Shut yo mouth!Oh yeah. I'm sorry, I forgot.
......unless you're talkin' 'bout Shaft.
should the doctor be acknowledged as a person?
- Thread starter Kai Winn
- Start date
......unless you're talkin' 'bout Shaft.
My bad.
Any novel the Doctor produced would belong to Zimmerman as he is the author. The doc is software used to create the novel. If the doc was only a voice coming out of a pad or computer we wouldn't be so attached to the idea of him being a life form. In as much as he can interact and is user friendly is a great piece of software engineering but nothing more. I liked Crusher using him as a door stop in FC. A bit insulting for the actor though I suppose. I think he was the only character from Voyager to be in a movie. I do like the actor as well. He was cool in SG1 too.
Remember the voyager plot algorithm that used to float about here?
THAT is exactly what you are talking about.
THAT is exactly what you are talking about.
No, actually "Author, Author" is correct.
the body of work created by the Doc. would be property of the publishing company as they already stated they see him as nothing but a fictional person himself. So they can claim all rights over it. Dr. Zimmerman has no real claim over the EMH due to it being property of Starfleet. He's military owned softwear.
We're all military-owned software, mate. Or corporation-owned. Bank-owned.
Let's get philosophical and turn the whole thing into a metaphor on humanity and freedom of speech.... oh wait.
Let's get philosophical and turn the whole thing into a metaphor on humanity and freedom of speech.... oh wait.
This is one of the more tiresome things about Voyager, not the morality plays themselves but the antiquated themes. Jim kirk was teaching me things like respect and equality when I was still doing number two's in my short shorts. Author Author wasn't so much about free speech but about a subjugated minority demanding to be treated like everyone else... Which in America is woman and African Americans about 40 years ago, but how does that apply to America today? Who are they speaking to? Who are the voiceless modern "slaves" of America?
However, if you want to talk about Ethnic cleansing in the dinky little dictatorships all about the planet, the class systems and gender profiling (for abortion) in India, or China's occupation of Tibet? That's a horse of a completely different colour.
However, if you want to talk about Ethnic cleansing in the dinky little dictatorships all about the planet, the class systems and gender profiling (for abortion) in India, or China's occupation of Tibet? That's a horse of a completely different colour.
If you want to criticise what's happening in the world today, you gotta go with environment, war, capitalism, media control etc to be popular. That's what people respond to these days.
Criticize? Analyse and fuss perhaps?
Are you serious?
When eps. like "Up the Long Ladder", "Code of Honor", "Tattoo" & "Fair Haven" are still being written as acceptable by those within Trek's staff and having a woman Capt. is still a subject of major conversation, then eps. like "Author, Author" still have a purpose and an audience.
So because the writing staff is out of touch with the world we, the world have to suffer through their catharsis manifest as they try to reason right from wrong once a week in our living rooms?
And we wonder why it took them so long to cancel Star Trek?
And we wonder why it took them so long to cancel Star Trek?
That too.
You ever met those crazy ladies who think cats are real people?
Y'know with feelings and sweater vests.
That's how the characters on the show, the people watching the show, and some of the people in these forums treat the Doctor.
I remember how politely Data once called Crusher as idiot for insinuating that he had "emotions". The Doctor however, barely went through that stage, admitting that he was a lifeless machine aping the beings around him for service and entertainments sake. One episode, that's it, where-during Kes champions his feelings and puts rights and liberties in place for him not to be so hard done by by the abusive humans using him like "machine" with no feelings.
I watched Author Author last night.
All the other Doctors labouring like slaves in the AC, with nought but the basic package seemed as interpersonally aware as the Doctor on Voyager without his wealth of experience and additional subroutines.
Voyagers doctor is nothing special, All the Doctors are equally sentient as any other.
You ever met those crazy ladies who think cats are real people?
Y'know with feelings and sweater vests.
That's how the characters on the show, the people watching the show, and some of the people in these forums treat the Doctor.
I remember how politely Data once called Crusher as idiot for insinuating that he had "emotions". The Doctor however, barely went through that stage, admitting that he was a lifeless machine aping the beings around him for service and entertainments sake. One episode, that's it, where-during Kes champions his feelings and puts rights and liberties in place for him not to be so hard done by by the abusive humans using him like "machine" with no feelings.
I watched Author Author last night.
All the other Doctors labouring like slaves in the AC, with nought but the basic package seemed as interpersonally aware as the Doctor on Voyager without his wealth of experience and additional subroutines.
Voyagers doctor is nothing special, All the Doctors are equally sentient as any other.
Exactly. The Doctor is a program being run by a computer. If you claim that the Doctor is sentient, than you must believe that every computer capable of running his program is sentient. After all, the hologram is just his appearance, his brain is the computer.
Apples and oranges.
Hardware and software are two different things, and not all software in Trek is sentient. To say otherwise on that last count is akin to declaring all software to be Operating systems because Windows and Linux are.
There is an incredibly strong case to make that the piece of software known as The Doctor is sentient according to the three criteria laid down previously in Star Trek: intelligence, self-awareness and conciousness. Intelligence and self-awareness are very much evident: he is aware of himself and his nature; that he exists independently of others and that others think and percieve the world differently to how he does; he understands that his actions have consequences in the short and long term; he is capable of learning and problem-solving and can adapt to new situations. Conciousness is more nebulous, and a term we struggle to define today, but if he meets it, in even the smallest degree, (and I would argue his apparent sense of 'self' and ability to maintain that when running, for example, inside Seven's head is indication of that) then he qualifies.
The mobile emitter, however, or Voyager's sickbay computers are not sentient - they exist to run the software. The software package(s) we know as Voyager's or the Enterprise's main computer is also not sentient: it doesn't meet the criteria for the second two, and I can make an argument against intelligence as well.
At any rate, arguing you can't declare something sentient because it would mean that you'd have to declare something else sentient is a morally impaired argument. You can't deny the sentience of something just because it's not convinient; treating people as objects because it doesn't suit you to consider them people is the basis for most of the horrific abuses humanity has and continues to inflict upon itself. In Trek terms, it runs counter to every single ideal the Federation holds dear.
You know, it's the first time I ever tried seeing it from this perspective. Damn. Having to think sucks.
They were going to execute the Doctor in living witness because it was so far away on an alien world with alien rules that Holograms not only had rights, but responsibilities to be answerable to their crimes if found guilty of being naughty.
Then you have to wonder what the final conclusion to the civil war seen in Body and Soul would have metered out? Not that the Automotons from prototype seemed too happy from being so alive that Janeway eventually cited the Prime Directive as a reason to stop helping them li9ving robots from being regular people.
Starfleet already had to stop using the exocomps as a slave race, so what would happen if some people (remeber Minuette created on the holodeck by the Bynars?) figured out how to upgrade Federation Starships into living beings? Would there be independence parties or a culling? Consider how the Nth Degree would have turned out if Barclay's personality had been stuck in the Enterprises computer banks as it's dominant personality? Would they have let him live his own life eventually?
But then EVERYONE who has been transported has been converted into digital information briefly and back again to organic briefly be classified as an AI intellect?
The Doctor's girlfriend Denara Pel in holographic form, who the Doctor described as a small amount of data compared to his own program?
The Doctor in Seven of Nines Body? Was his personality running though her biology as well as her technology? had he made the leap into the biological? And even if he did, it's still only a matter of questioning if he can go beyond the limitations and dead ends of his programming, which for some part he may be programmed to not want to to stop gap the guy from anything too dangerous.
Are there Starfleet Commando Holograms? The Romulans seem to thnk so, which means that there are probably Romulans Commando Hologram programs out there fighting the not so good fight, which puts the thinking in the AQ on par with any thing the Hirogen thought of.
If the Doctor is "now a lifeform" when did he become a lifeform? According to his book, he was born real and complete during caretaker and there was never a point that he wasn't real. Factory setting arrogance.
He couldn't legally get married unless (The French are allowed to marry the dead. Law can be silly.) he has rights equivalent to other biological life forms... So eventually in one timeline, he did get to eat his cake and keep it too, however Janeway smashed that time line and who knows what 2393 ended up looking like after handing over all that advanced technology tot he Borg. However, if you create a hologram, that makes you it's parent, so it would be incest to marry it after the fact right?
Then you have to wonder what the final conclusion to the civil war seen in Body and Soul would have metered out? Not that the Automotons from prototype seemed too happy from being so alive that Janeway eventually cited the Prime Directive as a reason to stop helping them li9ving robots from being regular people.
Starfleet already had to stop using the exocomps as a slave race, so what would happen if some people (remeber Minuette created on the holodeck by the Bynars?) figured out how to upgrade Federation Starships into living beings? Would there be independence parties or a culling? Consider how the Nth Degree would have turned out if Barclay's personality had been stuck in the Enterprises computer banks as it's dominant personality? Would they have let him live his own life eventually?
But then EVERYONE who has been transported has been converted into digital information briefly and back again to organic briefly be classified as an AI intellect?
The Doctor's girlfriend Denara Pel in holographic form, who the Doctor described as a small amount of data compared to his own program?
The Doctor in Seven of Nines Body? Was his personality running though her biology as well as her technology? had he made the leap into the biological? And even if he did, it's still only a matter of questioning if he can go beyond the limitations and dead ends of his programming, which for some part he may be programmed to not want to to stop gap the guy from anything too dangerous.
Are there Starfleet Commando Holograms? The Romulans seem to thnk so, which means that there are probably Romulans Commando Hologram programs out there fighting the not so good fight, which puts the thinking in the AQ on par with any thing the Hirogen thought of.
If the Doctor is "now a lifeform" when did he become a lifeform? According to his book, he was born real and complete during caretaker and there was never a point that he wasn't real. Factory setting arrogance.
He couldn't legally get married unless (The French are allowed to marry the dead. Law can be silly.) he has rights equivalent to other biological life forms... So eventually in one timeline, he did get to eat his cake and keep it too, however Janeway smashed that time line and who knows what 2393 ended up looking like after handing over all that advanced technology tot he Borg. However, if you create a hologram, that makes you it's parent, so it would be incest to marry it after the fact right?
Somehow, this reminds me of that South Park episode where Cartman dresses up as the Awesome-o robot, and that scientist gets offed because he refuses to kill a sentient artifical being. Right before everyone finds out the truth.
Do you remember those choose your own adventure books? It seemed as if you had different adventures each time by choosing different paths. But it was all pre-written. That's the ST Holograms.
Real conciousness however would be like having the author in the same room as you, really reacting to your decisions and writing new material.
At first you might not realise any difference, but there is one.
Real conciousness however would be like having the author in the same room as you, really reacting to your decisions and writing new material.
At first you might not realise any difference, but there is one.
This implies that holograms, particularly those like the Doctor, can't learn and apply new knowledge to new and old situations. Take the Doctor as he is in season seven and put him in a situation he was in in season one and he'd likely give you a different adventure - and ending.
You might also want to read up on heuristics and, in doing so, remember that the doctor's matrix was apparently designed to allow for heuristic behaviour such as you'd find in humans.