Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Laboratory >

Video Game Characters with a Soul?

Page: 1(2)

01:04 / 04.09.03

I like the idea of violent video game characters realising the futility of violence. In reply to Phex further up, I think it sadly inevitable that if any form of AI sentience / semi -sentience was created people (not necessarily japanese) would torture it for the sick thrills, in the same way people treat some animals. The idea of semi - sentient AI creatures whose "purpose" would be to die bothers me, it raises questions over hunting of live animals. Since foxes, say can only be considered semi - sentient at ebst and in many cases have been bred to be hunted is it their purpose to be hunted and killed? Does this make it morally okay to do it? What does this say about the morally or otherwise of eating meat (I do BTW).
I like the idea of hived game consciousnesses making your visit enjoyable because they would continue to exist, but surely the answer would be an AI that could ponder its straegies while not playing, as humans do and would play you because it enjoyed doing so.
Finally I realise deadwing was probably just trying to be funyny above, but I think he's a bit over the line, reading it made me feel physically sick I have met far too many fuckers who think their place of education makes their existence more valid.

03:34 / 04.09.03

Well, intelligence involves some degree of self-knowledge, so presumably for the little baddies to be considered to have AI they would have to know that they were existing in a computer generated environment?

Why? Their collision detection would make the virtual world seem just as solid as our "so-called" real world. We're getting back into the Maya point raised in the other thread... that our own world and everything in it can be termed Illusiory, True Reality being transcendant of our world and our perception of it.

Sorry to bring up that movie again, but anyone still "in an egg" has no idea that they aren't really in the real world. Why should it be a prerequisite for games characters to have such knowledge? Or are you talking about Agents with Earpieces?

The idea that game sprites are avatars for an AI isn't that far removed from the idea that our physical bodies are disposable vehicles for some Immortal Inteligence... call it a soul, atman/brahman, the great spirit. In fact, you could use the videogame model to help someone grasp one of these transcendental paradigms. You are not your body, you are not this dying meat.

I can load up Vice City and blow the brains out of someone, turn off the console, turn it back on and they will have re-appeared.

But what about my lost Creature? Unique and not reloadable, its basic intelligence tutored over many months by me, resulting in an pretty much autonomous entity with a love of exploring and a genuine good nature... and totally unlike anyone else's I've seen.

Yeah. My fault for not backing up my "creature mind" folder. If we eventually get to the point where human consciousness could be backed-up the same way, perhaps to a subdermal chip, I'd be more than willing to play this out in the meat world. Learning with every game. You'd only cap me in the face once... I'd return, wiser to your strategies... and with some kind of metal-gear type body.

Hmmm... would I still be human?

19:27 / 04.09.03

Interestingly, mixmage, I'm in almost the same boat with Black&White. It exists on a computer that no longer lives in my house. However, I was able to dl the game onto a CD. I'm now wondering whether to buy a RAM chip and put it on the "family" computer in the back bedroom, or to wait and put it on the "music studio" computer in the hall room when I can afford a bigger hard drive.

See the thing? I saved him. Using the backup disc, I can put the same individual on two different computers. I suppose I could put him on a few others, if I had 'em handy. I can kill him, then restore from the backed up game. I can kill him over and over again.

But that's not really death, then, if I can do it over and over again.

11:51 / 05.09.03

But... if the digi-dude exists on two machines and you play both of them for a week, pretty soon they will no longer be the same entity. They will have learned and adapted and there will be no way for them to share their new skills etc. You now have two AIs to deal with. You could play them simultaneously from both machines, but would they ever realise they were looking at themself, just another version based in a different reality?

Put another way... fearing I have no immortal soul, I agree to the subdermal chip. When my MeatBody dies, this chip is transferred to a mech avatar (or even a bioclone of me). Once the avatar comes online, it recalls the moment of death, but no further...

Meanwhile, despite my lack of belief, it turns out that I did have a soul after all. This soul gets reincarnated. So...

"I" will exist simultaneously as one meat/soul version and as many mech versions as I have the budget or inclination to maintain. The soul version now realises it can be killed over and over again, it is truly immortal and no longer fears death. The mech version knows that it has no soul, but couldn't care less. It has already achieved immortality... well, as long as the budget lasts... and every mech uploads directly to the MixMainframe [the seat of my "digital soul"].

What about the meatclone avatars? Did they ever have a soul?

Wrong thread, I know... but only just. The title asks Video Game Characters with a Soul?. Although this was most probably tongue in cheek, since current thinking seems to state that only biological life can claim to have a soul... there are those who truly believe there is no such thing for living beings either, much like Deadwings's mass of mess. Biological automata.

In this situation, I reiterate my question:

How is being permanently wiped from the databank any different to death without a soul? In this scenario, only silicon-based life can claim immortality.

Page: 1(2)