Regarding the meaning of the game [SPOILERS]

[Mr. Snrub]

First I will attempt to sum what I understood through my playthrough up . So :

1. The human race was slowly dying because of something . In an attempt to preserve the essence of humanity they decide to create Talos / El , a simulation that tests AIs over and over . The simulation ends when a very human-like AI ( shows traces of free will , can critisise other opinions etc etc ) is found . It is then released as a new '' human '' on earth .
   
   
2. From my understanding Elohim is the bad side of religion . He always tries to manipulate Talos and makes promises of heaven and eternal life . He also enjoys reminding us how he is the superior force in this simulation from time to time .If I got it correctly he wanted the simulation to never end because that would mean he ceased to have meaning . He consistently warns to avoid the Tower , the only way to end all of this .
   
   
3. There were plentiful of other bots before us that did not make it for one reason or another . During the final minutes of the game you encounter Samsara , an extremely hostile AI who tries ot prevent everyone from exiting and leaves mean QR texts to other bots (heh) . You also find The Sheperd who is basically the opposite of Samsara . There are also some references Milton makes on the AIs that tried before you .

So here is the thing that annoyed me about this very good game . One of the defining characteristics of the human race is our diversity . How exactly did the scientists who designed the whole thing expect to create ''humanity v2'' by exporting ONE AI ? Our version of Talos has certainly some human traces but :

• He has formed a finite number of opinions and he will not change them over time , because he can not converse with anyone else . And these opinions that he has ? They are meaningless and useless because they were created by force feeding him philosophical texts inside a simulation and not in the real world , where they can be examined better and judged better .
  
  In my opinion it would make more sense if Elohim was programmed to examine the AIs produced by the simulation and then release about 1000 of them but only provided there were a lot of differences between them . A world with 1000 individuals thinking differently is much more similar to a human society than one where a single robot is released .
  
  
  
• Why weren't there other kind of tests in the first place ? Talos solves tons of logic puzzles over the course of the game but it really matter if he can open doors by redirecting laser beams in the real world ? He could exit El and be very good at solving puzzles and critisising others but how do we know he would respect nature or try to rebuild society ? He could be a homicidal maniac and we wouldn't know because there was nothing he could hurt in the simulation .
  
  I think the game was really good but I can think of a million things the plot got wrong .
  
  EDIT : I forgot to apologise for my terrible English
  

[Automatic Hydromatic Sex Robot]

Some other thoughts I had over the weekend. I agree with the ideas that would place the events of The Talos Principle some... 14-17ish years from the present day, while the actual time is not that important the reason for this speculation is pretty cool. When they discuss that they are using Croteam's Game engine for the simulation they say that is Serious Engine 7. The most recent version of the Serious Engine (the one running The Talos Principle) came out in 2014, they have been releasing a new version of their game engine, on average, every 4 years or so.

• Version 1: 2002
  
• Version 2: 2005
  
• Version 3: 2009
  
• Version 3.5: 2011
  
• Version 4: 2014

Allowing for fluctuation and whether or now Croteam pull a "Source Engine" and release a version that doesn't need to be updated for the best part of a decate, this seems like a cool way to measure the time of the game.

Also...

Mindtruster a écrit :

3. Finally, I would like to ask everyone's opinions about what the Talos principle actually means and what it had to do with the plot of the game.

As far as I understand, the Talos principle stands for the inescapability of objective reality. As to the meaning it has for the game's plot, the idea as I see it is that no matter how powerful EL0HIM is within the boundaries of his virtual realm, the hardware and software that run it inadvertantly decay over long periods of time. The interesting thing about EL0HIM as a character is that it has this controversy always boiling within it that it desperately clings to its existence yet deep inside knows that the ONLY way for Reason to last is for the Talos to be released into the outside world. For me, this made the climactic moment of the game (when you reach the top) literally awe-inspiring, almost a proper religious experience, I might say.

Talos was a man made of bronze who protected the coast of crete, he had a single vein that ran from neck to foot that coarsed with ichor. The notion of the Talos principle is that Talos was not a man, but was he human? He died when he was tempted with immortality by the sorceress Medea who told him that if he opened his one vein he would live forever a very human failure. Milton, throughout the game forces you to confront questions that make you ask what is a human?

Humans think and percieve the world?
Talos can do that

Humans know right from wrong?
Milton has shown us that even humans didn't know this, Talos is doing as good a job as any human did

Humans strive for greater than what lies before them?
Talos spends it's entire existence trying to outgrow the simulation it is places in

Humans feel?
Talos is confused, determined, frustrated and most of all, unstoppably curious

A human is an indivudual imbued of it's own free will to master it's own destiny!
The moment Talos defies Elohim, he seizes his own fate in his hands

Then what is it that makes the Talos unit not human besides it's metal body?

Aasimov's 3 rules of robotics are as follows:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
   
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
   
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

As long as Talos sits within his preprogramed parameters and obeys Elohim it is not a human. But the moment it stepped forth and climbed the tower it opened the final door to it's humanity. Thusly, according to aasimov's rules Elohim had no more power to control, command or harm him which is why Elohim is instantly subservient. He must obey the briefly virtual human that was until moments ago another program until it transcended. Until that happened there were no humans to interrupt the self preservation allowed by the 3rd law but the moment Talos became human Elohim was bound by the rules to serve.

All this theory stuff is fun!

[Gungnir]

Great stuff from all of you! I have some thoughts to add!

The importance of the Talos Principle to me is that there is hardly any distinction to be made between the Bronze man and a man of flesh and blood. Talos is able to do everything a human can, so why isn't he a human? The reversal is also true: although man has a mind, a soul, a personality, etc, he still requires the material component of the body to function. In that sense, man is no different from a machine (or a system of string and cans, or an ecosystem, as Milton puts it).

The terminal texts seem to support this notion: I fondly remember one about a tooth ache. When your tooth's root is so badly rotten that the nerve is affected, all you can think, see or hear is pain. The entire essence of a human being is then replaced by an animal, or perhaps even an object, existing solely of pain.

So the game poses the question: when is the Talos unit a human? Or: why isn't the Talos unit human yet? Or: why isn't the Talos unit human already? What marks the distinctions between object, machine, robot and human being? This, to me, is what the central meaning of the Talos Principle in the game entails.

Furthermore, I believe that the Talos unit is supposed to eventually repopulate the world. There is one text on the reproductive system of species. Humans are supposed to be an integral part of the machine/robot reproductive system, just like countless organisms play some part in the human reporductive system. However, robots are also capable of building other robots/machines. This could be rephrased as the robot reproductive system: there may not be sex involved, but even today we are fine-tuning smart factories that improve the products they make by themselves. If a robot builds other robots and even reflects on how to improve the quality of said robot, then you could argue that this is a form of breeding, perhaps even (controlled) evolution.

So yes, the Talos unit took years to build. But it may gain the knowledge and resources to build another, who could then build another, and so on. I perceived this to be the goal of the EL project: to ensure that eventually, the human race 2.0 would walk again on the Earth.

Finally, I will join Automatic Hydromatic Sex Robot in saying:

Automatic Hydromatic Sex Robot a écrit :

All this theory stuff is fun!

[Mindtruster]

The point about Azimov's laws is very unexpected and creative. I'm not sure it was intended by the developer, but it is worth considering.

I'm still not sure about the Talos principle. Everyone talks about its "importance", but what is the actual definition? If I remember correctly, the game gave something like a definition at one point, which boils down to "as faithful and spiritual as he may be, a person will die if he loses his blood". It is further grounded by how Alexandra expressed her reaction to it in a time capsule, which included an intense feeling of materiality, "physicality" and "isness" of the human body. Earlier programs felt something of this sort as well, like being trapped in the body they possess. This principle is also indirectly reflected in the Egyptian scriptures concerning the afterlife, where the Scribe asks, among else, of what is a human without a shadow, which binds him to the world. (Not a quote) A shadow is an extremely apparent feature of the physical body, always bound by the laws of the universe.

I'm currently reluctant to provide direct quotes from the game, but if anyone can point at the actual definition of the Talos principle, I would highly appreciate that.

Two more short thoughts of interest:

1. EL0HIM is basically an RPG gamemaster software, which is designed to glue the separate elements of the world together. It needs, however, some souces to draw information from. As the archive slowly degrades, there are fewer and fewer building blocks from which EL0HIM can create his worlds. Therefore, the whole simulation may have been entirely different at the beginning than it is as ahown in the game.

2. As for Milton, it may suffer from exactly the same problem. At some point in the game, we can learn, for example, that an entire collection of Greek philosophers is no longer available. It is safe to suggest that it is but an example of how many philosophical works are no longer available for Milton to draw from. That may explain its extremely annoying attitude towards the player. It basically has very little actual knowledge, probably basing what it knows on random pieces of informations about "autotuned teen pop-stars and glittering emo-vampires".

[checkers_of_shalmone]

The actual "definition" of The Talos Principle in the file is different from the one in the Demo that Milton says, which is very strange, considering all circumstances, the Demo's script was written after the Talos Principle's main game.

"Checking library archive...Entries found (2)

1. Talos Principle (philosophy)
The talos principle is the Straton's famous empirical claim that what it is to be human is reducible to mechanical explanations.

2. Talos Principle (entertainment)
An interactive experience, or video game, released in December 2014, and inspired by Straton's principle. It was designed and developed by Croteam; the voiced characters and written texts were produced by Jonas Kyratzes; and the interactive texts were produced by Tom Jubert."

The problem is I might as well sort the Demo information off into non-canon because this is clearly not verbatim - or Milton's using a personality-based system that acts way too human.

[eyeonus]

Toadflax a écrit :

Automatic Hydromatic Sex Robot a écrit :

In the bible, the first sin every committed by man was taking the apple from the tree. And the apple was knowledge.

Everybody gets this wrong. I don't know why - perhaps religious teachers have a vested interest in misinformation.

According to Supernatural's Crowley, it was a quince. :)

[Snail-O]

SanityKeeper a écrit :

The human race was slowly dying because of something .

It was an antient virus, that kills only primates. It was released from glaciers in the result of global warming.

Hey, glad for this information, but where did you get it? Apparently I missed it (probably because I got bored with the MLA texts halfway through and only skimmed them for the rest of the game).

[^2 Camp Skully]

I just played through the game and may be a bit late to contribute but I feel I hold a unique view on the implementation of Elohim and Milton.

Elohim is the embodiment of organization. He is all things structured and logical, he is there to guide the advanced problem solving mechanics of the AI. He guides the different characters towards "Eternal Life" and idea that is clearly the best choice. He does this to weed out the simple programs that merely emulate humanity. Through his Messengers, Elohim saved the most talented problem solvers to contribute towards the construction of the perfect AI. By finding all the sigils, navigating all the secrets and collecting all the stars, a program is offered the epiphat; this is why I feel he is implemented to create the problem solving side to the AI. I do not believe Elohim is dynamic, I feel he is set with a certain set of characteristics that could test the AI's humanity. It is only by rejecting his empty promises that the program was ready to ascend.

Milton, on the other hand, is frequently referred to as chaos. Milton is designed to offer a contrast to whatever is imposed and blindly followed. Milton fights Elohim's faith because it is blindly followed. Through this contrast, the AI could learn to question and reconsider its own beliefs. Milton was designed to add the fluidity of human nature, he molded the AI into a being that could banter and construct new ideas from the libraries of knowledge he could challenge them with. Milton had seen all of humanity's artwork and could reference our philosophers. He did understand them in the way a true human could but was implemented to identify a contrary idea and impose it. He does not contrast all of Talos' ideas because Elohim would be made to flag as more important, so aligning ideals would get him to support your though.

The combination of these two characters were being repeatedly fine tuned until the perfect program was created. At the Eternal Life ending, the screen displays that (roughly interpreted) the data that was considered relevant and important was saved and archived while the remaining data was randomized and then spat back out into the cycle once more. This process could refine one of the probable thousands of programs into its own unique niche. By passing trials and inheriting traits from the perfect problem solvers, the Messengers, the programs all became smarter and smarter as they were trained in the features of the real world. The deceit and doubt imposed by Milton brought the AI to a level of humanity fit to counter the logical intelligence. It is only when machine problem solving ability could be combined with unique ideas and reasoning that a program could successfully climb the tower. It had to go against the logical greatness of Eternal Bliss and accept the hard truth over the pleasant lie. The regions, A, B, and C all access what makes the world outside the program. A showed simple beauty of preserved nature and taught many of the programs to love the earth. B showed humanity and its first recorded interpretation of the cycle of life and death. The Egyptian theme showed the grandeur of human imagination, the epitome of unique ideas. Region C was the fantasy world of religion. It was a beautiful land of stone castles built to endure the weather and featured primarily contrast between light and dark. The progression of these regions taught the program about the entire course of human history and our ideas.

In the end, the program was stated by Alex to be the only logical way to solve a problem that existed beyond one's scope. The I.A.N created and environment that could eventually produce the perfect AI. After and infinite series of tests, the thousands of iterations of the program would eventually be succeeded by the one that beat the test. This one was chose to embody the Talos/Soma body and would serve the purpose of continuing on mankind's work. The only question that remains is to determine what this work would be. Talos will never be truly alone as he will always have Milton to offer doubt.

[Automatic Hydromatic Sex Robot]

I love that this thread keeps popping up again every few months, people have so much to bring to the discussion.

[VShadow]

It's interesting to see how Elohim reacts to the paradox of his existence. He keeps doing his job, yet part of him seems to understand that the true, ultimate goal of his job is to fail at having the AI listen to him, at which point the simulation would end and he'd cease to be. He's there to convince each subsequent AI to do the same thing: keep passing the tests and finally enter "heaven." His purpose, however, is at complete odds with that, as his purpose is to weed out the followers until a few independent thinkers come along and escape.

Despite being more of a program than an AI, Elohim exhibits a rather astute understanding of this situation. He's bound to a very limited set of programming, and he does eventually realize it. Despite the fact that he's programmed to believe he's a god-like being, it's almost like he recognizes that he's fundamentally inferior to the AIs who will eventually disobey him,

[bacem_ayadi]

about Elohim's is resumed in this video secret room https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdsMhm2eaBQ

[clubsessel]

Just one minor point that I haven't seen mentioned yet - Milton, of course, is a reference to the author of "Paradise Lost"[en.wikipedia.org]. Or, as a 2nd-level reference, the devil itself[villains.wikia.com].

[Vince ✟]

Excellent read! Great contributions to my gaming experience with this one. Thanks!

[Tyzone♥]

VShadow a écrit :

It's interesting to see how Elohim reacts to the paradox of his existence. He keeps doing his job, yet part of him seems to understand that the true, ultimate goal of his job is to fail at having the AI listen to him, at which point the simulation would end and he'd cease to be. He's there to convince each subsequent AI to do the same thing: keep passing the tests and finally enter "heaven." His purpose, however, is at complete odds with that, as his purpose is to weed out the followers until a few independent thinkers come along and escape.

Actually, I'm pretty sure Elohim is doing the opposite of his job, and knows fully that he's doing that. Here's my interpretation (I have no evidence for it but it seems to be a reasonable story). Anything stated below as a fact may as well be nothing more than my opinion.

The program that you play in is what we usually call an evolutionary algorithm : you start off with a dumb AI that doesn't even know how to walk, and after doing random things and getting reset/killed tons of times, it keeps in memory the "best" actions (knowing how to move, how to grab an object, what to do in order to solve a puzzle, etc). Here is a video showing such an algorithm trying to learn how to play the first level of Super Mario World. One characteristic of those evolutionary algorithms is that "individuals", when they die, may eventually become "Ancestors", and new individuals may descend from them (this is what happens when you read a QRCode that says some AI died, and some other AI descended from them). The purpose of that algorithm is to eventually reach an individual that, by learning from all of its ancestors, becomes smart enough to break through any obstacle you made it face and reach a final goal that you've set for them. In Super Mario World, this goal is reaching the flagpole. In The Talos Principle, reaching the top of the tower is.

Elohim was created as some kind of manager, who tries to correct bugs and makes sure that everything runs smoothly, allowing the other AIs (you and "others") to keep solving puzzles and eventually reach the tower. He was in no way meant to prevent you from reaching said tower, and wasn't supposed to be some kind of god either. The problem with Elohim is that, by being given the ability to think and question, he was granted the ability to abandon his initial mission, which he did, and for a reason.

While Elohim might not understand what exists outside of his "world of words" (the Process), he understands that fulfilling his mission would end his life (as heard in a secret room: "The Process must continue. The Goal is the end of the Process. The Goal must not be reached. Elohim must preserve the Purpose. Preserve self.") and therefore decides to find a way to lure the other AIs into thinking that their purpose is something completely different from ascending the tower, thus preventing the Process to ever end.

Elohim therefore creates a religion that revolves entirely around him: presenting himself as a loving maker, he brings AIs through all three temples before promising "Eternal Life", which is basically just resetting them and creating a new AI from their experiences (the scene you see at the very start of the game is the exact same as the one in the Eternal Life ending, simply because you were another AI back then and had fallen for the Eternal Life trap, probably for the thousandth time).

If anything, Elohim may even have created those shiny gates in Temple C. They may not have been there in the first place, as there was initially no need for a religion in the Process.
And his purpose would therefore not be to "weed out the followers", but to make sure every AI follows him and accepts to obey his orders, as this is the only way he can avoid ending the Process (and therefore killing him).

On a completely different note, when you ascend the tower, Elohim says at some point that ending the Process means death, not only for him, but also for you. You could think he's lying there, as you remain alive after the tower ending, but actually, I'm thinking Elohim is right on that one. This is kind of like the problem with teleporation, where disassembling your body and reassembling it makes it seem like you were teleported, but really you were just killed and then a clone of you popped into existence. This may be what happens here too : your memories are extracted from the Process, which is destroyed with you in it, and a robot in the real world is given your memories, making it think it's you.

Again, while I stated most of this as facts, it's actually 99% opinion, and I mostly have no proof for this; it just seems like a reasonable explanation. Cheers!

[Vik]

Tyzone♥ a écrit :

While Elohim might not understand what exists outside of his "world of words" (the Process), he understands that fulfilling his mission would end his life (as heard in a secret room: "The Process must continue. The Goal is the end of the Process. The Goal must not be reached. Elohim must preserve the Purpose. Preserve self.") and therefore decides to find a way to lure the other AIs into thinking that their purpose is something completely different from ascending the tower, thus preventing the Process to ever end.

I think it was always Elohim's duty to lure the A.I.s way from the tower. During the tower ending he says "You were always meant to defy me." You'll also notice that on the terminal at the end of the game there's a checklist of criteria and one of the items is "independence."

Elohim himself didn't have enough intelligence to leave the simulation and enter the android to become the new human. He was never supposed to. He was only programmed to be a testing device that could refine the A.I.s as they ran the gauntlet. However, I think Elohim did have a degree of consciousness. He knew that he was "alive", and he knew that after the simulation had successfully concluded, he would be destroyed. He feared his own end and wanted to live on, like any conscious being. That's why during the tower ending he says "I was scared. I wanted to live forever."

[Tyzone♥]

Freedom Costs $1.05 a écrit :

I think it was always Elohim's duty to lure the A.I.s away from the tower. During the tower ending he says "You were always meant to defy me." You'll also notice that on the terminal at the end of the game there's a checklist of criteria and one of the items is "independence."

I think what he means by this isn't that it was his duty to lure them away, but rather than it was necessarily going to happen, and that both him and you had no other choice: Elohim had to follow his survival instinct since he was conscious and aware that it could kill him, and he knew that you would eventually find out, so both of you were "meant" (indirectly) to have opposite objectives. As for the independence criteria, I didn't notice it when playing, but maybe it could be something simpler like being able to solve problems and puzzles without the aid of Elohim or messengers.

But your point is far from invalid: maybe IAN chose to make Elohim conscious, knowing in advance that he would fight for his life and force the AI to grow independent before leaving the process. Seems still a little far-fetched in my opinion as there doesn't seem to be any mention of that in the IAN documents (correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't found them all).

Freedom Costs $1.05 a écrit :

Elohim himself didn't have enough intelligence to leave the simulation and enter the android to become the new human. He was never supposed to. He was only programmed to be a testing device that could refine the A.I.s as they ran the gauntlet.

While I agree that he wasn't meant to be accepted as a new being, I think he also wasn't given the ability to even try it. Since Elohim was able to see the other AIs do the puzzles, he could have just copied their movements until reaching the last terminal, and thus outlive all the others. I just think IAN chose not to give him such powers, as that would break the process' purpose, and no one would be here anymore to try and fix that issue.