Was the EMH as real as any other member of the crew or was he just a realistic fake? Does he have feelings like the rest of us or does he just act as though he is feeling?
The EMH
- Thread starter Ensign Johnson
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An AI with real emotion and real personality.
We have a similar discussion going in a Janeway thread right now, but I'm all about consistency. So, I'll say here what I basically said there.
The EMH was a simulation designed to learn and then appropriately react. However, everything he did was a result of his programming. In any instance, you could print out his schematics and see the exact computations to show why he did what he did.
He was programmed to seem real, to show emotions, to be as realistic as possible. But, realism, no matter how good the programming, does not a real person make.
Don't get me wrong, I like the Doc. I thought he was an interesting character, but I was never thrilled that a program was given permission to program itself.
Like a storybook character or a simulation on the holodeck, the Doc was as real as the Voyager crew wanted to allow him to be.
What was that line he fed Janeway? Something like, 'Photons and force fields, flesh and blood... what does it matter as long as your feelings are real?'
The EMH was a simulation designed to learn and then appropriately react. However, everything he did was a result of his programming. In any instance, you could print out his schematics and see the exact computations to show why he did what he did.
He was programmed to seem real, to show emotions, to be as realistic as possible. But, realism, no matter how good the programming, does not a real person make.
Don't get me wrong, I like the Doc. I thought he was an interesting character, but I was never thrilled that a program was given permission to program itself.
Like a storybook character or a simulation on the holodeck, the Doc was as real as the Voyager crew wanted to allow him to be.
What was that line he fed Janeway? Something like, 'Photons and force fields, flesh and blood... what does it matter as long as your feelings are real?'
When I first watched Voyager I just saw him as a fancy computer program. But after I saw him as a real person. If you are completely scientific in your views and don't believe in the idea of a soul aren't we just a complicated computer program? In a sense we are programmed by our experiences and that tells us how to act in different situations. For me the main thing about the doctor that I don't understand is if he feels or not. Chemicals in our brain make us feel but how can someone made of light and forcefields feel? In Latent Image he was so guilty about not saying ensign something or other that he went mental. Was that real feeling or some sort of error in his subroutines?
He didn't go mental in "Latent Image". His program fell into a loop because what he did conflicted with his program.
James T. Kirk has been known to throw computers into this type of loop to make them self destruct.
What pulled the EMH out of the programming loop hole was forcing him to evalutate a new paitient. Then, his adaptation programming kicked in, and the EMH learned to skip over the logic loop.
Was it guilt? I don't think so.
I think it was programming glitch.
James T. Kirk has been known to throw computers into this type of loop to make them self destruct.
What pulled the EMH out of the programming loop hole was forcing him to evalutate a new paitient. Then, his adaptation programming kicked in, and the EMH learned to skip over the logic loop.
Was it guilt? I don't think so.
I think it was programming glitch.
I think the situation was addressed adequately in the TNG episode The Measure of a Man. I'm paraphrasing, but the judge says that she doesn't know if Data has a soul or not, so she's willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
I see it the same way with The Doctor. I don't know if he's a real person or just a fancy computer program. Since I don't know one way or the another, I'll err on the side of caution and give him the benefit of the doubt.
After all, just because he is inorganic doesn't mean that he can't be real. We've seen in Trek before that inorganic life exists, so what makes The Doctor, or sentient holograms in general, any different?
I see it the same way with The Doctor. I don't know if he's a real person or just a fancy computer program. Since I don't know one way or the another, I'll err on the side of caution and give him the benefit of the doubt.
After all, just because he is inorganic doesn't mean that he can't be real. We've seen in Trek before that inorganic life exists, so what makes The Doctor, or sentient holograms in general, any different?
Shame he didn't let Harry Kim die instead, especially since Tom Paris would probably have chucked himself out of the nearest airlock out of grief. Then I'd only have to get rid of Chakotay.
How about the Doctors "feelings" for Seven of Nine. Did he fall for her because he was programmed to be like Dr Zimmerman who also had a thing for women with big boobs (he liked Leeta in Doctor Bashir, I Presume) or because he really did have feelings for her?
How about the Doctors "feelings" for Seven of Nine. Did he fall for her because he was programmed to be like Dr Zimmerman who also had a thing for women with big boobs (he liked Leeta in Doctor Bashir, I Presume) or because he really did have feelings for her?
I find the concept of a sentient hologram hard to swallow, period. Be it the EMH or Moriarty, they are all programed to resemble or do something that is just simply incredibly "life like".
^ Just curious, but do you also find it hard to swallow that Data is sentient?
Yes, I do, in fact.
I've never considered him more than a complex machine. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy the character, but I never considered him sentient.
I've never considered him more than a complex machine. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy the character, but I never considered him sentient.
^ Okay, then what about the photonic lifeforms from Bride of Chaotica! or the inorganic "microbrain" lifeforms from TNG: Home Soil. Neither of them were organic in nature, yet both were sentient beings.
What makes The Doctor, or Data, any different from them?
What makes The Doctor, or Data, any different from them?
No, no, no...
You are mistaking organic with sentient and program as far as what I'm saying goes.
Data and the EMH, all Artificial Intelligence, is created by a sentient life form and programmed to be as realistic as possible. That's why it artificial intelligence.
We have no idea what the origins of the phontonics in "Bride of Chaotica" were, so I can't venture to say. But, the assumption is that they were naturally created as photonic beings, which is not the same as the EMH.
Last good argument I had about this taught me that the Doctor is not a photonic being but just "code" held in a buffer projected towards a holographic representative poppet. His personality could and can be projected into/onto anything, not just photons, be it meat in the case of the time he took Seven of Nine for a ride, or a 2D screen.
The creatures from bride of Chaotica were photonic lifeforms who's intellect, souls and brains we have little choice to doubt were all bound up into their phonotic bodies which is clearly not what the Doctor is.
I had a thought about the Doctor a while back. Have you played the modern video games where they have story/narrative sequences where characters are explaining stuff like there's a small movie in the middle in the middle of the game play that is repeated constantly through out the game as you reset or accidentally walk around in circles? Why the hells wouldn't the doctor be recycling his "interactions" with all 152ish crewmen (There's a Hundred and 52 of them!!! Note how when you met new people, that you can tell all your old jokes? It's not like you have to keep inventing new jokes for peopel who haven't heard your old jokes?) as he personalized with all 152ish of them that he would be cutting and pasting small conversations and even redoing interesting adventures (entire episodes) to keep the interest of the crew (other crew. So that everyone feels part of the larger adventure and his best friend.) which is one of his duties. Every Doctor-centric episode we saw, where he had a meaningful impact on a crewman, there's no reason to think that he didn't reset and titillate other crewman using exactly the same plot-gameplay over again, that perhaps for example he could have introduced his "family" to any number of crewmen which would have for "entertainments sake" wound down with just as much gravity over and over again... The conversation he had with Janeway about how she should be having sex with holograms, with the most minor alterations he could have repeated the spirit of that speech to almost every crewman.
Why wouldn't the Doctor have macros?
The creatures from bride of Chaotica were photonic lifeforms who's intellect, souls and brains we have little choice to doubt were all bound up into their phonotic bodies which is clearly not what the Doctor is.
I had a thought about the Doctor a while back. Have you played the modern video games where they have story/narrative sequences where characters are explaining stuff like there's a small movie in the middle in the middle of the game play that is repeated constantly through out the game as you reset or accidentally walk around in circles? Why the hells wouldn't the doctor be recycling his "interactions" with all 152ish crewmen (There's a Hundred and 52 of them!!! Note how when you met new people, that you can tell all your old jokes? It's not like you have to keep inventing new jokes for peopel who haven't heard your old jokes?) as he personalized with all 152ish of them that he would be cutting and pasting small conversations and even redoing interesting adventures (entire episodes) to keep the interest of the crew (other crew. So that everyone feels part of the larger adventure and his best friend.) which is one of his duties. Every Doctor-centric episode we saw, where he had a meaningful impact on a crewman, there's no reason to think that he didn't reset and titillate other crewman using exactly the same plot-gameplay over again, that perhaps for example he could have introduced his "family" to any number of crewmen which would have for "entertainments sake" wound down with just as much gravity over and over again... The conversation he had with Janeway about how she should be having sex with holograms, with the most minor alterations he could have repeated the spirit of that speech to almost every crewman.
Why wouldn't the Doctor have macros?
It seems clear to me that the intention of the writers and producers was for him to be a real person, so I'll accept that.
But the writers were writing about morons who would think like that. It's clear that they are too romantic about these things to the point of autoimmolation. I laughed at them, just like i laughed at the humans telling Data that he had emotions which he did not, which is why he eventually needed the chip. (being emotional and being alive are not the same thing clearly since the Doctor is VERY emotional without being alive.)
latent Image clearly singles out that every decision up to that point was Logical and calculated with a preformatted formula. After that, who knows, but the crew thought that he could, take the leap to sentient thinking and held his hand while they waited out for his birth... If it ever happened. How long would they really have waited tying up the holodeck and depriving themselves of a physician? Maybe he is still doing it, contemplating, and a back up is looking after the crew or they bench marked a save point so that he can go about his work when they need him and he can fuss when they don't?
Would the programmers construct this play into his program as part of a game to help the crew be entertained by following and burgeoning their Doctor's emergence as a life-form through this stumble and collapse? I mean Janeway got a lot out of it, they all did, even if it meant a girl died and Kim got some substandard medical care.
latent Image clearly singles out that every decision up to that point was Logical and calculated with a preformatted formula. After that, who knows, but the crew thought that he could, take the leap to sentient thinking and held his hand while they waited out for his birth... If it ever happened. How long would they really have waited tying up the holodeck and depriving themselves of a physician? Maybe he is still doing it, contemplating, and a back up is looking after the crew or they bench marked a save point so that he can go about his work when they need him and he can fuss when they don't?
Would the programmers construct this play into his program as part of a game to help the crew be entertained by following and burgeoning their Doctor's emergence as a life-form through this stumble and collapse? I mean Janeway got a lot out of it, they all did, even if it meant a girl died and Kim got some substandard medical care.
Minus saying that the drama the EMH created was pre-programmed to entertain the crew and saying Harry got substantiated medical care, I agree with everything Gardner has said. (Heaven help us all!)
The writers intended for us to sympathize with the EMH, but I'm not sure they ever really decided if he was a "real person". Had they actually made that choice, the ending to "Arthur, Arthur" would have been different.
The writers intended for us to sympathize with the EMH, but I'm not sure they ever really decided if he was a "real person". Had they actually made that choice, the ending to "Arthur, Arthur" would have been different.
I like the idea of him recycling conversations like an annoying character on a video game. As good as oblivion and dragon age were repeated dialogue could be very annoying. His "please state the nature of the medical emergency" line kind of proves the point, though he seems annoyed for having to say it all the time.
Remember he changed it and then changed it back.
I would take an educated guess and say that his program recognized the crew did not respond well to a new greeting, and the processing systems kicked in causing him to change the greeting back.
I would take an educated guess and say that his program recognized the crew did not respond well to a new greeting, and the processing systems kicked in causing him to change the greeting back.
Basically I agree with you - just because the EMH is made of photons, forcefields etc (which are all atomic//subatomic particles) doesn't give him any less potiential than other lifeforms - also made from atomic//subatomic particles. Also agree that humans maybe just sentient programs being controlled from elsewhere (there are religions are based on this very thing).
I'm a scientist and learned very early on in my career to never discount the possibility of everything and anything. Having said that, the western approach to science//knowledge//understanding is based on Cartesian reductionist principles and calls for proof. This "proof" is limited by our ability to conceive of ideas and build technology and measures etc to measure them. So western science is limited and confined to and by these parameters....there is no evidence that this is the absolute truth. It may really only represent a portion or a "workable notion" of our true reality. Remember that science (including physics) is being superseded all the time - so who really knows what is really going on.
On that basis, yes, I think Data and The EMH may very well be sentient.
The doctor is not made up of photons and forcefields. His body is. His personality is code being run on the holobuffer in the wall of sick bay or his mobile emitter.
He is not a "physical" life form.
He is a code.
Sure code can become alive if it's inventor is trying to make living code (once the doctor started programming himself, But Zimmerman would have put in limits to his self experimentation?) or there's some weird accident with weirder space stuff.
If he is even a little bit alive, the doctor was created to be a slave and created not to mind being a slave and even enjoy being a slave, otherwise he is a tool.
He is not a "physical" life form.
He is a code.
Sure code can become alive if it's inventor is trying to make living code (once the doctor started programming himself, But Zimmerman would have put in limits to his self experimentation?) or there's some weird accident with weirder space stuff.
If he is even a little bit alive, the doctor was created to be a slave and created not to mind being a slave and even enjoy being a slave, otherwise he is a tool.
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