Death & the holodeck

[Makarov]

If the holodeck can create a representation of anyone, such as the episode where Geordie can create Leah Brahms with I believe only a 13% error, how would this change the way people experience loss?

There was that episode The Bonding where an alien pretends to be the kid's recently dead mom. The crew helps him let go of that alien. But the show doesn't deal with the fact he could have popped into the holodeck the next day and had another fake mom.

Welsey could have spent time with a holodeck version of his dad. Anyone who gets dumped in a relationship could create a virtual version of that other person and continue on in the relationship. You could even pay a doctor to remove the memory of losing them in the first place.

How do you think they stop people from doing that in the trek universe?

 

[USS Triumphant]

I might be wrong, but I just don't think you're allowed to create copies of real people who are alive or who have died recently (say, last 50 years or so) on the holodeck without overriding something. Geordi felt justified to do that, because he needed help solving a life threatening problem. Barclay was abusing his Engineering responsibility to maintain the holodecks to make things he wasn't supposed to. And Captain Picard recreated an old flame, but he's the Captain - he can do what he wants.

 

[Makarov]

They actually say there's no law against it and then Riker says "there ought to be."

Troi or Geordie says that it's unusual to recreate people from your life. But I'm not sure why that would be the case.

 

[USS Triumphant]

They actually say there's no law against it and then Riker says "there ought to be."

Troi or Geordie says that it's unusual to recreate people from your life. But I'm not sure why that would be the case.

Maybe it's against the "Guidelines For Holodeck Use" pamphlet and most people obey that.

 

[Trekker4747]

They actually say there's no law against it and then Riker says "there ought to be."

Troi or Geordie says that it's unusual to recreate people from your life. But I'm not sure why that would be the case.

Maybe it's against the "Guidelines For Holodeck Use" pamphlet and most people obey that.

Eh, most people leave that pamphlet in the box along with the warranty form and even sometimes the instructions.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Being with an unsentient copy of someone isn't the same as being with them. I imagine some lonely people do this but they approach it as one would approach a realdoll.

Of course, Dr Soong basically did this with his wife.

 

[Trekker4747]

Only Soong was able to make sentient androids.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Soong made a sentient android with the memories of his wife. But it wasn't his wife, it was a new individual with a separate identity designed for him to be able to interact with her as if it were his wife.

She was sentient but Soong wasn't interacting with her as the person she was, he was projecting a dead woman onto her the same way he would have done if she were a holodeck character.

 

[MikeS]

They actually say there's no law against it and then Riker says "there ought to be."

Troi or Geordie says that it's unusual to recreate people from your life. But I'm not sure why that would be the case.

Maybe it's against the "Guidelines For Holodeck Use" pamphlet and most people obey that.

Perhaps it's not illegal. Perhaps it's just "frowned upon", morally. Kind of like over-eating?* We all know it happens, some of us may even be guilty of doing it, but we're not supposed to.

* I had to think really hard for a real life example of something that wasn't illegal but was "frowned upon"! I hope you catch my drift.

 

[USS Triumphant]

* I had to think really hard for a real life example of something that wasn't illegal but was "frowned upon"! I hope you catch my drift.

Rampant irresponsible (no protection) promiscuity.

 

[Trekker4747]

Or masturbating on an airplane.

 

[Mister Spock]

I get the feeling that psychiatrists and medical practitioners would discourage somebody from recreating a deceased loved one as a hologram. They need to grieve over their loss but they also need to eventually move on and accept their passing.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

If it were illegal Quark would have been arrested for trying to create a holo-Kira-sex program.

 

[vulcan redshirt]

Either
1 Bajoran law had not considered this possibility - it is unknown whether the Bajorans had holotechnlology prior to the Cardassian occupation, but if they did not, it is unlikely that the Cardassians would have shared it. Hence it was not illegal (although it probably became so fairly soon after).

or
2 Kira got more satisfaction out of pranking the customer and letting Quark face the music that way, than by actually putting him in the brig for it.

 

[Mojochi]

Soong made a sentient android with the memories of his wife.

I think it went farther than simply that. I'm not disputing your point of her being a facsimile, just that she was more than only an android with transplanted memories. It was synapse scanning. It was personality traits engendered. He created Juliana. It wasn't the real her, but she thought she was. She behaved & reacted the same way

The Enterprise computer made a facsimile of Leah Brahms that was only a potential 13% off from the real her, using nothing more than writings, log entries, symposium appearances, etc. I have to believe that Soong using actual scans of someone's synapses could get an even closer likeness, maybe less than 5% in potential behavior discrepancy. It was close enough that he, himself noticed so little difference that he stayed married to her for years afterward, & reflects on her leaving him as something the real woman would have done too

 

[JarodRussell]

If the holodeck can create a representation of anyone, such as the episode where Geordie can create Leah Brahms with I believe only a 13% error, how would this change the way people experience loss?

There was that episode The Bonding where an alien pretends to be the kid's recently dead mom. The crew helps him let go of that alien. But the show doesn't deal with the fact he could have popped into the holodeck the next day and had another fake mom.

Welsey could have spent time with a holodeck version of his dad. Anyone who gets dumped in a relationship could create a virtual version of that other person and continue on in the relationship. You could even pay a doctor to remove the memory of losing them in the first place.

How do you think they stop people from doing that in the trek universe?

Roddenberry had the idea that in 300 years, people in general grieve differently than today because of humanity's different self-conception of their existence. I always liked that idea.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Also I imagine people who tried to recreate the woman who dumped them in the holodeck would find it depressing and unfulfilling. You can't have a real human relationship with a person you can control every aspect of.

You wouldn't want the recreation to really be like your ex-girlfriend, you'd want it to be like the idealized perception of her in your memory.

 

[vulcan redshirt]

I guess that would be illegal anyway.

Now, how about, if you were on a posting away from your other half, and you both had access to holodecks, could the holodecks be tied together through the comm systems so you could still 'interact'?

 

[E-DUB]

They did just that in the most recent Voyager novel for a memorial service. Holodecks at both ends, tied together by subspace.

 

[Makarov]

You wouldn't want the recreation to really be like your ex-girlfriend, you'd want it to be like the idealized perception of her in your memory.

That's the thing though, it doesn't have to be created by you.

The computer can do it based on actual information about her. So you would end up with almost the exact same person, interacting in the same way as if the person was real.

And if we accept data as a person, then this holodeck experience would be no less real than the flesh and blood person.