Morality of Radiant bonds

[Frustration]

1 minute ago, Nameless said:

I would say yes, although it depends on the book.

.....

ok then.

was not expecting that.

[+Bzhydack he/him]

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Spren hold the same moral value as Amazon's Alexa or Siri do.

They are AI nothing more, they aren't living beings and do not recieve the same value living beings do

Fully sentient AI can be consider alive. Also, Spren are not artificial creation.

[Knight of Iron she/they]

I think sapience is what matters.

I think it just comes down to:

Spren of near or above human intelligence are morally equivalent to humans.

Spren of animal intelligence are morally equivalent to animals (which again is touchy, because some kill animals and some don’t)

 

[Frustration]

Just now, Bzhydack said:

Fully sentient AI can be consider alive.

Can be, I would not

1 minute ago, Bzhydack said:

 Also, Spren are not artificial creation.

Being an artificial creation isn't even an argument I've made.

[Halyo_Alex he/him]

You can hurt a Spren. They feel pain, both in the emotional sense and the "physical" sense. (for the latter, see: Captain Notum getting assaulted in Shadesmar with the intent to drive him mad from pain, etc).

At the very least, the 10 (or, well, 9 plus the Godspren) varieties of Radiant Spren are as "living" as a regular human. They're just life that originated from the cognitive realm rather than the physical one.

Investiture itself seeks to be self-aware and intelligent. A dropped, vessel-less Shard would develop its own free will.

[NameIess]

48 minutes ago, Frustration said:

.....

ok then.

was not expecting that.

Let me elaborate a little. Take Nightblood as an example. He is sentient, albeit heavily influenced by his intent. If someone destroyed him, it would be about the same as killing a person. (Although in Nightblood's case he's basically a nuke, so destroying him could be understandable) Same with a sword such as Jack from Magnus Chase. I don't think I've really read many other series with talking swords, but if it can talk intelligently and isn't explicitly stated to be a simulacrum of sapience, it is basically human in worth.

41 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Can be, I would not

In the case of an AI, then in most cases I would say it's not actually sentient, just a good copy of it. But in the case of spren, I don't think that the AI analogy is a good one. In the Cosmere, I would argue that sentience is granted by the spiritual aspect, which is investiture, which is what spren are made of, therefore spren are just as sentient as humans.

[apepi]

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

Spren hold the same moral value as Amazon's Alexa or Siri do.

They are AI nothing more, they aren't living beings and do not recieve the same value living beings do.

 I would like to argue that even some human do not see a value in life. It isn't a great measurement.

[RedBlue]

1 hour ago, Nameless said:

In the case of an AI, then in most cases I would say it's not actually sentient, just a good copy of it.

In the real world, AI is not sentient. We don’t know how sentience works nearly well enough to copy it, and if we did, we have no reason to build a sentient AI beyond proving that we can. In sci-fi, on the other hand, futuristic AI is sentient more often than not.

(Sorry if this is super obvious. I thought it was an important point to clarify for the discussion.)

3 hours ago, Frustration said:

.....

ok then.

was not expecting that.

I’m interested in why you were surprised that someone placed the same moral value on a fantasy talking sword as a human character? I’ve always assumed that other readers saw fantasy talking swords, aliens, AI, magical creatures etc as having personhood and value just as much as the human characters. Maybe I’m wrong and I’m the weird one? 

[The Silverlight Scholar]

6 minutes ago, RedBlue said:

I’ve always assumed that other readers saw fantasy talking swords, aliens, AI, magical creatures etc as having personhood and value just as much as the human characters. Maybe I’m wrong and I’m the weird one? 

No, there are at least two of us. I tend to consider anything that has close to the same capacity for thought and self awareness that most people do to have the same moral weight as a person.

If you gave me a trolley problem with a human on one side and a self aware AI on the other I genuinely have no idea which I would choose.

Also, what is your definition of sentience?

[RedBlue]

34 minutes ago, The Silverlight Scholar said:

Also, what is your definition of sentience?

That’s a very good (and difficult) question.

In the context of something like the Cosmere, I think it’s pretty straightforward. If something has thoughts, feelings and self-awareness at least somewhat similar to a human, then I consider it sentient. If it can have a POV that reads coherently then it’s sentient.

In something like Perdido Street Station that’s playing with ideas of what sentience means, I pretty much follow the author’s lead and try to engage with the characters/animals/objects in the way the text wants me to.

In real life, I don’t have to think about it much for obvious reasons. If it’s a person, it’s sentient. If presented with an unclear case in real life, I would confess my ignorance, to be honest. If I can’t figure out what it is or how it works, I don’t know if it’s sentient or not.

What do you think?

[The Silverlight Scholar]

54 minutes ago, RedBlue said:

That’s a very good (and difficult) question.

In the context of something like the Cosmere, I think it’s pretty straightforward. If something has thoughts, feelings and self-awareness at least somewhat similar to a human, then I consider it sentient. If it can have a POV that reads coherently then it’s sentient.

In something like Perdido Street Station that’s playing with ideas of what sentience means, I pretty much follow the author’s lead and try to engage with the characters/animals/objects in the way the text wants me to.

In real life, I don’t have to think about it much for obvious reasons. If it’s a person, it’s sentient. If presented with an unclear case in real life, I would confess my ignorance, to be honest. If I can’t figure out what it is or how it works, I don’t know if it’s sentient or not.

What do you think?

I really like how you described determining if a fictional character should count as sentient.

As far as determining whether or not another thing is sentient, I would totally agree that I am not an expert, however there are some things that I would look for.

Does it seem to be aware of its own consciousness?

Can it form memories?

Assuming a way that communication is physically possible, does the entity have the ability to maintain a cohesive conversation?

I realize that these are not great indicators of whether or not something deserves to be treated like a person. There are some days when I am not sure that I could get a yes on all three of those questions myself. However, I feel it would be a much safer option in the foreseeable future to be generous in how we treat anything of questionable sentience. Anything that we treat as having sentience that is not actually sentient will not care, and any crazy AI that actually is deserving of being called sentient will hopefully appreciate being treated as such from the beginning and we can hopefully avoid any incidents of robot uprisings.

Edited August 15, 2021 by The Silverlight Scholar
Grammar and spelling

[Frustration]

6 hours ago, Nameless said:

Let me elaborate a little. Take Nightblood as an example. He is sentient, albeit heavily influenced by his intent. If someone destroyed him, it would be about the same as killing a person. (Although in Nightblood's case he's basically a nuke, so destroying him could be understandable) Same with a sword such as Jack from Magnus Chase. I don't think I've really read many other series with talking swords, but if it can talk intelligently and isn't explicitly stated to be a simulacrum of sapience, it is basically human in worth.

That is a completly different way than I have ever looked at things.

I had never even thought of it that way, I've always seen them as accesories, just a regular sword with an ability to talk.

5 hours ago, apepi said:

 I would like to argue that even some human do not see a value in life. It isn't a great measurement.

Wrong kind of value

Let's put it this way: I would kill every single spren, do it myselfif need be, and stop all new ones from forming than allow one human to perish.

6 hours ago, Nameless said:

In the case of an AI, then in most cases I would say it's not actually sentient, just a good copy of it. But in the case of spren, I don't think that the AI analogy is a good one. In the Cosmere, I would argue that sentience is granted by the spiritual aspect, which is investiture, which is what spren are made of, therefore spren are just as sentient as humans.

Do you view the Selish magic systems as a form of abuse to the Dor then?

[apepi]

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

Wong kind of value

Let's put it this way: I would kill every single spren, do it myselfif need be, and stop all new ones from forming than allow one human to perish. 

So... Would you kill book 5 to save one human life?

 

And I would argue the spren life has value, just as animal/plant life has value. It's like saying I would kill all the cows to allow a single person survive.

 

And like, we somewhat have real life equalivents, people have allegeries/in tolerances to food... And other people still eat them even though if it could get mixed or close to the person who it could harm. People are still selling peanuts.

[+Bzhydack he/him]

8 hours ago, Nameless said:

In the case of an AI, then in most cases I would say it's not actually sentient, just a good copy of it. But in the case of spren, I don't think that the AI analogy is a good one. In the Cosmere, I would argue that sentience is granted by the spiritual aspect, which is investiture, which is what spren are made of, therefore spren are just as sentient as humans.

But when copy of sentience becomes true sentience? IRL we have still very long way to do this, and also is not sure we should.

But in Cosmere if something is seen as person by himself and many other around it, it will be/become a person.

Also, if something lives similar to human, speaks similar to human, thinks similar to human, it should be treated as human, no matter from what is his brain made, nerves, Investiture or silicone and copper.

[Halyo_Alex he/him]

13 hours ago, The Silverlight Scholar said:

As far as determining whether or not another thing is sentient, I would totally agree that I am not an expert, however there are some things that I would look for.

Does it seem to be aware of its own consciousness?

Can it form memories?

Assuming a way that communication is physically possible, does the entity have the ability to maintain a cohesive conversation?

I realize that these are not great indicators of whether or not something deserves to be treated like a person. There are some days when I am not sure that I could get a yes on all three of those questions myself. However, I feel it would be a much safer option in the foreseeable future to be generous in how we treat anything of questionable sentience. Anything that we treat as having sentience that is not actually sentient will not care, and any crazy AI that actually is deserving of being called sentient will hopefully appreciate being treated as such from the beginning and we can hopefully avoid any incidents of robot uprisings.

I would also like to add "Does it have the ability to make high-quality plans for the future" as another indicator, with better planning being a stronger indication (when present with at least some of your original three). This is something that we expect real Artificial General Intelligences to have when we make them, and is typically the thing that we expect to make an AGI cause problems if their plans are formulated to achieve a goal that is misaligned with humanity's goals, like having the goal of maximizing the number of stamps, so it turns the whole world into stamps, people and all, through a complex plan that involves all sorts of machinery and horrible things.

Or the intelligence IS aligned with humanity and thinks of (and creates) all the things humanity could ever want, everyone is happy forever in a non-dystopian way, huzzah.

So yeah TL;DR if an intelligence can make high-quality plans for the future in pursuit of its goals, that's an important part of being "sentient". Not strictly mandatory, but important.

[ScadrianTank he/him]

Personally, I dislike and disagree with the idea that any program good enough running on fast enough hardware is functionally indistinguishable from a person. Humans are fundamentally irrational due to the biology and chemistry involved, while AIs are fundamentally rational because the mathematics that make up the software are. It's one of my gripes with the Skyward series. But spren are not like that, in fact, where their divine attributes are concerned, they are even more "human" than actual humans are.

A good place to start would be to compare Cryptics to a standard fictional AI. Cryptics are a personification of mathematics and fields associated. They perceive the world through that lens, and it affects the way they understand things. Pattern repeatedly shows that he is more comfortable with things and concepts that are fully material and are not abstract - locks, roads, maps, etc. He struggles with products of humanity and society that don't follow consistent patterns and logic - humor, social norms, etiquette, and so on. While this is my personal read, which is greatly affected by the fact that I had a course on the topic in uni, it seems that he excels in things that can be clearly described with either a straightforward set of equations or a good mathematical model. Social norms and humor he has to learn by collecting data and using it to react accordingly, but never fully understanding the meaning behind them.  So far - very similar to something like a machine from the Matrix. Where they differ is in the fact that they have emotions, feelings, and fears. And those make bring them a lot closer to us because emotions and feelings are fundamentally irrational, or they would be to any big computer regardless of how complicated and detailed its software is.

 

[Halyo_Alex he/him]

3 hours ago, ScadrianTank said:

Personally, I dislike and disagree with the idea that any program good enough running on fast enough hardware is functionally indistinguishable from a person. Humans are fundamentally irrational due to the biology and chemistry involved, while AIs are fundamentally rational because the mathematics that make up the software are. It's one of my gripes with the Skyward series. But spren are not like that, in fact, where their divine attributes are concerned, they are even more "human" than actual humans are.

A good place to start would be to compare Cryptics to a standard fictional AI. Cryptics are a personification of mathematics and fields associated. They perceive the world through that lens, and it affects the way they understand things. Pattern repeatedly shows that he is more comfortable with things and concepts that are fully material and are not abstract - locks, roads, maps, etc. He struggles with products of humanity and society that don't follow consistent patterns and logic - humor, social norms, etiquette, and so on. While this is my personal read, which is greatly affected by the fact that I had a course on the topic in uni, it seems that he excels in things that can be clearly described with either a straightforward set of equations or a good mathematical model. Social norms and humor he has to learn by collecting data and using it to react accordingly, but never fully understanding the meaning behind them.  So far - very similar to something like a machine from the Matrix. Where they differ is in the fact that they have emotions, feelings, and fears. And those make bring them a lot closer to us because emotions and feelings are fundamentally irrational, or they would be to any big computer regardless of how complicated and detailed its software is.

Yeah. Spren have feelings. It's the same sort of basis that people use for their choice to be vegetarian or vegan, but instead of animals, it's cognitive entities. Some of which are explicitly self-aware and capable of feeling pain and dislike feeling pain. Computers don't do that.

[The Silverlight Scholar]

3 hours ago, Halyo_Alex said:

I would also like to add "Does it have the ability to make high-quality plans for the future" as another indicator, with better planning being a stronger indication (when present with at least some of your original three). This is something that we expect real Artificial General Intelligences to have when we make them, and is typically the thing that we expect to make an AGI cause problems if their plans are formulated to achieve a goal that is misaligned with humanity's goals, like having the goal of maximizing the number of stamps, so it turns the whole world into stamps, people and all, through a complex plan that involves all sorts of machinery and horrible things.

Or the intelligence IS aligned with humanity and thinks of (and creates) all the things humanity could ever want, everyone is happy forever in a non-dystopian way, huzzah.

So yeah TL;DR if an intelligence can make high-quality plans for the future in pursuit of its goals, that's an important part of being "sentient". Not strictly mandatory, but important.

That is a great point. The ability to make plans for the future to achieve specific goals is a good thing to look for.

 

[Halyo_Alex he/him]

Okay, so.

List of Reasons Why Spren Lives Matter:

All Spren:

• Feel Pain/Discomfort (Lesser Spren trapped in Fabrial gems against their will, Radiant Spren being physically attacked in Shadesmar)

Radiant Spren:

• Can feel emotions
• Can form memories
• Can learn to do new things
• Can communicate meaningfully with humans (who are definitely sentient/sapient)
• Can have complex goals (e.g. "protect Roshar from being destroyed")
• Can make high-quality plans to pursue those potentially complex goals

I'm sure there's more.

@Frustration

[Frustration]

On 8/15/2021 at 1:50 AM, apepi said:

So... Would you kill book 5 to save one human life?

 

And I would argue the spren life has value, just as animal/plant life has value. It's like saying I would kill all the cows to allow a single person survive.

 

And like, we somewhat have real life equalivents, people have allegeries/in tolerances to food... And other people still eat them even though if it could get mixed or close to the person who it could harm. People are still selling peanuts.

You're putting words in my mouth.

How's this 1 Human > Every spren ever

On 8/15/2021 at 0:10 PM, Halyo_Alex said:

Okay, so.

List of Reasons Why Spren Lives Matter:

All Spren:

• Feel Pain/Discomfort (Lesser Spren trapped in Fabrial gems against their will, Radiant Spren being physically attacked in Shadesmar)

Radiant Spren:

• Can feel emotions
• Can form memories
• Can learn to do new things
• Can communicate meaningfully with humans (who are definitely sentient/sapient)
• Can have complex goals (e.g. "protect Roshar from being destroyed")
• Can make high-quality plans to pursue those potentially complex goals

I'm sure there's more.

@Frustration

Why spren lives do not matter

- lack a soul(Not SR type soul, Beyond type soul)

[Halyo_Alex he/him]

3 hours ago, Frustration said:

Why spren lives do not matter

- lack a soul(Not SR type soul, Beyond type soul)

To be quite blunt, I don't give a damn if you (or any other being that meets the criteria I listed for why Spren lives matter) have a soul or not.

The presence or absence of a soul is not the be-all-end-all arbiter of "life". Even in a fictional setting. Especially in BRANDON'S fictional settings, where moral questions like this are meant to be complex and potentially ambiguous, not cut-and-dry like you're making this out to be.

[Frustration]

5 minutes ago, Halyo_Alex said:

To be quite blunt, I don't give a damn if you (or any other being that meets the criteria I listed for why Spren lives matter) have a soul or not.

The presence or absence of a soul is not the be-all-end-all arbiter of "life". Even in a fictional setting. Especially in BRANDON'S fictional settings, where moral questions like this are meant to be complex and potentially ambiguous, not cut-and-dry like you're making this out to be.

So are the Slaveforms lives worth less?

They have limited inteligence and free will, learning is almost impossible as is communication, planing is actually impossible and emtion and memories are dulled

[Halyo_Alex he/him]

3 hours ago, Frustration said:

So are the Slaveforms lives worth less?

They have limited inteligence and free will, learning is almost impossible as is communication, planing is actually impossible and emtion and memories are dulled

Notice that I said "the presence or absence of a soul is not the be-all-end-all arbiter of 'life'". That is not the same as saying it's irrelevant.

Yes, I initially said "I don't give a damn if you have a soul or not", but I admit, that was out of frustration. (insert punchline here)

EDIT: Also, the Slaveform singers and Deadeyes are not their natural state of being, they've been damaged/harmed to put them in that position. That's what's different as well.

Edited August 16, 2021 by Halyo_Alex

[apepi]

I mean, the whole deadeye/mental issue arc in the book shows how people devalue life if people are having those type of issues.

 

Also with the power of magic you could probably make spren have souls, given certain experiments....

[Elegy he/him]

56 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Why spren lives do not matter

- lack a soul(Not SR type soul, Beyond type soul)

That's not a good point because we don't even know if it's true. First off, who says that spren don't go to the Beyond? We know nothing about the Beyond and never will, so we also don't know what makes a Beyond soul. Which means that there's nothing that indicates that sentience alone isn't enough for a being to have a Beyond soul. Spren might as well have one. And on the other hand, since, as I said, we don't know anything about the Beyond, it might just be nothingness anyway; humans might just vanish when they die. If there is no Beyond, neither is there a Beyond soul. Which means, not only don't we know if spren dont have a Beyond soul, we also do not know if humans do have one. Both premises of the statement are actually assumptions about things we don't know (and will never know). Therefore, this is no basis to make statements about the value of lives.

Edited August 16, 2021 by Elegy