Ridiculous simulation parameters.

[D Toccs]

So I don't get why Amanda Perry who is a scientist decided to base the parameters of her simulation on an abstract and completely unmeasurable concept like love. Just seems like something that someone who is scientifically minded would have understood would end in trouble.

[norph]

Maybe she thought the computers build by the Ancients could understand love. I guess she was wrong, it seems not even the Ancients could understand love fully to programmed it into computer

[Pharaoh Atem]

So I don't get why Amanda Perry who is a scientist decided to base the parameters of her simulation on an abstract and completely unmeasurable concept like love. Just seems like something that someone who is scientifically minded would have understood would end in trouble.

she's never experinced love before she's spent her life in a wheel chair and with her breathing problems didn't get out much. now that's she on destiny and able to walk and live to a point. she is a kid expericing things for the first time. her concept of love is different then the actually meaning thus why either the simulation or destiny didn't understand and thus why the program couldn't be shut down.

[s09119]

she's never experinced love before she's spent her life in a wheel chair and with her breathing problems didn't get out much. now that's she on destiny and able to walk and live to a point. she is a kid expericing things for the first time. her concept of love is different then the actually meaning thus why either the simulation or destiny didn't understand and thus why the program couldn't be shut down.

That was my take on it, as well. She was so giddy with the possibilities and caught up in the romance that she did the most romantic thing she could think of; created a world in which, literally, the only thing you need is love. The only problem is that it's somewhat that no computer can quite figure out.

[Cold Fuzz]

So I don't get why Amanda Perry who is a scientist decided to base the parameters of her simulation on an abstract and completely unmeasurable concept like love. Just seems like something that someone who is scientifically minded would have understood would end in trouble.

You hit it on the head exactly. Dr. Perry tried to quantify something that was unquantifiable. I'm definitely not a scientific type, given my choice of past and present fields but I've met a number of scientific types try to quantify it just like she did--and it always ends badly with them hurting others, whether deliberately or not. Scientists live in the realm of the intellect. Love, by its very nature, defies the intellect and logic. She completely forgot that.

I think that this idea is alluded to when Telford wryly asks McKay, "What is it with genius and social skills?" Geniuses like McKay and Perry I think don't really understand what love is--as well as other emotions--because it's all outside of their realm of understanding.

[escyos]

If it was connected to his mind it may be able to extrapolate what love is and how to measure it.

[s09119]

If it was connected to his mind it may be able to extrapolate what love is and how to measure it.

Of course, he has no idea how to measure it himself.

[D Toccs]

If it was connected to his mind it may be able to extrapolate what love is and how to measure it.

No way. Love cannot be quantified or measured by any standards. People can be in love and not even know it themselves. You can passionately hate someone and yet still passionately love them.

There's no biological process for love, it is all completely abstract.

[Cold Fuzz]

No way. Love cannot be quantified or measured by any standards. People can be in love and not even know it themselves. You can passionately hate someone and yet still passionately love them.

There's no biological process for love, it is all completely abstract.

You're correct of course. I knew someone from my college days who had a very negative view about what love was and conceptualized it in his mind as a bunch of biochemical reactions. It's no surprise to me that this guy had virtually zero social skills and was rejected again and again by women he'd encounter. So, in effect, he de-valued love and tried to reduce it to a mere biochemical reactions because he himself can't understand it.

[escyos]

No way. Love cannot be quantified or measured by any standards. People can be in love and not even know it themselves. You can passionately hate someone and yet still passionately love them.

There's no biological process for love, it is all completely abstract.

Which was why I said it was connected to his mind, if he knew it the computer would know it.

[dgh64]

I was a bit confused by that part as well. Why would Perry put that into the sim's parameters in the first place? And, why would she make it so Rush can get in but then he can't get back out again?

[UniGater]

You mean SG:U danced on a thinly grey line as per usual? Get out of town..

Seriously though, this sort of stuff has plagued their series.

[morbosfist]

I was a bit confused by that part as well. Why would Perry put that into the sim's parameters in the first place? And, why would she make it so Rush can get in but then he can't get back out again?

Perry developed the sim by modifying the program which generated the battle scenario in Young's mind. Therefore, like any scenario, it had to have a win condition. Since "had great sex" would probably be an equally odd condition to base it on, she chose love as something she felt was already true.

As for getting in, if Star Trek has taught us anything, realistic simulations have no problem letting people in, but refuse to let go once they're a part of the simulation.

[coZma]

No way. Love cannot be quantified or measured by any standards. People can be in love and not even know it themselves. You can passionately hate someone and yet still passionately love them.

There's no biological process for love, it is all completely abstract.

And do you know what other hormonal based state is unquantifiable, abstract and all that? PMS )
Everything and anything that humans experience can be measured, understood and reproduced. Psychological factors and chemical reactions account for every little "feeling" that lovers have. Humans have no transcendental characteristic, spiritual doorway to forever or any of that mystical mumbo-jumbo (designed to distract our consciousness from the ever present promise of nothingness)

PS: To save you some time I'll answer in advance to the most common critique againsit this line of thought -> I'm not some lonely kid living in his parents basement with a grudge against what he is unable to get. I have been in love more than once and I'm not talking just out of textbooks

[kudra]

I wondered whether subconciously she chose that scenario as a test?

She's been in love with Rush for years (even while he was still married) but he didn't respond to her as more than a friend until recently. Maybe she was feeling insecure and wanted proof that he loved her the way he'd loved Gloria?

Of course if the parameters she set for 'loving each other' were Rush replicating her feelings for him then it would never have worked. Two people are unlikely to have exactly the same feelings (or chemical reactions in the brain if you prefer) even if they are genuinely in love as far as each is concerned.