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Are these things souls in humans or computer programs in computers or other robots? or are they like animal personalites based on instinct?

.......Okay. A Spark is what is what gives a Transformer life. If it goes out, they die. Personality components give them their personality, it makes them who they are. I would think in Bw though, that they do have animal instinct. I think it was either the episode "Call of the Wild" or "Law of the Jungle" where the Maximals learn to use their animal instincts. Now this is just the way I think, but I think that they sort of combined their personalities & animal selves into one, but that's just me.

That always bugged me about Transformers, philosophically speaking. Sometimes they seem to have distinct, unalterable personality traits; at other times, they can be simply reprogrammed into different people. Weren't the Constructicons reprogrammed Autobots?

When so much is made about the ideological distinction between Autobots and Decepticons, especially in the original cartoon series, that distinction loses its meaning if a bot can be reprogrammed into a Decepticon.

So the spark does not confer any personality or behaviour? It simply comes down to circuits and programming? Does that mean with the right modifications, Optimus Prime can be Megatron and vice versa?

Scarfe wrote:That always bugged me about Transformers, philosophically speaking. Sometimes they seem to have distinct, unalterable personality traits; at other times, they can be simply reprogrammed into different people. Weren't the Constructicons reprogrammed Autobots?

Depends on the incarnation. Even in the old cartoon (when that possibility emerges), it seemed to suggest that for whatever reason, the Constucticons were more susceptible to the "reprogramming" than other characters. Plus it was deliberately sloppy writing for the sake of children; it's easier to tell a child that a good character was "reprogrammed" than switched sides out of its own volition.

So the spark does not confer any personality or behaviour? It simply comes down to circuits and programming? Does that mean with the right modifications, Optimus Prime can be Megatron and vice versa?

In regards to the modification of protoform sparks: if protoforms can be seen as nascent Transformers, then it is conceivable that its core programming can be overridden. The same thing can happen with humans, and is currently an issue of controversy in the West (i.e., the genetic manipulation of an embryo's DNA). However, I think that the best equivalency to a "spark" as we can understand it would be a "soul" or "spirit"--as the spark is the life essence of a Transformer, why would there not be a parallel to the life essence, the "spirit" of an organic being?

With that in mind, I could easily imagine a thousand different religions across Cybertron, arguing that the Spark is the essence of the entire being and the body merely the mechanical vessel, or that the Spark is reflective of the actions, thoughts, and feelings of the individual, or that a single Spark is merely a fractured part of some greater cosmic entity that it will one day become one with. And, much like any discussions of spirituality and the soul here on Earth...I doubt that one could draw any conclusive answers from the "spark" question, either.

Fun to think about, though.

Dudes, we can't even quantify our own souls. How the heck can we quantify theirs?

As for personalities, that has as much to do with our experiences as anything else. The stuff that happens to us during our lives shapes who we are. So you can't really program a personality. You can alter it, maybe...

Night Raid wrote:Dudes, we can't even quantify our own souls. How the heck can we quantify theirs?

As for personalities, that has as much to do with our experiences as anything else. The stuff that happens to us during our lives shapes who we are. So you can't really program a personality. You can alter it, maybe...

QFT


Plus I think that the very basic parts of a personality is genetic, or in a TF's case possibly programmed. But there on after, the person's choices and life experiences determine how they will turn out. Not even identical twins who share the exact same genetics, are exactly the same in personality I think. I wonder if the Tfs would have the same difficulties with the idea of a soul, as we do. For all we know they would probably wonder if we even had souls or "sparks," just because they would be using themselves as a guide on what life is in the universe. Instead of just us thinking of "oh how humanlike they are" they are probably thinking "oh how Transformerlike the human aliens are."

Hear, hear! Once again, you say what I was trying to say.

One thing i love about the Transformers mythos (and that more than a few people hate) is that there's a mixture of the scientific and the spiritual. I like that things like the Matrix, sparks, and Vector Sigma are sort of beyond quantification and are more or less mysterious catalysts. Along the same vein, Unicron is an awesome evil deity, and the Quintessons radiate a decent "near-demigod highly advanced mechanical lifeform" aura.

I like that as well. I have no idea why people knock it. Transformers are mechanical beings, so why shouldn't their mythology and belief systems reflect that?

Magnimus wrote:That always bugged me about Transformers, philosophically speaking. Sometimes they seem to have distinct, unalterable personality traits; at other times, they can be simply reprogrammed into different people.

Strictly speaking, humans can be reprogrammed too. The most 'successful' cases have been accidents (Phineas Gage), but we can do it intentionally to some small extent. If we were on par with TFs scientifically we could probaby do really scary stuff.

Doesn't require alterations to the soul (Spark), just the brain (Lasercore/CPU).

Caelus wrote:

Magnimus wrote:That always bugged me about Transformers, philosophically speaking. Sometimes they seem to have distinct, unalterable personality traits; at other times, they can be simply reprogrammed into different people.

Strictly speaking, humans can be reprogrammed too. The most 'successful' cases have been accidents (Phineas Gage), but we can do it intentionally to some small extent. If we were on par with TFs scientifically we could probaby do really scary stuff.

Doesn't require alterations to the soul (Spark), just the brain (Lasercore/CPU).

And some of it is disease too. Tumors, Alzheimer's, drugs, whatever will do it also. Rabies will turn the most docile animal (or human) into a vicious creature, and vice-versa. Probably a lot of the time it is temperary, sometimes it is not. If you stick electrodes into certain parts of the brain and give them short jolts, you can activate some emotions like anger or fear and whatever.

Plus the Tfs would be amazed at some of the ideas of our religions, that some people would say we were created and designed by a great Creater (in Christianity) that we get reincarnated (Buddism((sp?)), that we a long time ago lived a LOT longer then we do now, (again Christianity) and other stuff. They would think we were like them, in a sense.

It's nerd time.

In Christianity, it is said that God created us in his own image. But if you consider the cultural aspect, wouldn't the reverse be true as well? We're conceptualizing the force that created us from a human reference point, in that we are thinking of God in human terms because that's what we are. After all, isn't God usually depicted as an elderly human male? I mean, we all envision our Creator as being similar to us and I imagine that's the case no matter what species you are. If ants had a god, wouldn't that god take the form of an ant? And since all of the above are organic, tied to biological processes and things, wouldn't that have an effect on our reference point, the terms in which we think of things? We are organic, so we think of things in an organic way because that's the only way we truly know. Things are born, they grow, and then they die. That's the organic way. But in an organic world, everything sort of recycles itself. It's the Circle of Life, man! So nothing is really lost. It just changes, and in changing it returns to its source. So it makes sense that we would think of souls in the same way.

Now what of a race of machines? Applying the previously discussed pattern to this case, wouldn't that make their deity a machine as well? And with a purely mechanical reference point, wouldn't they think of souls in mechanical terms? A Spark is brought online within the Matrix and is sent forth from there, and in so doing is assigned a living form... a soul is born in Heaven and sent down to become a living being. The Spark, within its casing of flesh or metal, lives out its life... ditto for souls. A Spark goes offline, and in going offline it flees its mortal shell and rejoins the Matrix, from which it originally came... a soul ascends to Heaven, the place where it was created.

It's the same thing, just in different terms.

Primus = either God or Jesus. I'm not really sure which.
The Matrix = Heaven.
The Pit = Hell.

You see? Different words for the same thing! The only difference is the reference point, the terms and point of view in which one considers these things... mechanical or organic. Different means to the same end.

And if you've read all of this without falling asleep, congratulations.

Good stuff, Night Raid.