what's your opinion on stellaris getting a moral/alignment system?

[Lykus Cerebros]

my point about rome is that even the basic democracy it had could not survive the corrupting influence of slavery. i jumped from xenophobia to just straight up slavery. the point is caesarism was the inevitable consequence of a slave society in decay. at a certain point, it became necessary to build a bigger and bigger army to keep conquering slaves (and to put the slave revolts down) and this inevitably led to a strongman as the poison fruit of the class struggle impasse the republic ended up in. and yes, it lasted centuries, but so can the decline of empires in stellaris. i'm not asking for instant consequences. just long term.

Funny idea but you are ignoring the fact that ancient Greece had a much higher number of slaves per free population but there were no comparable slave revolts in Athens for example.

Also their democracy was only ended by outside forces and not by a "caesar" emerging from the inside. Sure they had short term tyrants but no "corruption" as you put it.

 

[Empire of Terra Nova]

So what? "Thinking machines", as you call them, are just particularly well-designed computer programs. They're not people, they have no more moral status than a toaster oven. "Enslaving" a robot is no more immoral than driving a car, and "purging" a robot is no more immoral than throwing out a broken calculator.

Or so the spiritualists believe, anyway.

sapient ai in a metal shell is not much different to sapient consciousness in a bio shell

in fact, seeing how we are made up and how we function on the biomolecular level one even have to admit that we're simply bio robots, having our code biologically written in form of the dna

that's why i stopped playing spiritualist after a while, shortly after i was aware of them being genocidals

 

[InvisibleBison]

sapient ai in a metal shell is not much different to sapient consciousness in a bio shell

According to materialists, yes. Spiritualists disagree. You seem to be arguing that your personal belief that spiritualism is incorrect is proof that spiritualism is in fact incorrect, which is a ridiculous position to take.

 

[Empire of Terra Nova]

According to materialists, yes. Spiritualists disagree. You seem to be arguing that your personal belief that spiritualism is incorrect is proof that spiritualism is in fact incorrect, which is a ridiculous position to take.

in real-life, i'm a spiritualist myself

the problem of the spiritualism in stellaris is that it's very primitive, consequently leading to a false dichotomy between spiritualism and materialism

 

[InvisibleBison]

in real-life, i'm a religious person myself

How is that relevant to what we've been discussing in this thread? Religion and Stellaris's spiritualist ethic are not the same thing.

 

[Empire of Terra Nova]

How is that relevant to what we've been discussing in this thread? Religion and Stellaris's spiritualist ethic are not the same thing.

in stellaris you do your spiritualism stuff together with priests in temples (and maybe elsewhere, who knows). that is how you're doing it in real-life too (amongst other ways)

ingame soul is being represented as sapience, that's why sapient combat ai ultimatively leads to robots demanding universalist freedom and equality rights

so ingame, spiritualism is simply a anti-metallic beings genocidal ideology, the counterpart to exterminators. in real-life a spiritualist considers soul as a soul, no matter how it does or does not manifest itself in the material world

 

[Ryika]

sapient ai in a metal shell is not much different to sapient consciousness in a bio shell

From a scientific perspective that's entirely unclear. There simply is no working theory of consciousness at the moment that can explain how consciousness arises in biological species. As long as we do not know that, how would we even begin to test whether the same sense of self would arise if we approximate consciousness in a "metal shell", or whether it is truly just an empty shell simulating what a person would be?

 

[InvisibleBison]

in stellaris you do your spiritualism stuff together with priests in temples (and maybe elsewhere, who knows). that is how you're doing it in real-life too (amongst other ways)

Spiritualism is a religion (although it really shouldn't be, and it's perfectly possible to play non-religious spiritualists if you so desire), but there's nothing saying non-spiritualists can't also be religious. The two are different concepts.

ingame soul is being represented as sapience,

This is, I think, the root of our agreement. As far as I know, this is just not true. The only people in-game who believe in souls are spiritualists, who don't think that it's equivalent to sapience, as sapient robots don't have souls.

 

[Empire of Terra Nova]

From a scientific perspective that's entirely unclear. There simply is no working theory of consciousness at the moment that can explain how consciousness arises in biological species. As long as we do not know that, how would we even begin to test whether the same sense of self would arise if we approximate consciousness in a "metal shell", or whether it is truly just an empty shell simulating what a person would be?

just have a few glasses of scotch or some other neurotoxins or psychotropics and experience what it does to your "consciousness". for me, consciousness is merely a tool of our soul to experience itself. what a limb is to the body is the consciousness to the soul. your soul exists even if you're unconscious

explaining how exactly it is being created or emulated or whatever is not an important question for me. what i find crucial is whether a thing has got a soul or not. and that appears to be something that requires development; an inseminated human ovule is not a human but merely a seed that bears the potential of becoming an animal that develops sapience and broadens its self-awareness as well as awareness of its environment during entire lifespan. robots gaining sapience and becoming self-aware is an analogy to this.

Spiritualism is a religion (although it really shouldn't be, and it's perfectly possible to play non-religious spiritualists if you so desire), but there's nothing saying non-spiritualists can't also be religious. The two are different concepts.


This is, I think, the root of our agreement. As far as I know, this is just not true. The only people in-game who believe in souls are spiritualists, who don't think that it's equivalent to sapience, as sapient robots don't have souls.

in real-life, sapience, consciousness, self-awareness etc. are signs that a thing has got a soul. that's why i even can empathise with a bunch of pixels onscreen telling me that there is a sapient ai in a chip, but i can't empathise with pixels that look like a tree or a rock, even though the devs did a great job in letting them appear humanoid

it's just like i said, stellaris' ethical system created a false dichotomy in this case

there is actually a great show running on tv: foundation. in episode 8 of season 1 there is an impressive depiction of this debate whether intelligent robots and human clones have got souls or not, and what the implications of that are on the material world (the episode even went so far as to showing the robot being unable to overrule the base protocols yet clearly showing not only that he has got a soul, but also how much his soul is in agony as it is being restricted by the manacles and chains of the material world)

 

[InvisibleBison]

in real-life, sapience, consciousness, self-awareness etc. are signs that a thing has got a soul.

No it isn't.

 

[Empire of Terra Nova]

No it isn't.

apparently in front of your soul still lies a long road ahead

 

[TrotBot]

I think arguing over souls is irrelevant. The spiritualists are, by canon, wrong because we know that robots are sapient and sentient and the "doesn't have a soul" is just propaganda for treating sentient beings like slaves. We know by canon that they are sentient because they make their own societies. We also know the secrets of the Vultaum, which means all the spiritualists judging robots are no more real than the robots.

Spiritualism as currently defined is canon wrong.

 

[Cry_Havok]

This is, I think, the root of our agreement. As far as I know, this is just not true. The only people in-game who believe in souls are spiritualists, who don't think that it's equivalent to sapience, as sapient robots don't have souls.

All empires can become psionic (Less likely for Materialist)

 

[Empire of Terra Nova]

I think arguing over souls is irrelevant. The spiritualists are, by canon, wrong because we know that robots are sapient and sentient and the "doesn't have a soul" is just propaganda for treating sentient beings like slaves. We know by canon that they are sentient because they make their own societies. We also know the secrets of the Vultaum, which means all the spiritualists judging robots are no more real than the robots.

Spiritualism as currently defined is canon wrong.

this is pretty much the point. if the game declares robots sapient then the obvious intention is to "uplift" them to the same level as other sapient beings. how exactly this uplift is being tailored, whether biologically with help of some genetic triggers or with help of robotics and rewriting their code, doesn't matter. and i actually find both explanations immersive plausible

 

[InvisibleBison]

The spiritualists are, by canon, wrong because we know that robots are sapient and sentient and the "doesn't have a soul" is just propaganda for treating sentient beings like slaves.

The whole point of the spiritualist-materialist dispute is whether or not the fact that robots appear to be sentient beings means that they actually are sentient beings. You're basically saying that the spiritualists are wrong because you're a materialist, which is not a defensible position.

 

[Empire of Terra Nova]

The whole point of the spiritualist-materialist dispute is whether or not the fact that robots appear to be sentient beings means that they actually are sentient beings. You're basically saying that the spiritualists are wrong because you're a materialist, which is not a defensible position.

the funny thing about the relativist arguing meta™ is that it disproves itself as it rejects objective truth

checkmate

 

[Ryika]

the funny thing about the relativist arguing meta™ is that it disproves itself as it rejects objective truth

checkmate

I don't think anybody here rejected the idea of objective truth, what is being rejected that we have access to the knowledge of what is objectively true.
Just because you claim to have access to it doesn't mean you actually do, so you're in no better position than your opposition when it comes to that.

 

[Strangedane]

Objective truths are subjective.
Objective and subjective are not contradictions.

Can something be both objective and subjective to me at the same time?

Many of us understand subjectivity as the opposite of objectivity; that they are mutually exclusive concepts. Evidence for that is all around; for example, take Wiktionary: subjective (adj.):

philosophy.stackexchange.com

 

[Empire of Terra Nova]

Objective truths are subjective.
Objective and subjective are not contradictions.

Can something be both objective and subjective to me at the same time?

Many of us understand subjectivity as the opposite of objectivity; that they are mutually exclusive concepts. Evidence for that is all around; for example, take Wiktionary: subjective (adj.):

philosophy.stackexchange.com

relativism is also not inter-subjectivism or whatnot

if you say that 1 + 1 = 3 you're simply wrong, no matter how much you try to cheese around to redefine the mathematical terms or claim personal perception abnormalities or whatever (even if you democratically come to the agreement that 1 + 1 = 3 you still are wrong, and simply counting your fingers will prove it). and that's also with objective truth: if you reject it or if you claim on perceiving "another truth" as the other person you're talking to you're simply wrong

i mean, it's fun to make use of these kind of sophisms for the casual entertainment... sometimes... but you have to watch out not to lose yourself in those fallacies

anyway, spiritualism and materialism are no counterparts; ingame materialism is the classic scientific view on the world while asking the question: how does it work? spiritualism is asking other questions, e.g. why do this or that? why is it here?

a non-materialist spiritualist empire ingame would probably be a primitive pre-ftl species in the stone age, if at all, as they would simply reject researching how reality works. while a materialist and spiritualist empire would be space faring (and might even violently spread its beliefs to every corner of the universe)

 

[Zagreb 887]

apparently in front of your soul still lies a long road ahead

I really think you should keep your personal beliefs to yourself and not try to impose them as objective facts. Play and RP the game as you want but dont impose it to others.