Questionable ethics - Living Memory

[OMGJesuis66]

Except Sphene isn't an Endless. She's an amalgamation artificially made by Preservation. This was stated quite explicitly. She is not the memories extracted from a soul and stored for later use.
Anyway, if your litmus test for 'change' is 'acting like a completely different person', then by that metric Wuk Lamat never changes. Should I then consider Wuk Lamat to not be alive, given that Ultima Thule has established a soul is not necessary for life?

Sphene is an Endless. They extracted her memories and soul to be able to make such an amalgamation.
That is explicitly spoken and even has NPC dialogue in her own erased memories talking about how they were capable of preserving her Soul.
Your second rhetoric is not a point of conversation, it would lead us to a very silly tangent about Wuk Lamat that I have no interest in jumping on. But to properly explain what I meant, is that newfound memories for those beings do not have an impact on themselves. They are data, they get new data, store it, and respond accordingly to present and past data, much like an AI.
They aren't doing actual introspection or personal growth as a living being, they are just adapting to their surroundings.

[Eyrilona]

They are data, they get new data, store it, and respond accordingly to present and past data, much like an AI. They aren't doing actual introspection or personal growth as a living being, they are just adapting to their surroundings.

Much like an AI you say? Defined so broadly, that also sounds like how all life on Earth goes about things, us humans included. And how can you say they are not doing introspection when they clearly integrate new experiences with their existing body of experience? Moreover, they literally reflect on the nature of their own existence! Even if the story only lets them do it to have them reassure us they are fine with being turned off, that sure sounds like introspection to me.

[Galvuu]

Much like an AI you say? Defined so broadly, that also sounds like how all life on Earth goes about things, us humans included. And how can you say they are not doing introspection when they clearly integrate new experiences with their existing body of experience? Moreover, they literally reflect on the nature of their own existence! Even if the story only lets them do it to have them reassure us they are fine with being turned off, that sure sounds like introspection to me.

I mean, as far as modern science knows, our consciousness seems to be an emergent phenomena that primarily arises from the pattern recognition our brains do... while I, personally, feel we're centuries away from creating any real artificial consciousness, regarding what happens in fiction, the parallel can certainly be drawn with a lot of merit.

[OMGJesuis66]

I explained it in the same sentence. Data being compiled.

[Turtledeluxe]

Much like an AI you say? Defined so broadly, that also sounds like how all life on Earth goes about things, us humans included. And how can you say they are not doing introspection when they clearly integrate new experiences with their existing body of experience? Moreover, they literally reflect on the nature of their own existence! Even if the story only lets them do it to have them reassure us they are fine with being turned off, that sure sounds like introspection to me.

That's cool, it doesn't matter if they are alive or not. That's not how questionable ethics are determined. Anything else you need or just trolling at this point and trying to compare real human existence to a fictional story with rules established by humans?

We also didn't turn off the Sphene in the main story or the Otis in the main story. We turned off a Sphene created in the trial, per the script, who concedes that her existence is dependent on the Meso Terminal. Otis obviously dies in combat. Can't remember who was talking about that but it's irrelevant.

[AlysCamoa]

Sphene is an Endless. They extracted her memories and soul to be able to make such an amalgamation.
That is explicitly spoken and even has NPC dialogue in her own erased memories talking about how they were capable of preserving her Soul.
Your second rhetoric is not a point of conversation, it would lead us to a very silly tangent about Wuk Lamat that I have no interest in jumping on. But to properly explain what I meant, is that newfound memories for those beings do not have an impact on themselves. They are data, they get new data, store it, and respond accordingly to present and past data, much like an AI.
They aren't doing actual introspection or personal growth as a living being, they are just adapting to their surroundings.

I get new data that you claim the Endless don't develop based off of new data, and am now forced to evaluate it: do I accept this new data as true, or false? I weigh the evidence in favor of your claim: you have furnished none, so there is none. I now reject your data as false. I continue on in the manner I did prior. Under your framework, I have undergone no change, and therefore am merely a LLM incapable of new experience, only base replication of prior experience. This further weights my decision to reject your claim, as following your logic to its conclusion proves how illogical it is. So, I reject your claim again; now I'm an AI twice over. Neat, isn't it?

Again, I'll ask you to cite your claim that Sphene fits under the Endless framework. Here, I'll demonstrate what that means: in quest #91, 'Those Who Live Forever', Cahciua states that the Sphene we meet is an ideal brought to life by Preservation, utilizing the memories of Sphene's love for her people. Wuk then mentions an original Sphene, and Cahciua calls the current Sphene created. Despite Cahciua being previously established by the story to be an unreliable source of information, this claim can be evaluated against other statements: Otis mentions in quest #81, 'Memories of a Knight', that the Queen's soul was stored for a considerable amount of time before extraction technology was working, and Sphene herself treats her living memories as an 'other'. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to draw the conclusion that Sphene- as we know her- is a facsimile purpose-made by Preservation to provide the personality and face for their system. Sphene is not like the other Endless, much like the Otis we meet in Living Memory is not like the other Endless; so to call them Endless confuses the definition when discussing the monolithic group of Endless her were made by extracting the original memories in whole from the soul, and placing those original memories on new aether. Whether Living Memory Otis and Sphene are alive is a topic best discusses separately from whether the Endless are alive, because the context of their existence is different.

[OMGJesuis66]

-snip-

We will see in a couple of years when they give us the Unending Codex of Sphene and state she's an Endless, I guess.
I do not really have the interest to convince you from anything beyond your own personal claims, there is the actual point I was trying to bring over that such denizens are indeed not alive in any sort or manner.
Which they aren't. But you can advocate as much as you would like that they are. I personally find it fascinating that people do feel capable of bringing such questioning and even stand by the fact they are alive.

But, to entertain you:

Ideal brought to life = Endless (They are brought back to life as their ideal form akin to the happiest moment of their life, based on Preservation software calculations).
Original Sphene, Dead. Current Sphene Created = Endless.
Otis's information states that the first one which Preservation worked on storing soul and memory, was Sphene, which puts her as a 'prototype', if you prefer. Otis as it came to be, is an alpha version. Technology develops over time to achieve perfection, therefore it makes sense that those are the initial developments of Endless. But version 0.0.1 is still the same software as version 10.0.0.
Sphene did have a directive given to her akin to her process, which was the preservation of Alexandria. Primary function as spoken, and again it falls back that she had to erase prior memories to pursue such directive.

Much of it is just conjecture and interpretation of how the narrative unfolded, I guess. I did think it was very on the nose all that they had written, but, people can believe in what they want.
I, for one in the philosophical stance, believe that if you add humanity to an inanimate something, it will carry over such humanity even for others. But it does not change from them being inanimate something if that makes sense.
Anywho, I have Arcadium to go slap and try to farm that Orchestron Roll.

Have fun.