpreting from it is too strong for me to continue spending energy debating with you. You don't seem to understand what points are being raised- and if you keep misunderstanding and raising tangential or unrelated objections, a proper discussion is impossible.

 

[aono]

If you keep to change meanings of terms as you want in the middle of discussion, yeah, proper discussion is impossible. I'm not insisting for giving proper definition (and as I know it's actualy often that is insisting in phylosophical discussions), but then let's stick to examples.
Do you agree with vocal argument here that Sith and Jedi are good examples of spiritualists in the context of discussion?

 

[Arkangilos]

We aren't changing the meanings, you are.

 

[Arkangilos]

and he checking what emotions gives him more power

Spiritualist. Power through emotion = spiritual power. It doesn't matter if you measure it or not.

 

[aono]

Spiritualist.

So materialist haven't a right to have introspection or reflexy? He can't say "I'm starving", "I have a head-ache" or "I feel strong"?

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

So what's the spiritual component of your materialist example then?

And i understand you're saying its asymmetrical, but that seems like a cop out, so please give an example invluding the spiritual component of the materialist ethic in this instance.

Asymmetric mechanics and logic isn't a "cop out" by any means.

Mechanically, Spiritualists can research Robots, but they can't use them without severe penalties. It's just not worth it (they'll get huge happiness penalties for even trying), so they're incentive not to bother researching it and to dismantle any robots they come into possession of. End result: Spiritualists cannot use Robots.

Mechanically, Materialists cannot research Psionics. They can use them if they come into possession of them some other way- Psionic POPs will remain Psionic, Psionic Leaders will remain Psionic, perhaps Materialists can even reverse-engineer Psionic technologies from enemies they encounter (although we don't know one way or the other)- but a Materialist culture is incapable of discovering the technology themselves. End result: Materialists cannot discover Psionics.

On a more philosophical level, I'm not sure what you're finding unclear?

Spiritualists filter the world through a lens of introspection and perceived truths about the immaterial nature of reality and consciousness. They consider robots offensive through this lens (because they believe robots to be incapable of perception or introspection and thus inferior to living organisms).

Materialists have an opposite lens, through which consciousness and perception is merely a result of reality- hence, robots are unobjectionable whether or not they believe them to be conscious "living" beings.

(Honestly, this sort of stuff is something we struggle with in the real world- whether or not an AI could ever "think" the same way as a person could, and whether a human mind uploaded to a computer would still be self-aware or just a simulacrum of a personality. Stellaris' take on this debate is that the Spiritualist answer is specifically "an artificial mind lacks consciousness and that is something we should not create" while the Materialist answer is specifically "it doesn't matter, they're useful".)

 

[aono]

Spiritualists filter the world through a lens of introspection and perceived truths about the immaterial nature of reality and consciousness. They consider robots offensive through this lens (because they believe robots to be incapable of perception or introspection and thus inferior to living organisms).

And that's what I'm asking and you just declare I'm twisting the words. How comes they consider robots offensive because robots to be incapable of perception or introspection and thus inferior to living organisms, but spaceships aren't offensive that way?

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

I'm not sure if its just a language barrier thing or a matter of perspective or if you're intentionally misunderstanding things, but the level of disconnect between what I'm saying and what you're interpreting from it is too strong for me to continue spending energy debating with you. You don't seem to understand what points are being raised- and if you keep misunderstanding and raising tangential or unrelated objections, a proper discussion is impossible.

 

[aono]

@BlackUmbrellas, you have all right not to answer me, but you're not alone here, right? It's quite possible (theoretically) somebody will see it and asks himself same question. Maybe he even asks it to you.

 

[Opizze]

On a more philosophical level, I'm not sure what you're finding unclear?

Yea that's essentially the problem. I have problems accepting the philosophical merits of your arguments, but the game mechanics, sure I guess.

It probably stems from an opinion that there's some merit to the science fiction premise of Babylon 5: all or nearly all sentients will eventually evolve again, and that will likely mean some sort of extra sensory perception, even manipulation.

Going back to the game I understand what you're saying, it just doesn't make logical sense to me that people obsessed with discovering observable, measurable facts of the universe would a) dismiss clearly visible proof of psionics and then b) be somehow incapable of discovering the scientific reasoning behind such gifts after such observations were made

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Yea that's essentially the problem. I have problems accepting the philosophical merits of your arguments, but the game mechanics, sure I guess.

It probably stems from an opinion that there's some merit to the science fiction premise of Babylon 5: all or nearly all sentients will eventually evolve again, and that will likely mean some sort of extra sensory perception, even manipulation.

Going back to the game I understand what you're saying, it just doesn't make logical sense to me that people obsessed with discovering observable, measurable facts of the universe would a) dismiss clearly visible proof of psionics and then b) be somehow incapable of discovering the scientific reasoning behind such gifts after such observations were made

I don't think that "all species will eventually evolve psionics" is incompatible with "only Spiritualist societies can research widespread use of psionics".

Mechanically, all species do have the capacity to have psionics- it's just rare, and takes significant work under a particular mindset to develop noticeably. Rare mystics and sorcerers believing their powers are divine or magical in nature and/or living in isolation, discounted as myths and tall tales, do not provide a workable basis to better understand Psionics from.

The only way that those mystics can be taken as legitimate and the intense introspection, self-examination, and mediation required to hone psionic talent into something "useful" can be widespread enough to make it have an impact of the sort in-game is to embrace Spiritualist ideals and practices.

A Materialist society (or at least, government) simply doesn't have the right mentality to foster psionic development, and thus will never be able to observe it on a sufficient level to develop the extensive, powerful psionic technologies we see in-game.

Like... maybe a Materialist government could track down a lone mystic monk who spent his entire life learning how to levitate. Maybe the mentality required to wield psionics allows that Monk to demonstrate it reliably for the sake of study (something I have already addressed- it isn't uncommon for this sort of thing to be portrayed as requiring some realization that it cannot be "misused" or flaunted, and failing to work if such restraint is not shown).

That's only one data point. You'd then have to assume that that single data point is enough to unlock all the secrets of Psionics from- which clearly Stellaris does not.

A Spiritualist society, meanwhile, fosters the sort of beliefs that allow Psionic abilities to be honed and realized while simultaneously being more open to believing reports of such when they're heard- and perhaps less concerned with picking such incidents apart in such a way that would "break" them.

 

[Ilanin]

Consider the following scenario, then:

A materialistic empire encounters a spiritualist one using some form of psionic technology, shields for example. They gather debris from destroyed spirutualist vessels, and replicate the designs; perhaps they discover references to "the Shroud" as the source of psionic power. They research, they investigate, they attempt to replicate the results.

It doesn't work.

Well, that was not surprising. Experiments rarely work out the first time you try them. Physicists study the effects of psionic shielding as best can be determined from battle telemetry. Immigrant psionics demonstrate the effects on a small scale. Biologists make comparative studies of psionic and non-psionic races, and sociologists do the same for societies. Eventually they propose a theory - the key to what the spiritualists call psionic "enlightenment" is that planetary-sized populations are instructed, from birth, in lifestyles attuned to the disciplines that seem to be necessary to invoke these new abilities - meditation, elevation of perception over measurement. They propose reforms to the nature of society which would allow, they believe, for a psionic awakening.

They are, of course, the spiritualist faction recommending an ethos shift. Materialists can learn psionics, they just have to stop being materialists to do it. It is an observable and repeatable fact that access to the shroud depends on entire populations - not just individuals - adopting a meditative, spiritualist lifestyle.

(Practically, I think this would maybe let you take the first pick as a materialist but not the second, though I could see an argument for neither working, if it turns out that the Shroud really doesn't start to pay attention unless you've got entire planetary populations living in a spiritual lifestyle).

 

[Quark98]

And that's what I'm asking and you just declare I'm twisting the words. How comes they consider robots offensive because robots to be incapable of perception or introspection and thus inferior to living organisms, but spaceships aren't offensive that way?

A spaceship isn't seen as offensive as it is a a vehicle to transport someone in space, it is a tool. A robot with borderline sentient AI or Sentient AI is considered offensive as it is considered an imitation of life, a machine or a tool that acts like a person and as i said before with nearly all spiritualists believing that non living things cannot have souls a soulless thing acting like a creature with a soul may be offensive and again comes the concept of "playing god." "Playing god" in this case doesn't mean that the individuals believe in God, But many spiritualists believe in a higher power beyond themselves or believe that life is sacred to some extent. Therefore a machine that has highly advanced AI to warrant independent thought if not sentience may be considered offensive as again your are making an imitation of a sacred aspect of life, a creature with a soul.

 

[aono]

I mean, I actually knows modern real-life spiritualistic objections against strong AI development.
1) As you can't create spirit by tech means, creation of strong AI is impossible. It's nothing they actually "oppose", they just scold people who tries for trying. So by no means such a spiritualist would actually against using AI - he just will refuse it's, well, being strong.
2) Trying to actually create something sapient is an intrusion into Almighty domain, and therefore it's a sin. Sin is bad. Even if you, by some divine spark, will create strong AI, it will lack spirit, therefore it will lack morallity, intristic value of human life et cetera (read - "will be a fanatic materialist"). This people will ban creation of AI, high five, but they should be religious and have specific ethic system, not just being somebody who "prioritizes deep introspection and a belief that perception begets reality". Also that's not fit examples of Jedi and Sith, who, actually, use strong AI without any moral problems.
3) It's quite possible to actually create strong AI, but we haven't moral right to create something sapient and filled with a soul just to exploit it. This kind of spiritualist actually should demand civil rights for strong AIs.

But I can't see nothing in "prioritizing deep introspection and a belief that perception begets reality" as it is, that obliging somebody to oppose AIs.
Of course, it's possible you're actually mean "Spiritualism represents a belief system that supports and prioritizes deep introspection and a belief that perception begets reality and some other things I believe fits here, but I won't name". That's change meanings of terms as you want in the middle of discussion.
Or it's fair asking to actually say - why spiritualism bans robots and don't bans another material tools.

A Materialist society (or at least, government) simply doesn't have the right mentality to foster psionic development, and thus will never be able to observe it on a sufficient level to develop the extensive, powerful psionic technologies we see in-game.

Materialist (truly materialist) society don't "have the right mentality" or "don't have the right mentality". Drop that presuppositions and mystical crap and thoughts that world is the thing how we see it for spiritualists.
"If the sky is blue, I desire to believe that the sky is blue. If the sky is not blue, I desire to believe that the sky is not blue. Let me not become attached to beliefs I don't want." is the basis of materialistic science - because they ARE NOT BELIEVE THEIR PERCEPTION BEGETS REALITY. Yeah, real-life scientists are not always ideal this way. But that's not because they're materialists, quite opposing way. It's because they believe that world is the thing they want it to be.