He was absolutely brilliant in my opinion, I quite agree with the cynicism. Plus his face makes me laugh.
Anyone else disappointed with 'The Doctor'?
- Thread starter WorfSucksDax
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It's the computer program that's sentient, not the hologram. And Data's positronic brain is basically a computer. Androids aren't pointless; the Doctor can only exist outside sickbay or holodeck with the help of his mobile emitter which makes him really vulnerable.
I love "The Swarm". Brilliant episode!
From my understanding, part of being sentients is the desire of freedom. Besides Moriarty, none of the other holograms had any quams about being property.(They only function if they serve a direct purpose) "Virtuoso" & "Latent Image" deals with a hologram overriding his programing to to understand the ramifications of making a choice. Holograms don't have the ability to choose. Minuets only desire was to serve & belong to Riker. Vic lives only to serve and entertain those that program him. So in essance, they're nothing but totally interactive videogames, like SIMS. As you pointed out "Author, Author" addresses part of this but before any hologram can be given rights they have to determine "are they real" or are they just SIMS?
It's much like R2-D2 & C-3PO. According to Lucas, Droids are sentient because they can't function without serving the will of their masters. Even R2 who acts independant, isn't doing anything that isn't the will of a master.
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I agree it's incredibly ridiculous that he was called a hologram even though he was for all intents and purposes, fully human.
I remember watching one terrible episode where Voyager was shaking a planet and the Doctor is said to have gone down and impregnated a woman there.
Since when do holograms have working sperm?
There is no possible way that that makes any sort of reasonable sense. To me it makes it seem like the writers weren't even trying to respect the hologram premise of the character in the least bit and IMO that was therefore very insulting to the viewer's intelligence.
I remember watching one terrible episode where Voyager was shaking a planet and the Doctor is said to have gone down and impregnated a woman there.
Since when do holograms have working sperm?
There is no possible way that that makes any sort of reasonable sense. To me it makes it seem like the writers weren't even trying to respect the hologram premise of the character in the least bit and IMO that was therefore very insulting to the viewer's intelligence.No, he said he had "a Son".I agree it's incredibly ridiculous that he was called a hologram even though he was for all intents and purposes, fully human.
I remember watching one terrible episode where Voyager was shaking a planet and the Doctor is said to have gone down and impregnated a woman there.
Since when do holograms have working sperm?
He didn't say he got anybody pregnant.
In the ep. he also speaks of a war that broke out where he lived. I assumed the boy wasa war orphan he adopted. Seeing how he is programmed to "do no harm", he would instinctive offer any medical aid he could. Due to that, it would put him in touch with many children orphaned due to war.
Also remember how he befriended the young Doctor & patient in "Critical Care". He was even offering to mentor both of them. He's got a natural affinity to nurture & teach. So I can see him having an adopted son.
There are several ways that the Doctor could have had a son, and none of them have to do with him having any genetic material. Adoption, donor sperm, or the woman he hooked up with being pregnant already are three I can think of off the top of my head.
I think the Doctor had a staggering amount of development - the most of any Voyager character. If you don't believe me, compare the character in season one episodes like Phage and Eye of the Needle (the latter of which is the first major turning point for the character) to something like Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy.
He did become very 'human' by the end, I'll grant you that. I think it's due to a few factors, all of which are rather understandable. His programmer, Lewis Zimmerman, being a raging egotist and giving him his own, very human personality. It makes sense that a virtual physician wouldn't act like, for want of a better term, an 'AI' - it would be really off-putting to a large number of his patients. He lives with and works exclusively with organic beings - mainly humans - and, in season six, he spent three years pretending to be an organic being; that sort of thing rubs off on you a bit - and he had to, and wanted to, fit in. And, right up until Voyager's penultimate episode, he admits that he saw being a hologram as a burden rather than a blessing, and wanted to be organic himself. It would have been interesting to see how his development would have continued after Renaissance Man, where he really cuts loose for the first time and shows everyone - and himself - just what a sentient hologram is capable of.
I think there are huge problems with holograms in the Star Trek universe. The way they've been portrayed - that it's remarkably easy to give them intelligence and self-awareness, and that they can develop sentience - raises huge moral and ethical issues that really needed dealing with, and Voyager really just danced around the issue with Author Author.
The EMH series is, in particular, incredibly problematic. They're the replicants* of Star Trek - massproduced beings with a use-by date that are designed to do a particular task and then be discarded. They're the disposable people Guinan spoke of in TNG's Measure of a Man. The Doctor, and even the Mark II EMH from Message in a Bottle, have shown us, if you give a bit of time and a stimulating, even challenging environment and tell them they're not disposable any more, that they develop at an exponential pace. There are well over 600 Mark Is, and god knows how many in the subsequent three generations. Complicating the issue is that we know that most of those Mark Is have been activated and can surmise that they've been left online for extended periods of time. Do the EMH miners and cleaners get wiped at the end of each shift? Do they get their intended lifespan - 1500 hours - and then a wipe? Do they just get left on?
What's Starfleet's way out of the moral (and potentially legal) minefield, given that they're supposed to hold all life, particularly all sentient life, sacred, but use of holograms, from sophisticated expert programs like the EMH to leisure programs like Flotter to training simulations, is an important part of Federation life?
*I've always wondered if the Doctor's love of photography is a nod to this. The replicants of Blade Runner all placed great value on photos.
I think the Doctor had a staggering amount of development - the most of any Voyager character. If you don't believe me, compare the character in season one episodes like Phage and Eye of the Needle (the latter of which is the first major turning point for the character) to something like Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy.
He did become very 'human' by the end, I'll grant you that. I think it's due to a few factors, all of which are rather understandable. His programmer, Lewis Zimmerman, being a raging egotist and giving him his own, very human personality. It makes sense that a virtual physician wouldn't act like, for want of a better term, an 'AI' - it would be really off-putting to a large number of his patients. He lives with and works exclusively with organic beings - mainly humans - and, in season six, he spent three years pretending to be an organic being; that sort of thing rubs off on you a bit - and he had to, and wanted to, fit in. And, right up until Voyager's penultimate episode, he admits that he saw being a hologram as a burden rather than a blessing, and wanted to be organic himself. It would have been interesting to see how his development would have continued after Renaissance Man, where he really cuts loose for the first time and shows everyone - and himself - just what a sentient hologram is capable of.
I think there are huge problems with holograms in the Star Trek universe. The way they've been portrayed - that it's remarkably easy to give them intelligence and self-awareness, and that they can develop sentience - raises huge moral and ethical issues that really needed dealing with, and Voyager really just danced around the issue with Author Author.
The EMH series is, in particular, incredibly problematic. They're the replicants* of Star Trek - massproduced beings with a use-by date that are designed to do a particular task and then be discarded. They're the disposable people Guinan spoke of in TNG's Measure of a Man. The Doctor, and even the Mark II EMH from Message in a Bottle, have shown us, if you give a bit of time and a stimulating, even challenging environment and tell them they're not disposable any more, that they develop at an exponential pace. There are well over 600 Mark Is, and god knows how many in the subsequent three generations. Complicating the issue is that we know that most of those Mark Is have been activated and can surmise that they've been left online for extended periods of time. Do the EMH miners and cleaners get wiped at the end of each shift? Do they get their intended lifespan - 1500 hours - and then a wipe? Do they just get left on?
What's Starfleet's way out of the moral (and potentially legal) minefield, given that they're supposed to hold all life, particularly all sentient life, sacred, but use of holograms, from sophisticated expert programs like the EMH to leisure programs like Flotter to training simulations, is an important part of Federation life?
*I've always wondered if the Doctor's love of photography is a nod to this. The replicants of Blade Runner all placed great value on photos.
