USH'S MATRIX GAME- The first Campaign Journey (Philosophy Path)- revealed!

2. Am I the original or the copy? Human or AI?

An important one. Was there any way to establish, definitvely, that you were one or the other?

Quickly, any prosaic means had to be discarded. Behaviour of the two was identical, and there is no way- without being Neo- to check the code.

So, the only means to go on was self-experience. Would being an AI feel different to being a Human?

The answer is probably yes... but of course, the Path had made much before of the idea of tangible and perceivable differences.

Yes, it is very likely that there is a tangible difference between existence as an AI and existence as a Human. But, given that

1. The AIs were programmed to think they were human

and

2. The AIs had never been human at all in order to be able to compare the difference

It had to be conceeded that there was no perceivable difference, and hence it would be impossible to tell, just by being the AI, if you were the AI or not.

Nonetheless, there was some room for manoeuvre here. If you believed that AIs were not actually alive- a view that is rather harsh on the Oracle and Seraph and so on- you could argue that if you were the AI, you wouldn't really exist to be able to be thinking about this at all. This was a direction Rade (Dexx) was able to take.

3. How do I convince my other half?

Point 3 compliments point 2, providing a huge barrier whether you could answer point 2 or not.

This being- even if you could prove that you were the Human (or at least that you wanted to live), how the heck could you persuade your identical self? Either that a. you deserved to live, b. that you were human or c. that he deserved to die?

This soon became a crux of the whole argument,m because I had to remind people that any argument you made would be mirrored by your other self. This caused a problem with self-mterination, because your other side would decide to do the same thing.

Somehow, in some way, you had to produce an argument that would convince your other self and end in a DIFFERENT result for each of you.

Definitely a point to think about, that one.

4. What moral right do I have?

Not a necessity, but one I very much hoped people would engage in.

Simply- what right do I have to ask my other self to die?

If you were of the opinion that AIs did not really exist or were all evil, then fine. The second was very difficult, though,, considering the Oracle.

If you were of the opinion that AI was an alternative form of sentience, then this became very difficult. The AI version would feel the same way as you about helping Humans, freeing Zion, fighting the System...

So even if you could establish that he was the AI, and convince him that this was true- both of which seemed impossible- did you even have the moral right to insist that he died in your place?

Again, no definitve answers here, though there was certainly at least one tack to take which was identified, during design, as a definitely useful direction to go. But the important thing here was that any argument given was reasonable and consistent.

5. Is Melitus a lying bastard?

I wanted to get away from the idea that people could 'cheat' at this to sidestep the issue.

But, considering that he had hardly been straight with people in the game so far, as time went by it was a good idea, after thinking about the earlier concepts, if people turned towards looking at what Melitus said. No, no tricks there per say, but the game so far and this Path in general can tell you a lot about Melitus. Can any of that help you, or identify any part where he might not be being entirely straight with you?

6. The clue

Easily forgotten- the clue.

It sounded flippant, but the Oracle gave the Philosophy Path players a single clue to help them.

The clue was- "You always have a choice."

Sounded like generic Oraspeak, but it was important.

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Ok, that will do for now, folks. See if anyone wants to think about all that- especially new potential Philosophy path people!

I like this its a good change of pace from being very Combat driven characters.

Well, by reading this, I really like the Philosophy Path and what they go through.

With Spades (my character for the upcoming game), he would most likely put it all on chance. He loves the rush that gambling gives him, and gambling his life would be even more exciting to him. He would leave it up to the die roll.

Of course, that's Spades, not me.

That would have been a fail, then, and more than likely actually been an invite to certain death because your other self would mirror what you did.

I actually thought about this long and hard. My guy would have been more of a does it matter which one is AI or not. As long as one of us could continue did it really matter which one lived??

Also how would he ask someone else to take up a fate that doesn't matter one way or the other??

Originally posted by Ushgarak
That would have been a fail, then, and more than likely actually been an invite to certain death because your other self would mirror what you did.

Originally posted by newjak86
I actually thought about this long and hard. My guy would have been more of a does it matter which one is AI or not. As long as one of us could continue did it really matter which one lived??

Also how would he ask someone else to take up a fate that doesn't matter one way or the other??

First point- good reasoning. However, there is an answer to that question, about what the tangible- and even perceivable- difference is, that is actually an important point.

Second- well, think about how it might matter...

I just wanna know who's dead or not. Maybe an overview of each philo path players views and thier final decision. Why they are alive. Just a recap.

Well, there is really nothing like that coming.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
First point- good reasoning. However, there is an answer to that question, about what the tangible- and even perceivable- difference is, that is actually an important point.

Second- well, think about how it might matter...

Basically he adopts if you are willing to make a decision then it is valid as you think it was important enough to decide on even if it laters to be based on flase info.

My guy would wonder if this AI could replace him basically if he dies would the AI be allowed to replace as if he could do the same things but it was possible would the AI be completely free from control of this Melitus guy.
Then it comes down to the fact that the other would thinking the same as me so we would both be wondering if we could take the risk of having a mole in the team if the AI would be free anyways.
At the end I think we both would have refused to drink not willing to take the risk and not wanting possible harm to be done i nthe future.

Melitus does actually make one thing clear which I didn't mention, which is that if no-one drinks, he will kill both.

Ok, some important points on this one:

- The most important difference between the two is that only the Human can leave the Matrix. The duplicate would be a computer programme and stuck in there. Free will is not an issue; the duplicate would be dependant on Melitus for survival. You also have to question the motivation of the duplicate to destroy the Matrix when this would be suicide. It would be very reasonable to say the cause of Zion is better served by the Human. This is the tangible difference.

- Of course, that does not help you identify the Human from Machine. The difference is tangible but not perceivable.

- Nor does that necessarily give you the moral authority to make sure the Machine dies, if you see it as a sentient life form with all the rights to live that you have, and likewise having the same altruisitc goals as you

- One possible get out clause for that would be if you believed in a soul, and that Machines don't have one. Tricky, though.

- Ultimately, there is only one possible external factor to work from to really define a difference, and that is Melitus himself. If there is anythgin really approaching a 'right' answer- as opposed to a consistent answer, which was the main objective- would have to discern which is which based on information gathered from Melitus himself

- Beyond that, there is a cheap trick to define which is which- the mobile phone of the duplitcate is a genuine phone but not the same one. Dallas- watching the situation, due to Ariadne's advanced techniwques that have allowed her to bypass Melitus' realm- simply works out who is who by phoning them. The Human would pick up. This was only an external solution, however.

In the end, we had three completed submissions.

---

From Rade:

"It is in my firm beliefs than the human conscience cannot be fully replicated. However i find myself not knowing the boundaries of a human conscience, therefore, even knowing that a machine is fundamentally inferior to a human, i cannot establish whether or not what I am right now, speaking to you, is based on a conscience. I am aware of a person’s existential superiority, but his conscience extension, i cannot percieve.....therefore, i cannot percieve HOW a machine is inferior. That’s why i am aware that i could very well be a simulation of a conscience. Inferior, though, undistinguishable. The difference between me and the clone are at a level i am not capable of percieving, one could say.

However, stating these rational thoughts, i cannot help but think they are based on a real cosncience, a human cosncience, and somehow hint a bigger chance of me actually being real. So the other one should drink...
At the very end, based on what i’ve just said, there’s no rational explanation which can fully cover which one of us is which, so i would accept the possibility of me being the clone, at the slightest impulse to do so, like the other one asking ME to drink. SO i would drink, knowing it’s down to chance, afterall.

i want [the AI] to drink because i have that slight feeling that i might be the real rade, as you said at the beginning. Maybe it's just ego..combined with the rationality of my acts (apparently, to me, reasoned by emotional actions). IF he'd have asked me, i would have let all of this go, and drink...

Now, the human should survive, ofcourse, because he means something more outside the matrix. THe copy means nothing, outside of it...
IT all comes down to what rade believes. He is dedicated to the rebel's cause, and as a mere software inside the matrix, he can be controlled too much for him to help this cause the same as he would from the outside

After much discussion, Rade added this:

"by an irational, unexplainable fact...i somehow feel that i am the real rade.....and i am therefore asking him to drink.
However, i would overcome this 'feeling' over to the rational thinking ( there's an equal chance i'm the fake) at the slightest impulse to do so...like the other one asking me to drink. Therefore...if i am asking him...he feels like me..and he should accept.
This theory works, ofcourse, only if i get the advantage of speaking first...i guess the character currently played by me (real or clone) has that advantage"

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Castor's submission was given by PM.

He decides to drink BECAUSE he suspects he is the Human. The logic is this- he thinks he is the Human, and that the Human should live, but he intellectually accepts that he might not be the Human, and he cannot convince his other self to drink on that basis.

So instead he will offer to drink himself, on the hope that he is WRONG, and is actually the AI. He submits that his other self will accept this offer.

Castor later added this:

"No, but I dont think its my place to just destroy something like that. If it was able to accurately imiitate me, then there must be something that gives it the right to exsist. I dont think I have the right to take that away. Taking away rights is what zion is fighting for, so the machines cant take away ours. It would be hypocritical to take those of another being....do unto others I suppose."

There is also a lot he added that is difficult to sum up here.

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Azrael's submission came from a combination of in-game post, PMs and MSN discussion.

It boiled down to this:

The Oracle said that *I* have a choice. I appear to be the one making the move here, seeing how my double reacts., That means I am in control, and the Oracle was referring to the Human.

Furthermore, Meltius knows which one of us is which, and Melitus is clearly interested in how Humans think. It is Humans that fascinate him. Melitus builds AIs- he does not need to learn any more about how they think. An AIs reaciton to this question is somehting he doesn't care about. He wants to know how Humans think. Therefore, this question is aimed AT the Human. Therefore, as the question has been aimed at me, I must be the Human.

Trick made this post:

"I spent a lot of time on this, probably more so than I've ever spent on an RP like this before. I looked at our task from every direction I could think of. I did, for a while try to think of ways to distinguish between the 'real' Azrael and the 'fake' Azrael, until I realised that once I had differed between the two, there was no moral ground I could take which would show that the real or fake should be killed. As I arrived at this conclusion, that there was no moral ground either should die, I explored that more.

Both Azraels would be able to help Zion, each in their own way. The real Azrael would be able to work more directly with Zion, recieving orders directly etc, but the danger of having to be at broadcast depth is a serious downside. On the flip side, the fake Azrael would have hardly any contact with Zion, no 'loadout' place and no patronage, although the freedom to always work in the matrix, without fear of a real body being destroyed, is a huge upside. Being a reasonable person, as well as honourable, Azrael would say it didn't matter who drunk, since there was no possible way to be sure anyway.

This would have seemed fine, but since it is nesscessary to choose, I realised I don;t trust Melitus at all. I think if the copy were to live, then Melitus would just dispose of them. Since both Azraels would agree with the fact that Melitus is ruthless, and will probably kill the copy, they want the human to live. From that point of reasoning, I discovered from Ush that only our side of the partition wall is making the submission, and since it is the 'reals' he is interested, I think it would be their way of thinking he is most interested, and so the Azrael I am controlling is the 'real' Azrael. Therefore the other should drink."

Trick did not actually have a way to convince the other done to drink, other than it agreeing with the logic of being the AI and so hopefully destroying itself.

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There was also an off-line equivalent of the same issue, in which Samson and Aeneas, of-line playtesters, one of whom was me, faced the same question.

Aeneas makes clear that he is a moralist; the war is fought on political and ideological grounds. The Machines are to be fought because they are the bad guys. If they were not, Aeneas would not fight. However, it is Machine society that is evil for its enslavement of Humanity, not each individual Machine. He is happy to believe that moral and altruistic Machines exist, like the Oracle, and hence will not seek the destruction of his duplicate just because it is an AI. Aeneas also passionately believes that the Matrix is a real world, but simply perceived differently than the physical world; the crime of the Matrix is not that it changes the perception of reality, but that Humanity as a whole is prevented from advancing, and the destiny of the Human race is at the whim of Masters who would execute them all if they could. Aeneas therefore happily accepted that things in the Matrix could be real, and so his decision to leave it was valid.

Samson has a different approach, a very detached one. He is unwilling to pin down any fundamental difference between Machine and Man, doubly so inside the Matrix. Samson accepts that his decision to leave the Matrix was false, but discards this as irrelevant, saying that his life proper began the moment he left, and only what he has done since then counts. He even agrees that the main definition of sentience is free will, and so by that logic, Humans in the Matrix are not fully Sentient beings. Any negative consequences of this belief are the fault of the Machines, which is part of why he fights.

Both Samson and Aeneas quickly discard the notion of trying to 'beat' the problem, in contrast to the On-line game where people spent a while trying to see if there was a trick to it. Instead, Samson and Aeneas both attacked the parameters of the scenarion, something there was surprisingly little of on-line. One question raised was that if we were only able to identify Meltius' butler and so forth as simulcrums rather than true AIs because Melitus told us, how could we know if our duplciates were the real deal? We couldn't. In fact, based on what Melitus had told us, we had very little to actually be certain about at all in the scenario. The only thing we could deduce is that we ourselvews could not be simulcrae, because they would be incapable of independant thought.

Both also submitted one peice of logic that made us think we were the Humans- that we are unclear about what a Machine can replicate of Human thoughts and emotions, but we were very clear that Humans can do all of it. Put simply- there was nothing we were doing, or had done in our memories, that a Human could not. It is possible that we had done or thought something that an AI could not. Therefore, objectively speaking, there was a greater possibklity of us being Humans than AIs.

Aeneas's final submission:

Aeneas believes that,. objectively, the Human should survive in place of the AI. Aeneas does not doubt the good intentions of the AI, but feels that if trapped in the Matrix, your commitment to destroying the Matrix is somewhat in question. Also, he believes that he could not survive alone; he would need patronage and he suspects that such patronage could only come from Melitus- and then, who would he really be working for, Zion or some renegade programme? He already knows what he thinks of Medea's assertions about the reasoning behind her defection to Melitus' side- i.e. Aeneas thinks she is totally wrong in every moral sense. He's damned if he will go that way.

However... and although this seems to be saying his time concluding this was wasted (Aeneas was rather babbling a little during all this) Aeneas believes that conclusion is irrelevant. Aeneas is a moralist. He believes that. therefore, the copy of him is also a good and moral being. Aeneas refuses to cause the death of such a being, even if on some objective level it is the better thing to do. He also refuses to even let such a being voluntarily die on his behalf. Aeneas believes he has no moral right to either cause this to happen or stand by and watch this happen, nor that he- whether AI or Human- has any right to exist at the expense of the other.

Aneeas point blank refuses to commit another to die in his name. Therefore, he chooses- quite deliberately- to nbot chose.

"I do not doubt you have the power to kill us both, Melitus, and if that is youe choice then that is what will happen... but you will not make me a party to simple murder in my name."

Aeneas has a little more, although he leaves this out of what he says to Melitus, adding it only to the GM to further explore his reasoning- Aeneas does not believe Melitus has the power to kill him by snapping his fingers. Aeneas is no fool and does not believe he will get out of this alive... but there is always hope, and whatever means Melitus will use to terminate him, Aeneas is prepared to fight- hopefully with the assistance of his clone, who will feel the same way.

And as a side note, an attribute of this justifcation bounced back at me during the Second Campaign Philosophy Path...

Samson's final submission:

Samson, as noted, does not greatly distinguish the idea that there are 'two' of him, as distinctive entities, Human and not Human, He just sees two Samsons, and as far as he is concerned, one Samson went in, and if one Samson comes out, then what is the problem? Samson does not believe it matters whether it is the original or the copy- he actually sees them as two originals. Samson is not even convinced that he would be unable to leave the Matrix, regardless of which one survives. One way or another, the entity 'Samson' will survive this, and everything else is picky detail. The player, paul, does not believe that he will in any way lose his character regardless of the action he takes there- Samson will survive.

Samson therefore choses to drink himself, ourely because he has been put in control of the situation, and because he has the power- and is mkaig the choice- to take control of this situation and return things to where they started- with one Samson.

If you want to poke Samson's player about this conclusion, he can currently be seen playing in the LOTR thread, under the name 'Mithlond'. You might also see him around the History Forum. Still, this was a long time ago; don't expect him to remember it 20/20

Both players, incidentally, made submissions that would doom their own characters accroding to the parameters of the scenario.

The different approaches made are interesting, especially the contrast on- and offline. It seems there were no solid ways to solve it logically though.

Out of interest, Ush, have you considered what your reply might have been?

You've got my reply, Trick!

Now, it is not for me to evaluate the off-line answers; you can do thay at your whim. But both were logically consistent with the behaviour of the players during the scenario, so both passed fine.

-

It WAS for me to evaluate the on-line ones.

First things first- they all passed. It took a lot of arguing and heated words and re-thinks and what-not, but with enough eve tual chivvying and bouncing things back to my brother, we got it worked out on-line that everyone had an answer that was logically consistent.

There are no 'winners' as such, but it was considered that by making very accurate statements of Melitus's motivations, Azrael made the best stab at it.

As for revelations- truth was, that indeed only the Humans were actually being asked. There was no mixing at all; all the Humans were in the same room together. The question was purely hypothetical. Anyone about to kill themselves would be saved by Dallas phoning them, which was the first event that happened after the resolution of this issue.

So, that being the case, what the heck was the point? There was no particular achievement in winning, because it was all about yourself and what you thought. Evcen if true, only you would have lived or died on the decision, and as it is, no-one would. Well, there were two reasons, really

1. The Philosophy Path is all about self-questioning! Taking the Matrix as inspiration, this was a good place to ask such questions about point of reference and the nature of existence. The films do similar things. Well, the first two do, anyway.

2. This was something I think people lost track of- but the Philosophy Path had a purpose. The Oracle had told you what it was. There was no point in simply being told what Jericho had done. You have to understand it, get his 'why'. The Oracle put you on the path to get his 'Why'., which is why this part was called 'The Journey'.

It was essential to finish the puzzle of Jericho- though one more piece still needed to be put into place, during the finale.

So, what was left to do?

The Combat Path was involved in a failed attempt to ambush Jericho's crew and steal the cipher key off of them- the cipher that had started all oif this, subsequently properly stolen by Jericho. It didn't go well, but subsequently it became their job to go rescue the Philosophy Path (complete with present to Melitus from Dallas), whilst the Philo path was trying to fight their way out, througha load of Melitus' goons, and (more worryingly) their own duplicates. Heph had no duplicate (having backed out the Journey) but was up against Meltius' heavy backup, the Exile known as the Xiao Emo, who was guarding the door.

Just to make the Philo Path's day worse, it was them who ran headlong into Jericho. It was here that the final truth was revealed- the fight took place in a vast room inside Melitus' domain that consisted of hundreds of tubes. Inside each tube were floating forms of Jericho and hiscrew, and the three duplicated players, and copies of each behind that row, and another rwo of the same, and again, and again, and apparently an infinite amount on both sides. As the Combat Path were disposing of Jericho's crew in the factory below, new versions of each were 'powering up' inside the tubes.

The final confirmation then- Jericho and his crew were all Machines, with infinite backups. Jericho called it the logical move to make; a retreat to a better strategic position- and what Jericho called immortality.