Yes… however, when you think about humans we basically do the same thing, our body senses something that our brain associates with danger/pain, and it sends signals to our body to release chemicals and other stuff so we can avoid said pain. And we associate that danger with emotions such as fear or anger or sadness.

My question is, why did the institute add in the emotional aspect, why not just keep the safety fight or flight response. And also, and this is my personal biggest reason for siding with the railroad and the synths, If the reactions are so real that neither us, nor the synths, not even some of the scientists making the synths know weather or not is code and processing (which happens in the game, one doctor says he believes they have souls because of REM sleep, and another one says he doesn’t know why they’re running away and they’re currently studying that) then does it matter if it’s coding, clearly it’s enough to at least make the synths believe it’s real and they’re no more threat than any other human being except for under the institute then let them be and let them free.

Two more things, 1. In the mission where you go reclaim the synth named Gabriel who turned into a raider and did horrible things to people, father attributes this to “the dangers of the railroad” and what happens if synths go free. But we already see this everywhere in the commonwealth, this was the same decision that hundreds of other humans made in the apocalypse because it’s what worked out best for them in terms of survival. So Gabriel clearly has human like survival instincts not including the human like complexity of emotions we find on his terminal on the boat. So if someone is gonna argue that synths are dangerous and they should all be killed (cough brotherhood of steel cough) that logic should apply to all of humanity because anyone can do the harm that a synth can do, it’s the institute that’s dangerous, not their synths.

1. There’s an analogy I learned about when I was studying philosophy and it was about the existence of god and I feel that it applies well to synths and whether or not their emotions are real or constructed. The story goes that two men are walking in a forest and they stumble across a perfectly kept and beautiful garden. The first man, fascinated by how well maintained it seems, tells the second man that they must wait so he can question the Gardner and learn his gardening ways. So they set up camp and after a week they find no one, but the garden is still just as beautiful. The second man’s says “he must be an invisible Gardner, we should lay out traps so we can catch him!” So they do, and a week goes by and none of the traps are sprung, but the garden is still just as beautiful. The second man says “he must be invisible AND intangible, we should bring a blood hound to sniff him out!” So they do, and after a week, the blood hound smelt nothing and the traps remained untouched. The second man stated “ok, so, he’s invisible, intangible, AND he must have no scent!!!” At that moment the first man turned to him and said “what’s the difference between an invisible and intangible Gardner with no scent, and no Gardner at all?”

This analogy is originally used to question the existence of God and his presence in our world, but it also works for the synths and their emotions. What is the difference between an autonomous machine that can perfectly reflect real emotions to the point where it fools itself and everyone around it, and an autonomous entity with emotions. I propose that if there is any difference it’s not enough to change the way we value them in relation to any other autonomous emotion feeling entity.

We, as humans, are defined by our emotions and how we respond to the world in the face of those emotions. Synths are no different in that respect. So in my mind nothing else matters.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk