Curie, Codsworth, and Nick don't count?

I don't know if you ever played Mass Effect but around the time of Mass Effect 2 the Geth begin to show signs of having free thought when everyone thought they was just machines all with one thought. But as the series progress it showed that they are able to think as individuals and is the main reason the Reapers turned on them.

The point of me bring that up is that I look at their species no different then I look at the other species in the Mass Effect universe but are they human of course not. But they are sentient species just like Human and other aliens.

Snyths might not be human but they are a sentient beings and should be treated no different then humans, none feral ghouls, and none violent/ intelligent super mutants.

Edit- Someone beat me to the Mass Effect example.

But well said, none the less.

It was never about looking human, but simply being compassionate about other sentient life.

It's suggested that Patriot is possibly programming Synths with the desire to leave the Institute. If so, then it means Synths don't actually have true sentience and free will, but are merely acting according to their programming. The fact that saying their Recall Code resets them, also casts doubt on them being more than a machine.

...You do realize that's incist/inbreeding (although Synths are sterile/infertile), right? Gen 3 Synths are made using your son Shaun's DNA, which makes Curie's synth body your granddaughter. Same goes for Danse and Deacon.

This is for me a logical Thing.

I dont know how to make a spoiler (looks sheepish)

Not human by the standard definition, but still should have the rights that most humans take for granted, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If something has beliefs, desires, and the capacity of original thought, then they should have those three rights. It doesn't matter if they are human, alien, robot, computer, or some genetically engineered abomination

Type without spaces [spoiler]...........[ /spoiler]

Use Special BBCode Function, then choose Spoiler.

Synths lives matter

Use square brackets [ spoiler ] spoiler goes here [ /spoiler ] (without the spaces).

Thanks everyone I mucked it out, and by they I mean synths gaining self awareness on there own. heheh maybe its a whole family thing

He could be lying about lying about being a Synth. It would certainly be in character for him.

Interesting thread.

Really the question does not come down to whether or not a Synth is human, but whether a Synth (or a Mr. Handy or what have you) is sentient / conscious. Synths are shown to be self-aware, intelligent, and intentional (the ability to have / understand concepts, such as good and evil), and this is all from a Gen 2 Synth (Nick Valentine).

It can be argued, of course, that Nick Valentine and even Gen 3 Synths are simply programmed to act in a way that mimics humans. But humans are also programmed. We are programmed by our culture, by other humans, and by our own experiences. We are not yet capable of "programming" a human at the same level as shown when programming a Synth, but it is entirely possible to, on a basic level, monkey with our wiring using transcranial electromagnetic stimulation (as shown in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEyYSPcdWUs).

To simply say that Synths are not human / sentient (and therefore cannot be enslaved) is to ignore, I think, the pertinent information that we cannot know if the person sitting next to us is sentient or not, but we can only assume he is because he says so.

Fair point. My apologies.

Moral philosophy is a tricky thing. We have so-called experts in it with extremely sophisticated theories and discussions and not much of a result at the end. Much depends on the pre-scientific episteme you are raised or programmed with.

Then there's the problem of the mind. Is a mentally ill person a human? Is a person who is unable to think because the brain is destroyed a human? Is an ape more worth than a baby or a human in coma because the ape's mind is more elaborate, in the case of the baby although just for some time?

Humans are a unit of body and mind. In some cases just the potential to have mind or the fact that mind existed once is enough. Nobody convincingly proved however that mind can exist without a special body. When you can tranfer a mind to any body there is doubt that it is human. Ghouls are human, supermutants are human, synths are not in my point of view. If ghouls and supermutants would not attack, I would not be allowed to kill them.

But in the end that does not matter much for me. I see synths, human or not, as a danger for the commonwealth and humankind because there is the possibility that they could take over the rule of the world and suppress or destroy the "normal" humans. We could decide to build more or less. I'm for less.

The question isn't whether Synths are human are not. The question is whether Synths are sentient / have consciousness. And the game clearly shows us that, yes, they are. At least, by any reasonable measure of what is sentient / possess consciousness.

Animals are sentient too. Is that a reason not to have and kill cattle? You could come to the conclusion but you also could not. That does not help the synths. The question is, is the package of artificial mind and sentiment and body in a synth enough to compare to an individual human.

Animals are sentient (in the sense that they can feel pleasure and pain), but do not possess consciousness. Many animals do not, for example, recognize themselves in a mirror.

I think it all comes down to if a synth can feel physical and mental pain. If they do, then they have the right to be treated like any other living being.

And how do you determine that ? Well putting synths in identical situations as a (control) group of humans and seeing if they act the same would be a start.

And if you look at it the brain is like a computer. It just starts like an empty piece of hardware that gets programmed with external feedback. You can have 2 twins that can behave totally different if they were raised/programmed in different cultures. Synths are not that different, they are programmed as well.

There are 2 interesting movies with robots that possibly acquired consciousness: The machine and Ex machina.

Speaking of consciousness, scientist found a way to turn it off in the human brain, just like you would turn off AI in a computer: http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/185865-scientists-discover-the-on-off-switch-for-human-consciousness-deep-within-the-brain

double post

Does this unit have a soul? Love the Geth and Legion especially.