Questionable ethics - Living Memory

[Wired-Lain]

We turned off the projector of memories.

They aren't alive. They can't interact with the real world.
They are ghosts of the past, in digital form.

They don't even have souls, those are stripped in the process, but the system that runs them requires souls to function.
It's not sustainable.

But... They can interact with the real world. The entire story is predicated on Cahciua, an endless, leaving via a robot to plot against Sphene. I don't understand why everyones acting like they're just empty replays of old memories when they constantly show that they're sentient and capable of aspiration. These aren't faded recordings of dead people on repeat like the shades in Amaurot, these are the memories of dead people continuing to live. I mean for gods sake we literally see one of them attain a happier memory and change before our eyes. Yes allowing them to persist as is is out of the question, the needs of all shards outweigh a single city, of course it does. I just cannot see the warrior of light or the scions not even bothering to discuss this obvious ethical dilemma, theres more discussion in this thread about the Endless than we get in the game itself. It just feels incredibly shallow that none of the characters we know stop to think about this, given everything we went through redefining the definition of what it means to be "alive" over the past 4 years. That's my issue.

To me the total disinterest in this from both the game and people in this thread showcases a weird and unfortunate shift from topics this game used to excel at and relish exploring. Now we're told to just not think about it too much.

[Eyrilona]

<sarcasm>
Hey guys, we just founded the Church of Blahawabbel. We have this great monopoly on understanding what life is, and it is that anything that has not been blessed by Blahawabbel is not truly alive. This is confirmed by all our narratives written by us for our own consumption, and accepted by us and everyone who agrees with us and thinks just like us. So logically, all other people-shaped entities trying to convince you that they too are living beings, are really not. Everyone that doesn't agree with our definition must just accept that their place as the mere mockeries of live that they are even if they act in all ways like us living things, and nothing they do or say can detract from our conclusion that they are not alive, because only we write that narrative.
</sarcasm>

[TheMightyMollusk]

Ea are stated to be non-corporeal beings.

The Ea are composed of pure aether, while still being affected by some physical stimuli (they can interact with objects, or be attacked with entirely mundane weapons, as shown with the rogue Ea that act as enemy mobs around the settlement). They're like elemental sprites with sentience.

And the Omnicron are a 100% robotic lifeform that has a computer serving as a brain.

Again, you can't have it both way, If Endless aren't alive, Omnicron aren't alive. Both are computer. Again, I agree by real world logic that the Endless aren't alive, but it not my fault if Coomputer are living being in lore.

The Omicrons were living beings who voluntarily uploaded their collective consciousness into machines. Then they got stuck in a rut of conquest and destruction until they were destroyed. They don't re-develop sentience until they're influenced by dynamis. So I would argue that they weren't really alive until the Endsinger meddled with them.

Which also brings up another point; the beings in Ultima Thule can exist independently of the Endsinger, while the projections in Living Memory fade out when their leynodes are shut down. A handful linger on for unfinished business, but they too disappear as soon as it's completed. They're automata.

[Yumarox]

We can put this to a simple test if it is ethical or not, does the choice follow one of the two main moral theories, Utilitarian or Deontological?

To get the easy one out of the way it can not be deontological because the WOL makes an action for many souls and doesn't ask them all. This also would never work for we know the WOL doesn't work on this moral framework since under it all murder is wrong and the WOL does kill people. Without going through all of Kantian Ethics in detail the very notion that the WOL did this action without consulting everyone this action was done to first makes it a clear case it was not moral by this framework. Though the WOL has never used this moral framework this should not surprise anyone leaving only one other means.

Under the utilitarian framework, we look to see if this action created more good than it harmed, the outcome judges if it's moral or not. so did turning off the souls make for a better outcome for more souls in the universe? Since in FF14 people are judged by having souls or not as being alive it would be measured if turning off the Endless and stopping the need to consume more souls to keep it going saving more souls or harming more souls. It seems by the fact that they need to drain the source to keep it going longer that stoping it needs to happen as the Endless need souls to keep going and keeping things as they are means the Endless are going to consume more and more souls. Putting an end to it means stopping more souls being used for fuel in the future so that could be argued as a moral outcome. WoL has always been one to weigh the options of outcomes so a utilitarian framework seems appropriate.

So if stopping the Endless is an over all better outcome for more souls then letting things continue then the WOL is moral.

[Magikazam]

So I would argue that they weren't really alive until the Endsinger meddled with them.

So you would consider Omega as non-alive, since he was separated from the other Omnicron b4 Endsinger meddled with them? He does have desires as shown at the end of his raids and in the alternate future we prevented in SHB.

[TheMightyMollusk]

So you would consider Omega as non-alive, since he was separated from the other Omnicron b4 Endsinger meddled with them? He does have desires as shown at the end of his raids and in the alternate future we prevented in SHB.

We're also shown via Alpha that a being can gain desires and even a soul, given time and a chance to change. Alpha and Omega aren't bound to an overriding mind preventing them from doing so, like the Endless.

[Gortys]

All I get from these complaints is it's okay to be colonizer.
That and people not understanding how their own computers function especially cloud drives.

[Magikazam]

We're also shown via Alpha that a being can gain desires and even a soul, given time and a chance to change. Alpha and Omega aren't bound to an overriding mind preventing them from doing so, like the Endless.

But some Endless are shown to have Desire too, even desire to die/turn the thing off and rebels, so clearly being bound don't change that. We can't tell if it the same case for the souls too.

[AddictedToWitches]

I think the people who complain about this are genuine speedreaders.
The endless are effectively ghosts, they are algorithms and data based on living people, and are not alive, never have been, never will be. Not even all of the "endless" are properly in a state of revival at any given moment, and Living Memory has so many parts of it that are rundown and not even functional anymore.
The whole point of Sphene's character is she can't let go. Not of the past, not of the people who are long past. Death is the natural order of things, so keeping people alive has an obvious drain on those still living.
I have seen people try to say like "Oh, the creatures in Ultima Thule are actual living beings" and you know that is 100% a special case due to Meteion's enormous amounts of dynamis at play.
There is no ethics problem with ending the endless. These people are already dead. We're just allowing them to pass on. Cahciua spends the entire Living Memory segment of the MSQ HAMMERING this fact into your head.

[Galvuu]

The Ea are composed of pure aether, while still being affected by some physical stimuli (they can interact with objects, or be attacked with entirely mundane weapons, as shown with the rogue Ea that act as enemy mobs around the settlement). They're like elemental sprites with sentience.

Isn't all matter in Etheirys made of aether? I don't think this is a meaningful criteria.
You go over this in your later posts, but gaining sapience/self-awareness/a soul is something that can just happen at any point in XIV.

I definitely feel like there are a lot of implications to explore with the Endless and the nature of consciousness and life in XIV, but it's as I said in another thread- we're not given enough information, and both the story and characters basically don't explore this at all.
I think this topic is very interesting and worthy of thought, but Dawntrail brushes it aside in a shallow, infantile way.
The writers neither thought of this nor care, so all this nuance, thought experiments and philosophizing is ultimately consigned to the forums. Old XIV might explore this, but I feel that post-EW XIV just brushes these topics aside... the story basically doesn't even pose any of these questions though they're heavily implied with what's presented to us.

snip.

I don't want to veer into a "death of the author" tirade, but this type of argument from scripture has nothing to do with what most people are discussing.
Patch 7.1 could come out and tell me that all the beast tribes aren't really alive/conscious and, by necessity of the plot, killing them all off would be ok, and I'd still question this, especially in the face of what's been portrayed before. Even if that's what the writer thinks is true and intended to be transmitted, it's not what their work actually portrays in practice when viewed by most people (I think the author didn't put thought into anything and just made a cheap copy of Amaurot with AI instead of Ancients, honestly).
I'm not even definitely on the camp that the Endless are alive- I don't know what qualifies as "being alive" or what consciousness is, in XIV or irl- but that's why it's a subject of discussion. It honestly feels unnatural that the scions, scholars and brilliant people who are known to be curious, don't spend any time considering this.
It's like we ran into some alien machine that seems sapient/creative/conscious/self-aware and we don't wonder if it's alive or not, if it's like us or not.
For the purpose of the plot, it doesn't matter because the Source was under an existential threat and they had to be destroyed, but that doesn't immediately imply that they were alive or not, or what does it means to be alive. The game glosses this over with a lot of levity.
This rings hollow especially after Shadowbringers, where this is explored in detail with the duality of the Ancients compared to the Sundered souls, and a bit more in EW with the phantasms in the Ultima Thule, Omega and Alpha- which is what many people are drawing comparisons to.