holographic sentience

[roguephoenix]

i think it's pretty much established that the doctor in voyage is sentient. am i wrong? so does this mean that all emh are sentient? or was it just a fluke that the doctor was? or was it a result of his being online for far longer than intended and him accumulating experiences. does this mean all emh are capable of sentience? was this intentional or unintentional programming byproduct?

so if they are sentient or capable of it, why were they treated as tools/slaves as was seen in a ep where mark 1 emh rejects were mining. maybe starfleet wasn't aware of the capability? but now that they've seen the doctor, what of the other emh? can't just deactivate them. can't just leave them there to mine. what will or has become of them? what of the mark 2?

 

[Forbin]

I've never been able to buy into it.
The Doctor is nothing more than a program residing in the ship's computer.
If the ship's computer is not sentient itself, how can one of its programs be?

 

[Tigger]

Me neither, to be honest, but almost all of the writing in Voyager was so sub-par as a whole that I don't waste neurons thinking about it.

 

[Ptrope]

I've never been able to buy into it.
The Doctor is nothing more than a program residing in the ship's computer.
If the ship's computer is not sentient itself, how can one of its programs be?

Exactly. This is the same argument against "Moriarty" being sentient in Data's "Sherlock Holmes" holodeck program, not to mention Cyrus Redblock, and holograms questioning things like participants' clothing or speech. It's like having your TV be aware of you watching it, or of the show that it's showing.

 

[Unicron]

I think the Voyager EMH might be considered sentient, or at least as close to that as a hologram might become, but I also think he is a unique case. He differs from a being like Data in that his rise to sentience was more accidental, and it's difficult to judge what sort of potential other holograms would have to reach the same level.

The real question is, as Picard said in "Measure of a Man" how do we prove sentience? It's not something we can really do empirically, although we can infer some aspects based on empirical data. But there's no real way to demonstrate our concept of "sentience" is truly distinct, and not merely the sum of our biological programming.

 

[ancient]

I think he became sentient around the time he got his emitter, or possibly after. In the early episodes he seems somewhat oblivious to anything non-medical related, and is clearly following some sort of pre-programmed response set.

I think any complex system can become sentient (at least in scifi). The ship's main computer has enough 'disk space' as it were, but its programs do not require awareness. The Doctor on the other hand was made to mimic self-awareness, so it's not too much of a leap from there to actual self-awareness.

I agree with the notion that once you can no longer tell the difference between self-awareness and a simulation, there is no difference.

 

[roguephoenix]

he was considered sentient even before his mobile emitter. also, wasn't there an argument/hearing about his sentience too when it came to his stolen novel?

so again, what happens to all the other retired emh working in the mines? wouldn't that be considered slavery?

 

[FalTorPan]

For the sake of argument, let's assume that the EMH is sentient, and that as software, he can replicate himself. Consider the implications of this in a democratic society.

Legislation is proposed to allocate all of the society's resources to holographic life forms. Biological life forms are to be left in the dust. The legislation must be approved by a majority vote of the society's citizens. The EMH, as the only holographic life form in the society, knows that the issue will not pass, so he replicates himself so that the majority of the society's members are now holographic life forms. The issue passes.

Wow. That's scary stuff.

 

[Timo]

If the ship's computer is not sentient itself, how can one of its programs be?

I just don't get this argument. Some of the programs on my computer, mainly entertainment-related, can do such good impressions of interactive sapients that I have to blink a lot. Others create delightful art, or rapidly calculate how the solar system behaves. However, other programs are too stupid to even count to ten. And behind all this, the computer hardware cannot do anything at all, except run basic Boolean operations.

It thus doesn't seem to make any sense to expect sentience of one program to spill over to any other programs, let alone the computer itself, unless this is the very intent of that one program.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Butters]

I don't buy the sentient/sapient hologram thing when its hard enough to believe that some of the real people I encounter have any conscious experience..

Philosophical Zombies are an interesting concept, seeing as nobody actually understands what conciousness is (we don't even know how general anaesthetics work), I'd be more comfortable placing a Hologram in this category.

I can believe a hologram moaning about something, but that it actually experiences discomfort/disatisaction etc. Not plausible to me and one of Treks many misconceptions.

 

[Forbin]

[Miss Crabtree] "Alfalfa, can you use the word holographic in a sentience?"

 

[roguephoenix]

so he is not considered sentient and is just another gadget? isn't data considered sentient and yet what makes him that is also just the program?

 

[Timo]

I'm not quite sure there would be a direction connection of the "is sentient -> cannot be gadget" sort. The EMH could be both for all we know; the UFP position on issues of employment or slavery is far from clear, and "being a gadget" could be a perfectly valid form of employment for sentient beings in the Federation.

Something like the EMH, or a starship computer, could probably live a full and happy life, fuller and happier than that of any free human, while simultaneously being a slave. After all, the physical manifestation of those sentiences would be but a tiny fraction of their essence. A human could well decide to sell his left pinky fingernail to slavery if it brought him wealth and fame. A hologram could get more for less...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kaziarl]

If data is sentient, I don't see why the doctor cant be. He is essentially and artificial intelligence, just not withing a positronic brain.


This is basically the same argument we saw in Measure of a Man. Is he sentient, and if he is not, lets mass produce him and sell him into slavery. Who cares. It's just a tool. Well data cared, even if it was on a non emotional, and logic based level, And I bet the doc, Moriarty, and even a self aware star ship might have an issue. We've seen creatures that aren't "alive" so to speak, but that doesn't detract from their own right to be accepted as life. Heck, the enterprise gave birth if you all remember.

 

[Timo]

Is he sentient, and if he is not, lets mass produce him and sell him into slavery. Who cares. It's just a tool.

But that wasn't even touched upon in the trial. It was irrelevant to the various sides whether Data was sentient or not. Indeed, Starfleet had originally readily accepted him as a cadet even though an expert asserted that he was not sentient.

Said expert then started ranting about "he's only a machine" solely because he had fallen short on other means to persuade this fascinating android to cooperate with him. He had no a priori interest in denying Data's humanity, and we might assume that his original motivations for trying to block Data's way to Starfleet had also been related to trying to keep the android for himself to study.

Maddox' original point had been that he could do as he pleased with Data because Data was a Starfleet officer and thus had to obey orders. Nonsentience was not a requirement for treating him like a tool - that's what happens to all members of the military, regardless of sapience level, at least in Maddox' idealized view.

In the end, the court decided that Data was a machine. It also decided that this machine couldn't be treated in certain ways, possibly setting a precedent for the treatment of other machines, but equally importantly setting a precedent on the treatment of Starfleet officers... "Thou shalt not dismantle them in experimental procedures".

A precedent that was then violated in "Ethics" on the case of Worf, mind you.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Penta]

Starfleet...must not get sued on civil rights grounds. At all.

 

[ancient]

"Thou shalt not dismantle them in experimental procedures".

So we may not dismember our member's members?

 

[SG-17]

If Data is considered sentient then the Doctor and Moriarty must be as well.

 

[Butters]

If Data is considered sentient then the Doctor and Moriarty must be as well.

I wouldn't make that assumption. Data's consciousness was generated by his positronic brain. Whatever creates the conscious self in the human brain is paralelled in Data's synthetic brain.

The EMH and Moriarty however, we're just simulated people that were convincing enough in their cries of sentience to be believed. Doesn't make it true though.

 

[Timo]

If you agree that it doesn't matter whether Data's brain is positronic or biologic, how can you claim that it suddenly makes a difference if the brain is duotronic or optronic (i.e. the computer of a starship)?

Surely Data is just as simulated as Moriarty, as neither of them had a childhood. Both had a youth of sorts, though (despite being born with fully mature bodies), as they have evolved as response to social pressures.

The only real difference between Data and the EMH is that the former has a solid, immutable physical body and the latter has a forcefield-based one. Both were wanted children, but both were expected to grow into something different than what actually transpired. Moriarty was an accidental birth, but no less a lifeform resulted from that accident.

Timo Saloniemi