Do Photonics Count as Non-corporeal Entities?

[Shon T'Hara]

We haven't gotten many details on how SAM and the Doctor operate, but given that SAM is able to go walking around San Francisco and can disappear and reappear in different locations, I'm guessing that mobile emitter technology is at a point where they just float inside the hologram and have built-in transporter tech. But if that's the case, what exactly separates SAM's species from non-corporeal entities?

Obviously her people aren't as powerful as the Q or the Prophets, but I'm betting they could handle all the stuff we saw the Organians do in Errand of Mercy. We always assume that non-corporeal beings evolved straight from meat-creatures the way we saw in The Hunted, but if Kirk's Enterprise had made contact with SAM's people at their current level of technology, they would have come off as no different from the Organians or Metrons. Which means 32nd Century tech has reached a point where it'd be indistinguishable from magic in the TOS era.

 

[Enterprise1701]

The sad part is, I suspect the writers still refuse to understand how a hologram is supposed to work because it's too easy to treat the hologram as an independent object like the physical actor. I am afraid this will conclude with SAM being unaffected by an EMP for reasons.

 

[Paul Weaver]

We've seen the Doctor bouncing around from room to room. By this point in Federation History his mobile emitter (which was analogous to a pair of shoes in Season 3, but by Season 7 he was being a prima donna about how restricting it was) was 300 years old. We've also seen personal point-to-point transporters in Discovery especially for people too scared to use the geometry defying turbolifts in Discovery.

Holograms of this era are all over the place - we saw in both Discovery and on SFA. Quite reasonable to assume there are holographic emitters in a bar (want to call up a concert from 30 years ago, go for it), and indeed covering most of a city. We saw in this episode that rather than simply beaming to New Orleans (which in the 24th century you could do on a whim) to visit a museum, you had a holographic interface to it - I suspect that they're on every street corner and in every living room. Quite reasonable inference from what we saw in the 23rd and 24th centuries.

23rd and certainly 24th century characters could reproduce what we saw from the Organians and Metrons on the surface -- cloaking devices, transporters. Look at Devils Due which addressed this very issue.

P.S. I think you mean Transfigurations, not the Hunted

 

[Fateor]

Well, from what we saw this latest episode the physical portion of Sam's body seems to be in her eyes.

 

[Galaxy]

In the first episode during the battle, the holograms shut down, however the Doctor and Sam did not. So I guess they have a two class system for holograms that have their own backup, which raises questions.

 

[Fateor]

Mobile emitters, they've existed for a really long time.

 

[fireproof78]

In the first episode during the battle, the holograms shut down, however the Doctor and Sam did not. So I guess they have a two class system for holograms that have their own backup, which raises questions.

Like what? They have mobile emitters and others don't seems logical as an answer.

 

[Galaxy]

Like what? They have mobile emitters and others don't seems logical as an answer.

I was looking at it more from an ethical perspective. It seems we have 2nd class holograms.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I was looking at it more from an ethical perspective. It seems we have 2nd class holograms.

If the argument is that we cannot use animals as food or for service because it is slavery, then we cannot make stupid holograms, too dumb to know that are being taken advantage of, because it is still slavery and "we" know better.

In Brave New World they made millions of beautiful perfect humans to frolic, take drugs and fuck endlessly, but they also made billions of developmentally challenged uggo simpletons to clean up poo and serve food, with zero compliments, %100 grateful for their lot in life.

Notice all the robots in the first couple episodes off Star Fleet Academy when they were just burning through the CGI Budget? Holy shit! Is that an exocomp!??? But wee sized floating Robots seem to have replaced holograms as slaves in this distant future.

 

[fireproof78]

I was looking at it more from an ethical perspective. It seems we have 2nd class holograms.

We do?

Do we know they are all the same? We same variety of holograms on Discovery.

 

[tenmei]

We do?

Do we know they are all the same? We same variety of holograms on Discovery.

I thought they were referring to the Ushers like the one that Caleb short circuited in Beta Test vs The Doctor/SAM

 

[CT_Phipps]

The sad part is, I suspect the writers still refuse to understand how a hologram is supposed to work because it's too easy to treat the hologram as an independent object like the physical actor. I am afraid this will conclude with SAM being unaffected by an EMP for reasons.

I mean, I'm assuming she's either transcended a holographic emitter (a photonic construct like the aliens from Doctor Chaotica's realm) or has one, possibly inside her.

 

[Mudd]

Photonic "people" as depicted here are fantasy notions. They don't have any specific grounding in technology.

 

[Galaxy]

We do?

Do we know they are all the same? We same variety of holograms on Discovery.

We have holograms that are given enough resources to function independent of the ship and that are dependent on the ship 2 classes. Now, it is unclear if they are all sentient, those "ushers" seem to be more simple, however they do have medical holograms.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Photonic "people" as depicted here are fantasy notions. They don't have any specific grounding on technology.

Clippy is a cogent paradigm.

HOLOGRAMS are not living energy. They are code on a server.

 

[Paul Weaver]

My assumption at this stage is self aware and sentient holograms like the Doctor are still very limited in number, and that the other holograms we've seen are mainly holodeck style characters. Perhaps once the realty of what happened on voyager EMHs became apparent after the trip to the Prometheus, the Federation insisted on some EMH reprogramming to remove the capability. For at least a period after the Mars attacks we know that all research into creating artificial life was banned in the federation.

That said we know it's easy enough to create self aware holograms, whether they are sentitent or not is an interesting question to explore. Moriarty and Vic Fontaine for example. The Doctor has rights as an author, and presumably has rights to explore his self Ala data. Whether that extends to medial holograms like Eli or utility holograms like La Sirena ones, is another matter

The subject of “what is alive” varies repeating in sci-fi though with the rise of LLMs in the real world which can pass the Turing test. What makes a human sentient but not a hologram, or an android like F8. Is the digital dean sentient.

 

[Guy Gardener]

My assumption at this stage is self aware and sentient holograms like the Doctor are still very limited in number, and that the other holograms we've seen are mainly holodeck style characters. Perhaps once the realty of what happened on voyager EMHs became apparent after the trip to the Prometheus, the Federation insisted on some EMH reprogramming to remove the capability. For at least a period after the Mars attacks we know that all research into creating artificial life was banned in the federation.

That said we know it's easy enough to create self aware holograms, whether they are sentitent or not is an interesting question to explore. Moriarty and Vic Fontaine for example. The Doctor has rights as an author, and presumably has rights to explore his self Ala data. Whether that extends to medial holograms like Eli or utility holograms like La Sirena ones, is another matter

The subject of “what is alive” varies repeating in sci-fi though with the rise of LLMs in the real world which can pass the Turing test. What makes a human sentient but not a hologram, or an android like F8. Is the digital dean sentient.

Vic's alive-ness is straight out of the box factory settings.

That's fake, or it's slavery.

It's also murder if you reset him, every time he meets up with a philosophical crisis, if the crisis is even real and not a prewritten narrative to keep the user entertained.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Photonic "people" as depicted here are fantasy notions. They don't have any specific grounding on technology.

How dare you sir!!!!!!