Could Data Evolve BEYOND Humanity?

[Mojochi]

1st, I'll get this out of the way. Data is presented in Star Trek as sentient & even sapient. They recognize him as such. He himself demonstrates pretty convincingly to the viewer imho that he is such. So, for this discussion I'm moving past the usual debate about the believability of an AI being capable of such.

What I'm on about is... Data really feels, when we see him with emotions... like authentically. In fact, in Descent Pt2, when they come across him with Lore, Troi comments that she literally senses feelings/emotions from him, not an approximation thereof, or a program simulating such, the real deal, as she has come to routinely recognize & glean off any other being.

So, Data has the real human goods, as far as the narrative goes. So, if he feels, and a telepath can sense those feelings, then just like humans there could in fact be the potential for more. As we hear from Q, humans are on a trajectory to evolve beyond, and move into higher evolved states, where they too will be telepaths or non-corporeals, or even omnipotent like him. Wesley himself eventually demonstrates some portion of this.

In Star Trek, intelligent life has the potential to be on that path. So, then do you think Data, a manmade machine intelligence is also capable of it? Could there be a future where a Soong android like Data evolves to have telepathy (Like a Vulcan or Betazoid), or manipulate time with their mind like Wes/The Traveler, manipulate things like a Douwd, or become an omnipotent like Q? He does, after all, have the same human goods as any of them

 

[NCC-73515]

He might be closer to becoming a cloud creature than any human

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

It supposedly requires biology as a starting point. Have any non-biological characters ever "ascended"?

(So now I wonder if the Doctor could ever gain a human body if his program was input into the transporter. We have his creator as a lookalike. Could his computer consciousness be downloaded into a transporter double of Lewis Zimmerman?)

 

[Mojochi]

It supposedly requires biology as a starting point. Have any non-biological characters ever "ascended"?

V-Ger maybe? Spock was reading it wasn't he?

 

[FederationHistorian]

For a natural evolution, I think that would require Data to live thousands of years. Like tens of thousands of years.

I think if Data was still alive a thousand years from TNG, he’d be the same Data. Unless over those thousand years, he augmented himself to be telepathic and empathic, and augmented tech that allowed him to walk through walls. And if Data was trying to find new experiences like a human, or any other biological lifeform, why wouldn’t he augment himself?

 

[Mojochi]

^By the look of it, Data is a purest to Soong's vision imho. He could be augmenting already, if he wanted. He could be incorporating Starfleet tech into himself like Geordi's VISOR bandwidths, or discovered Borg tech. I feel like he deliberately doesn't. He won't even adopt more human looking skin. He aspires to humanity, per Soong's intent

However, if (as you say) there is a wildly prolonged period of time he were to exist, & he saw humanity evolving, he might come to see his own journey in the same light, & follow suit, & it may not even need tech mods per say, if Troi already recognizes his emotional conscious as natural. He really does perhaps possess a spirit already, as it were.

I'm kind of seeing a future where he'd be just as able to mind meld or see alternate dimension or evolve even along the lines of V-ger.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

Think he has a good chance to do, now that he's already almost human after the events of PIC Season 3.

If he's still alive after 1000 or 2000 years, it's almost guaranteed.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

This is one of the most silly concepts to me in Star Trek.
The notion that a human or comparable alien can shed the entirety of their biochemical system of body, organs and brain and somehow still exist as the same same entity.

also the routine notion that an individual organism can „evolve“like a Pokémon.

Evolution ought to be one of the most misunderstood concept by Trek writers of all time.

 

[Shat Happens]

I'd hope he would evolve to anything. He spent 7 seasons stuck in an infinite loop about becoming human until eventually getting a chip upgrade in the first movie, and THAT was disabled in the next movie. Very human of him. Then he died (more than once).

I love Data, but this Pinocchio arc of him went nowhere

 

[Unimatrix Q]

I'd hope he would evolve to anything. He spent 7 seasons stuck in an infinite loop about becoming human until eventually getting a chip upgrade in the first movie, and THAT was disabled in the next movie. Very human of him. Then he died (more than once).

I love Data, but this Pinocchio arc of him went nowhere

Really like that Nemesis (and PIC Season 1) weren't his last appearances and that he was brought back in the third season of Picard. And that they concluded his Pinocchio arc there and that he's alive again.

Actually reminded me a bit on SFS.

 

[valkyrie013]

In Lower Decks, Badgy did "evolve" into a acended being, complete with the black mountain and Koala looking over!

He could realistically eventually get there, but not in his current "Body"

May the Koala smile upon you.

 

[aquova]

I'd hope he would evolve to anything. He spent 7 seasons stuck in an infinite loop about becoming human until eventually getting a chip upgrade in the first movie, and THAT was disabled in the next movie. Very human of him. Then he died (more than once).

I love Data, but this Pinocchio arc of him went nowhere

I somewhat disagree with this. The Data of season 1 was notably less human than the Data of season 7, and they attempted to show the Data of All Good Things as even more human than that. It was a slow process, but Data definitely learned and grew throughout the show.

As for everything after... yeah. The movies don't have the time for the nuance of handing Data using his emotion chip, and his repeated death and return has created a Data of Theseus whose original plot arcs are long gone.

 

[Shat Happens]

Data of Theseus

Great term

 

[Finn]

Wonder what Hide and Q would have been like if Q gave Data powers instead of Riker.

 

[Mojochi]

Wonder what Hide and Q would have been like if Q gave Data powers instead of Riker.

Ironically, Riker did offer to make him human, & he refused. I'd think he'd have to be fully realized to have any appreciation for them. I doubt he'd care about Q powers in his current state. Just my take

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Not evolve. Evolve is the wrong word. But develop into something superhuman? Sure.

 

[ussrowe]

All those time Data dies and comes back, he's evolving like Buddha

 

[FredH]

1st, I'll get this out of the way. Data is presented in Star Trek as sentient & even sapient. They recognize him as such. He himself demonstrates pretty convincingly to the viewer imho that he is such. So, for this discussion I'm moving past the usual debate about the believability of an AI being capable of such.

What I'm on about is... Data really feels, when we see him with emotions... like authentically. In fact, in Descent Pt2, when they come across him with Lore, Troi comments that she literally senses feelings/emotions from him, not an approximation thereof, or a program simulating such, the real deal, as she has come to routinely recognize & glean off any other being.

So, Data has the real human goods, as far as the narrative goes. So, if he feels, and a telepath can sense those feelings, then just like humans there could in fact be the potential for more. As we hear from Q, humans are on a trajectory to evolve beyond, and move into higher evolved states, where they too will be telepaths or non-corporeals, or even omnipotent like him. Wesley himself eventually demonstrates some portion of this.

In Star Trek, intelligent life has the potential to be on that path. So, then do you think Data, a manmade machine intelligence is also capable of it? Could there be a future where a Soong android like Data evolves to have telepathy (Like a Vulcan or Betazoid), or manipulate time with their mind like Wes/The Traveler, manipulate things like a Douwd, or become an omnipotent like Q? He does, after all, have the same human goods as any of them

Short version? Yes, absolutely. And I’d much rather it be him than some humans I could think of out there.

 

[Moviefan2k4]

I think that while his programming and memories can be preserved beyond his body's destruction (as seen in Picard), Data's very nature is limited by mortal creatures' technological advances through the years. In the franchise's canon, Data is highly resilient, mentally intelligent, and physically superior...but he's not immortal. Riker even put it rather disrespectfully at his friend's trial, saying he was "conceived of by the mind of a man...dictated by an elaborate software written by a man, its hardware built by a man...now a man will shut it off."

 

[Mojochi]

I think that while his programming and memories can be preserved beyond his body's destruction (as seen in Picard), Data's very nature is limited by mortal creatures' technological advances through the years. In the franchise's canon, Data is highly resilient, mentally intelligent, and physically superior...but he's not immortal. Riker even put it rather disrespectfully at his friend's trial, saying he was "conceived of by the mind of a man...dictated by an elaborate software written by a man, its hardware built by a man...now a man will shut it off."

But he didn't believe it. It was his job as the litigator to say it. My OP focused mainly on how whenever Data has exhibited emotions, Troi recognizes them as if they were any other person's. Data's emotional awareness, once he has a recognizable one, is the legit real deal as far as they are concerned. As such, he's somehow got a real consciousness. Therefore, it could arguably have the same potential as anyone else's to develop into the weird supernatural stuff we see in Star Trek, like V-ger did.