But he could be a water buffalo with that description, or a bear or possum.....
If Data couldn't feel emotions, was he truly conscious?
- Thread starter Ben
- Start date
But he does feel emotions. He felt revenge in The Most Toys. Then lied about it.
What about people with various mental issues? As above sociopath, Aitism, sever mental retardation, altzheimers, altered states of consciousness, coma or vegitarian state. Are these people "less" than others?.
I don't know what you're referring to. I never said anything about "more" or "less". I don't remember someone speaking in terms of someone being more or less than someone else. Could you clarify?
I doubt that. Emotions play a role in our survival. Without emotions, a remote (would be) ancestor of ours wouldn't have done enough to stay alive and pass on his genes to the next generation. Funnily enough that's even a star trek line! In Star Trek Beyond McCoy's says "Fear of death is what keeps us alive." He couldn't be more right.
I'm sure plenty of literary science fiction has already dealt with such a possibility. But Star Trek continually fails to give us aliens that are truly *alien* and instead are just caricatures of human traits.
Kor
I always felt that Data had basic emotions...he displays feelings like all the time, computational reactions to external input, but he had no software to understand those reactions in an emotional human context. He understood what comedy was and could process that funny things are happening, but did not have the software capability to react to it appropriately, or properly generate actions with the intent of being humorous.
Obligatory, but in the end...are any of us conscious?
Obligatory, but in the end...are any of us conscious?
Are they less conscious people because of their altered cognitive 'ability'?
Well, it sort of goes without saying, I'd say. The less cognizant you are, the less conscious you'll be.
So Data was conscious.
Cats, dogs, snakes, lizards, my bad.
I thought the issue was a conscious, as in a soul.
Cognizant of life and feeling empathy that sort of thing.
Well, nevermind then.
Except that it doesn't work for Data, because Data is not affiliated to the animal kingdom in any way. Cats, dogs, snakes, lizards, share ancestors with us. A large part of their DNA is identical to ours. Data is nothing like us, so if he's conscient it would be in spite of his maker, which is so improbable that it may as well be impossible.
I feel it was revenge. If it was just plain logic why did he lie about the phaser at the end of the episode? He felt revenge and that's a pretty raw basic emotion.
It doesn't make sense for Data to exact revenge at all, it would go against his ethical program. The most believable explanation IMO is that Data thought that it was the only way that he could prevent Fajo to kill more people in the Future. So he was acting in a sort of vicarious self-defense situation.
Picard would unleash The First Duty on him if he heard Data had lied by omission
