Battlestar Galactica

But isn't it better to be about people's OWN beliefs, rather than pushing your own set of beliefs on them? That way they don't feel threatened at all and can start up their own discussions about what it means to them. Smells like success to me if it's working on all fronts.
 
puckthemad said:
But isn't it better to be about people's OWN beliefs, rather than pushing your own set of beliefs on them?
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But it shouldn't be about beliefs at all. When you say that "God did it.", without any explanation about who or what that God is in the context of the show, it becomes a theological statement, rather than just an explanation for the events that happened. I think it is preachy. I would have rather they either had not made reference to God at all, and left it even more ambiguous, or revealed it sooner in the show and explained who God was and why it was doing what it was. But to just open that can of worms in the final scene comes off like a cheap solution to all the loose ends, and leaves things too open to people throwing their own religious dogmas into the mix.
 
I really enjoyed it. I agree that it was set up early on that this was going to be a "spiritual" ending. I expected nothing more. I mean from the first season we saw debates in the show about if there is one god or many gods, mentions of prophecies, gods, and even angels from god. I would have been disappointing if it was anything else.

I really thought the "earth" thing was clever. The way they made us believe that earth was gone, and the whole point of the show went out the window, until the final moments. Personally I think have a past earth and our earth is genius writing, all to keep the final twist at the end.
 
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Batutta said:
But it shouldn't be about beliefs at all. When you say that "God did it.", without any explanation about who or what that God is in the context of the show, it becomes a theological statement, rather than just an explanation for the events that happened. I think it is preachy.
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True, but it didn't bother me because there was still some mystery to it. Also, the way Baltar described God as a force of nature was interesting to me, leaving it open ended enough to draw some personal conclusions. Other things like the dead Raptor pilot's hand flopping down on the missile launch button being the Hand of God, or maybe just random luck. I find that interesting in that it asks me to draw my own conclusions, even with the show's heavy bias towards it being the Hand of God.

Sure, it could also be that their God or Lords of Kobol could be a post human or extra-dimensional intelligence. Maybe Ron Moore was giving a little nod to Q from TNG? I think that the religious aspect is a part of the series, not the focus. At least, I never fixated on it as the main topic of the series because they never came out and said that the Lords of Kobol or the One God was real or not until the end. It seems kinda like the time travel element in the Terminator films. Sure it is there, not really explained nor is it very plausible, but it exists and has an important effect on the story. The bottom line is that it doesn't ruin or take the spotlight from the other more important elements.

I also like that the entire series started with Number Six and her two Centurion bodyguards at the Armistice Station, and ended with Virtual Six and the real Earth robots on the TV screen in present day New York City. To me, that was the thematic masterstroke that wrapped the whole thing up in such an interesting way. I don't think that the ending is supposed to mean that we will automatically end up creating killer robots, but that it asked the question of, "what will we do with them when we build them, and how will that lead to either war or peace with them?"

Seeing Adama pilot the last Viper off of Galactica and then at the end where he is sitting on the top of the hill next to Roslin's grave while the Kobol Opera House theme played was what really made the finale for me. That was the best part. Whether I liked the other stuff in the finale, which I thought all of it was great, doesn't matter so much in the end because this resolution of both Adama and Roslin was handled so beautifully.

Jon Starr said:
I really thought the "earth" thing was clever. The way they made us believe that earth was gone, and the whole point of the show went out the window, until the final moments. Personally I think have a past earth and our earth is genius writing, all to keep the final twist at the end.
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Same here. It is one of those endings that works despite the logic behind it not being the most reasonable. There is something primal yet extremely satisfying to the idea that they came to our Earth so long ago.
 
Nektonic said:
I don't think that the ending is supposed to mean that we will automatically end up creating killer robots, but that it asked the question of, "what will we do with them when we build them, and how will that lead to either war or peace with them?"
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Which, of course, assumes 1) it can be done, and 2) it will be done, neither of which I've ever considered inevitable. Or even necessary. There's just no real reason for it, and when you pile on with the idea that AI must be treated as equals, as sentient beings with full rights, then there's really no purpose at all.
 
David Jimerson said:
Which, of course, assumes 1) it can be done, and 2) it will be done, neither of which I've ever considered inevitable. Or even necessary. There's just no real reason for it, and when you pile on with the idea that AI must be treated as equals, as sentient beings with full rights, then there's really no purpose at all.
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We WILL invent AI. When you consider Moore's Law there will come a point when computer processing power will equal and then surpass that of the human mind. Couple that with a complete working model of the human brain and it seems inevitable. All we need to do is invent a computer as powerful as our mind, and then improvements in processing speed and power will cause it to very rapidly exceed ours. This AI will be able to solve problems we never could, in a much shorter span of time, and lead to improvements in science and technology that will boggle the mind. This is the reason for it, and it will prove far too tempting for us to not pursue. Wether or not this AI is able to exterminate us just depends on how much access to power we give it. Also, we need not create full AI models to do useful work. We can lobotomize them to only provide the functions we need and keep them from becoming sentient.
 
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Nektonic said:
Same here. It is one of those endings that works despite the logic behind it not being the most reasonable. There is something primal yet extremely satisfying to the idea that they came to our Earth so long ago.
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At the same times some fans hate this fact that there are two earths and claim it's because everything was just thought up on the spot. I disagree, a story like this is well thought out. Yes they did do things on the spot a lot of times, but I'm sure the grand scheme of it all was planned out. I wouldn't be surprised if they thought of the two earths well before they began the series. Or maybe they came up with the "orignal" earth recently just to throw us off, but that doesn't make sense since the ancestors came from earth.

I just find it really surprising how some fans are screaming bloody murder because of the ending. Some didn't find it satisfying like me. Honestly, I had NO CLUE where this thing was headed. I thought that any ending would have left me dissatisfied, especially with the original earth having been destroyed.

The fact that it was gods plan, that they find our primitive earth and help jumpstart our civilization, and that the idea of "what has happened before will happen again" theme just really leaves me satisfied.

I think one thing some people didn't enjoy was Kara and Lee not getting together. Although I think it's more the female fans (cause adama is just 'dreamy'), whereas I never really enjoyed that relationship. I felt it ended well and felt like a very very close friendship.
 
I don't think it's inevitable at all. We can create processors which are as powerful as the brain, but what exactly clicks to create consciousness and creativity and true sentience may well elude us forever.

But I still don't see a real purpose for it; if history has taught us anything, it's that rapid advances in science aren't always in our best interest. Getting there through human effort and discipline is the better way.

And if, as some insist, we can't/shouldn't "enslave" this AI for our purposes, what good is it anyway? It won't be working for us.

There are just some paths that it might be better not to go down, and I think this is one. There are already many genies we wish we could put back in the bottle.
 
Jon Starr said:
I think one thing some people didn't enjoy was Kara and Lee not getting together. Although I think it's more the female fans (cause adama is just 'dreamy'), whereas I never really enjoyed that relationship. I felt it ended well and felt like a very very close friendship.
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I *never* wanted them together; it was the cliche of all cliches and it worked against one of the stated purposes of making Starbuck a woman in the first place.
 
Batutta said:
We WILL invent AI. When you consider Moore's Law there will come a point when computer processing power will equal and then surpass that of the human mind. Couple that with a complete working model of the human brain and it seems inevitable. All we need to do is invent a computer as powerful as our mind, and then improvements in processing speed and power will cause it to very rapidly exceed ours. This AI will be able to solve problems we never could, in a much shorter span of time, and lead to improvements in science and technology that will boggle the mind. This is the reason for it, and it will prove far too tempting for us to not pursue. Wether or not this AI is able to exterminate us just depends on how much access to power we give it.
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Not that I like it but I completely agree. I just feel there's so much to gain from creating AI that we will absolutely pursue it. It's also about learning. If we create self sustaining minds that can learn, adapt, at an even better rate than ours, it seems almost nessecary for the industry. Even if we think it's not a good idea, remember, money drives the industry, and AI's can indirectly, eventually help the money flow better in many science related industries. Unless the governments step in and ban it like they ban cloning human beings.

However, I also feel like they'll pursue it for the eventual replacement of human thinking in the work place... which is a scary thought. It does make sense when you're speaking of money though.

How much freedom, power, self-awareness do we give it? That's where we need to draw the line to prevent these many many many stories from becoming reality.

We've had these stories of our creations taking over for a long time. I think the first main one was from the play R.O.B.O.T. (I read it in high school I think). They all act as a warning to the future, a warning which I think we're all taking seriously enough that when it comes time, we'll know to limit what we create, I hope.
 
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David Jimerson said:
I don't think it's inevitable at all. We can create processors which are as powerful as the brain, but what exactly clicks to create consciousness and creativity and true sentience may well elude us forever.

But I still don't see a real purpose for it; if history has taught us anything, it's that rapid advances in science aren't always in our best interest. Getting there through human effort and discipline is the better way.
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Scientific advances have a way of going forward wether we like it or not. Someone somewhere will do this, and it doesn't necessarily have to have a bad outcome. AI that completely mimics the human mind probably isn't even desirable. Perhaps only for psychological study. More likely it will be used to work out highly advanced mathematical models and scientific theories. We don't need consciousness and sentience and what is that anyway? If the machine is thinking for itself that's all that's necessary for it to do useful work. Anyway, I'm betting we'll have AI within 30 years and it most likely will be speaking Chinese.
 
Batutta said:
But supposing it is conscious and sentient...All animals on earth are conscious and sentient, but we don't give them full rights equal to a human, do we?
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Generally, "consciousness" and "sentience" refer to human-like capacity, though there's room for argument. It's what I mean by it.

There are those who argue that such a state requires full individual rights. There was a TNG episode all about it. :)
 
David Jimerson said:
Generally, "consciousness" and "sentience" refer to human-like capacity, though there's room for argument. It's what I mean by it.

There are those who argue that such a state requires full individual rights. There was a TNG episode all about it. :)
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There was a whole chapter in I, robot about it as well if I remember. I don't think it will be a legal issue unless we make robots that are indistinguishable from humans and have human-like AI. Then it could get murky. But a box like HAL that has human level intelligence I don't think will ever get those rights.
 
OK, as a longtime robotics/AI researcher I think I should jump in here.

Robots with human-like intelligence? Mimicking the human mind? Not the issue.

From the AI perspective, the issue is more about whether or not we understand the machines that we create well enough to predict their behavior. And we have already to a great degree surpassed that point. Look at ordinary desktop computer software - it's at this point far too complex for us to understand, predict, and design in a safe, error-free manner. And these computers operate in a relatively simplistic environment - that is, their inputs and outputs are pretty strictly defined (typed files, IP packets, etc.). The real world in which robots must operate is infinitely complex, and thus the behavior of a robot that interacts directly with the real world is infinitely complex.

Robots that deliberately want to kill all humans? Not a worry for me. Robots that accidentally kill humans? Robots that can be used maliciously or irresponsibly? Much more of a worry.

It's all sort of a metaphor - we certainly are in the process of building and using technologies that are clearly destroying us. It's not that things unexpectedly turn on us... it's that we don't have the will, discipline, and collective intelligence to use our technologies responsibly. And as we see with everything from "non-combat deaths" in the military to melamine in food supplies to global warming, we're clearly on a path of building technology that will destroy us.
 
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Just finished the first season on DVD. Excellent show... have the rest on my queue! Can't wait to see this thing through!
 
What kills me about this last episode is that they immediately start with... more backstory!

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that after a four year run the last fracking episode is not the right place to start with more backstory. They've wasted hours of our time already with backstory over the years, and to start off the final episode with more backstory screams of hackery.

What makes it worse is that there's no need for it. There are lots of more and better ways to come to a conclusion (while keeping the same basic storyline) without reverting to cheesy flashbacks. Did the writers not even watch the episodes they were writing?

Very, very sloppy. My feeling now is that they said, "F this. Let's just end it. Doesn't matter how. Our audience are a bunch of retards anyway."
 
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