»The Sentinels themselves (taking it back to HS biology)«

Think back to highschool science when you may have encountered the terms K-strategists and R-strategists. A K strategist produces many offspring, offers little parenting because the offspring are essentially born with all of the skills they need for survival. This plays out in specific ways in nature and is very creatively and carefully put in to the thinking of the sentinels. Without going into great detail, note the similarities in fighting strategies of real K strategists and the sentinels (e.g. a swarm of bees, an army of ants, schools of baracuda and other fish, etc) Each individual is sentient, each is essentially expendable at the benefit of victory. Watch the rear sentinels force those in front ahead as they burst into the dock, as they take the tower and as they pile up before swarming capt. Malfooney's APU. It can also be seen in their strategy of hovering around the diggers, sacrificing themselves for the good of the swarms's goal. Even in the machine city, all of the machines we see with the exception of Deus Ex Machina, are made to appear like insects, crustaceans and other K's. Unless a program is written to ''learn'' it is essentially ''born'' with everything it needs to do its job, thus it is the logical strategy for a machine to adopt, (even touched upon by Morpheus in M2.)

R strategists on the other hand, invest alot of teaching and resources on a few or even just one offspring, (i.e. humans and almost every other mammal). Neo/ thomas a anderson (''son of man'') is that offspring, and like others of his kind, he relies on himself, and the skills he has LEARNED, and aquired in life.

okay, I went into great detail, seek litigation if you must!

thats good...i like it

but i think the reason that most of the machines resemble insect is the fact that the insect shape tends to be the most efficient body shape in nature
that is why most robot designers think that bi pedal robots are to clumsy and difficult to build

just look at the significant differences between the fast sentinals and the slow and clumsy moving parts

in fact just look at the human body...without our intelligence we would be one of the weakest species on the planet...everything on four or more legs tends to be a lot faster and stronger than humans(relative to body size)

ants can lify 20 times their own weight and cheetahs can run faster than some cars...

the machines are aware of this and build efficient machines by using natures design

Whereas I have noted a difference an described how it plays out the poster ANOMOLY has here given a reason behind the choice, i.e the form is more efficient. I think I have to agree with this logic, however I don't think enough credit is given to the evolutionary marvel that is a biped, and the implications it has had on our species. Along with our minds, our hands are freed to manipulate tools and vary in their precision, power and finesse giving a reality to the amazing evolutionary adaptation that is our imagination. Let me see an ant figure out a way to do more than it is capable of doing by its genetic program, or a cheetah open a can of worms (pun intended). None the less, the efficiency of the insect form never occured to me, and I like that it fits with what we know of the AI.

yes..humans are unique...a lethal combination of inteligence(arguably for some people)and opposable thumbs

well actually that would place us with monkeys and apes (the whole opposable thumbs and intelligence things) but add liquor and weed and a whole world of oportunites opens up.... MEDICINAL DRUGS thats what makes us more advanced than any other species on this planet.

right, its just the drugs

Come on now. A sober person couldn't come up with something like the telephone (hmmm I want to talk to someone who isn't here) or harnessing electricity ( hmmm let me fly a kite in the middle of a thunderstorm with a key tied to the end of it and see what happens when lighting strikes it) or the best one lets use explosions in a box to move a box that turns a wheel that turns 4 more wheels.... even now if someone said these things you would think they were crazy drunk or high....

Heres the other reasons that monkeys aren't as advanced as humans.


This simple explanation has a grain of truth in it. Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water. After a while, another monkey will make an attempt. Again, all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, whenever a monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it. Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey will see the banana and will attempt to climb the stairs. To its surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys will attack him/her. After another attempt and attack, it knows that if it tries to climb the stairs, it will be assaulted. Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer will go to the stairs to climb for the banana and will be attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, and then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, it is attacked. Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey. After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because, as far as they know, that's the way it's always been done around here.

Oops then again they are still alot like us.

in psychology its called conditional stimulus and conditional response...

the best one was testing marental deprevation in monkeys...

a new born monkey was put in a wire cage with an electrically wired dummy for a mother...

they would then pass an electric current through the cage so the baby monkey would leap for its "mother" and then they would pass a current through the "mother" in an attempt to synthesise maternal rejection

they then said the results could be equated to humans...which is a lot of shit...its more like they just liked torturing monkeys

another one involed clamping a monkey into a chair which completely restricted its movement 100%...and then ignored it entirely except to feed it for 4 YEARS...in an attempt to analyse isolation induced stress and again tried to equate it to humans...

needless to say the monkey died from muscle attrifusion

Hey! I think that's how religion started!

It also explains why every time I try to eat a banana, four monkeys come out of no where and beat the cr*p out of me.

P.S.-Xhadow, were you on drugs when you started that whole monkey experiment?

I think the predatorial swarming that the sentinels exhibit is supposed to demonstrate the hive mentality of the machines. This is the natural behavior of a group that is controlled by a strong central intelligence (like a queen or a machine intelligence) and subserviant drones (like worker bees or sentinels). Hive/Swarms are very computer-like master/slave, client/server, etc. . .

Also, it would be a very effective warfare tactic for an army that is very effiicient, has strong communication, and lacks individuality and initiative. Has anyone read Ender's Game? It reminds me of the bugger army.

like ants or bees...the machines are an alltruistic society where by the only way the species can survive is to work for the good of the whole

this is because each type of machine is designed and programmed to do a specific task and unless reprogrammed is completely incapable of doing any other tasks...

example...a sentinal is designed to hunt down humans...it becomes damaged and so it requires a maintainence machine to fix it and without the maintainence machine it would be unable to continue what it is programmed to do

of course the machines may simply discard damaged machines as it would be more efficient to design and bulid and rebuild 1 machine than to design and build several machines...

Once again, deja vu
PUT THE CRACK PIPE DOWN, its not good for you. Your points are so convaluded that I now can not determine whether you think we are or arent more advanced than monkeys.
In addition, the development of the neocortex is enough, secondly many of our best ideas have come as a result of observation of natural phenomena and integration with known basic knowledge, or by simple trial and error, or even just blunders that result in new fundamental governing dynamics, e.g. the hot air balloon was discovered by two brothers who disposed of a paper bag in thier fireplace. B. Franklin didn't smoke a joint and randomly decide to put a key on a kite, he systematically tested a theory.

First of all, thank you for getting away from the nonsense before you.

Secondly, your point follows straight from the whole idea of how K-strategists behave, and how that makes perfect sense for a machine to use such a strategy (reasons for this are given by anomoly). A really good example of what your talking about is when they swarm around the diggers to protect them from mortar shells.

Thank You thank you thank you.

P.S. Xhadow is making all of us potheads look really bad (right now) although his example, albeit misplaced and irrelavent, of primate learning is really good.

Quote:

like ants or bees...the machines are an alltruistic society where by the only way the species can survive is to work for the good of the whole

Hive behavior, although, very efficient is anything but altruistic. The sick, old, and weak are killed off. Any competition to the queen is killed off. Once male drones have mated with the queen, they're useless (and potentially a threat if they mate with another female) so they are killed off. This is actually the opposite of altruistic.

There's a tendency to say that humans are evil because we're not perfect like we try to portray ourselves, but usually the alternatives are worse.

by altruistic...you have to look at the fact that they kill off the weak not as a selfish act but as an act that will beenfit the entire hive...

Oh come on! That's like saying the Nazis were altruistic because they killed off the Jews for the good of the the state. I know, I know, it's a cheap tactic to bring up Nazis and Jews. . .

However, I get your point about the hive being selfless. But it's because bees and ants don't really have a concept of self, not because they deny themselves good for the benefit of the hive. I just didn't think altruism was the right word. Selfless would be a good word except it's confused with self-sacrificing. think "lacking individual identity" is close to the concept. It's just that "altruism" makes it sound good and benevalent.

an altruistic act is defined as a "selfless act"

this is why i see the hives as being the closest to an altruistic society in the sense that 1 and would be unable to survive on their own...in fact no 1 type of ant would be able to survive on thier own...

the nazis on the other hand would...and its arguable that some of the nazi's got personal enjoyment from killing jews and as such the act of killing is not altruistic because the person who commits the act gets some form of personal reward

this brings up the question...can a human even carry out an altruistic act

Quote:

[n] the quality of unselfish concern for the welfare of others

That's the dictionary definition of Altruism. The problem I have is with the welfare (meaning well-being) part. The worker bees aren't "concerned" witht the general welfare, they're just doing their job. The queen is being very selfish, she is the ego of the hive. And the drones/weak/sick/etc. . .aren't sacrificing themselves, we don't really know what they're thinking, if they think at all. I know we're just quabbling over linguistics. All I'm saying that "altruistic" implies "good" which is not necessarily the case with hive behavior.

The hive eliminates the weak for the greater good of the hive. It can be argued that progress and improvement of a society/hive at the expense of the weak and poor is the "most good", but to see an "altruistic" society/hive, I think I'd have to see one that took care of the members that can't perform, not eliminate them. Anyway, I'm beginning to think that this is all pointless, because we're anthropomorphicizing theinsects/machines. It is useless to use terms such as self, selfless, ego on a being that identity is undefined or at least so radically different from our meaning of identity. And it is also pointless to argue whether one way of life is better than another when comparing two completetly different perspectives.

One final comment, hive behavior may or may not be good for hives. Hive behavior is definitely not good for humans.