Is the doctor a real person?

[Guy Gardener]

Theses EMHs are copies created from the same fixed point. All their randomizers would be in synch. By partitions I did mean an artificial reality, not plywood cubicles. The environments where this inquisition would happen would have to be controlled and identical.

Data figured out that his mum was a robot because he counted her blinks, and identified the randomization of that blinking as a fairly well known mathematical proof.

Nothing is truly random.

 

[kirkfan]

Theses EMHs are copies created from the same fixed point. All their randomizers would be in synch. By partitions I did mean an artificial reality, not plywood cubicles. The environments where this inquisition would happen would have to be controlled and identical.

Data figured out that his mum was a robot because he counted her blinks, and identified the randomization of that blinking as a fairly well known mathematical proof.

Nothing is truly random.

That's because his randomization was worth shit. A simple Geiger counter would do a better job. You see if you analyse the beeps, they don't follow any pattern, no matter how long and hard you work at finding one.

 

[Guy Gardener]

But if you put two Geiger counters next to each other they will both make the same beeps or clicks because they are mirroring the same natural phenomenon. If two machines decide to both mirror the same anything, they well produce the same results.

Their randomization could be based on current windspeed as much as radiation levels.

As long as you know what the machine is mirroring, and you can measure that effect yourself, you can anticipate how the machine is going to react depending on what the natural phenomenon is, even if you can only confirm that the machines actions continue to mirror radiation levels or wind speed or whatever after the fact by confirming that the mirroring is still continuing.

 

[kirkfan]

But if you put two Geiger counters next to each other they will both make the same beeps or clicks because they are mirroring the same natural phenomenon. If two machines decide to both mirror the same anything, they well produce the same results.

Their randomization could be based on current windspeed as much as radiation levels.

As long as you know what the machine is mirroring, and you can measure that effect yourself, you can anticipate how the machine is going to react depending on what the natural phenomenon is, even if you can only confirm that the machines actions continue to mirror radiation levels or wind speed or whatever after the fact by confirming that the mirroring is still continuing.

That's where you're wrong. It's impossible for two Geiger counters to register the same clicks because each click represents one particle and the registering absorbs said particle. You do get quantum mechanics, don't you?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Obviously not, but this has nothing to do with Quantum mechanics if it's just high energy photons hitting a tube. That's ordinary counting. It doesn't matter how high energy photons or other specific ionizing particles are behaving on their way to being registered by the Gieger counter, just that anything at all strikes the Gieger Muller tube to create a click.

It's no different than counting apples falling from a tree but on a much, much smaller scale, but not as small as you suggest. What the Gieger counter measures is if their is a an electrical charge in the Gieger Muller Tube, which cause and effect only happens immediately/briefly after an ionizing particle strike. The presence or absence of electricity is freakishly massive compared to a high energy photon strike.

I can tell that the power is on in my house not because I can sense the motion of subatomic particles but because there is light radiating off my monitor at the moment that is dependant of the presence of subatomic particles behaving in a certain manner.

Getting back to those 1000 emhs, I did say that environment was artificial and identical, which is impossible in the real world, although not impossible in a video game, which is what the Doctor is, and possibly the only manner in which a Gieger counter series of clicks could be identical twice over, if the counter is placed in an identical artificial recreation of the same physical location at the same point in time with respect to the beginning of the artificial environment which will make each Gieger counter yield the same clicks and data because the same photons are striking at the same rate because it's a do-over better than time travel.

I'm sorry that I did not know that Gieger Counter clicks represented actual photon strikes, but that doesn't change that the fact that the cpm for two Gieger counters resting beside each other will resister relatively identical radiation levels even though different photons are striking each Gieger counter because consistency is the fricking point the scientific method.

I'm almost certain that you are not finished being a smart ass, so please continue.

 

[kirkfan]

Obviously not, but this has nothing to do with Quantum mechanics if it's just high energy photons hitting a tube. That's ordinary counting. It doesn't matter how high energy photons or other specific ionizing particles are behaving on their way to being registered by the Gieger counter, just that anything at all strikes the Gieger Muller tube to create a click.

It's no different than counting apples falling from a tree but on a much, much smaller scale, but not as small as you suggest. What the Gieger counter measures is if their is a an electrical charge in the Gieger Muller Tube, which cause and effect only happens immediately/briefly after an ionizing particle strike. The presence or absence of electricity is freakishly massive compared to a high energy photon strike.

I can tell that the power is on in my house not because I can sense the motion of subatomic particles but because there is light radiating off my monitor at the moment that is dependant of the presence of subatomic particles behaving in a certain manner.

Getting back to those 1000 emhs, I did say that environment was artificial and identical, which is impossible in the real world, although not impossible in a video game, which is what the Doctor is, and possibly the only manner in which a Gieger counter series of clicks could be identical twice over, if the counter is placed in an identical artificial recreation of the same physical location at the same point in time with respect to the beginning of the artificial environment which will make each Gieger counter yield the same clicks and data because the same photons are striking at the same rate because it's a do-over better than time travel.

I'm sorry that I did not know that Gieger Counter clicks represented actual photon strikes, but that doesn't change that the fact that the cpm for two Gieger counters resting beside each other will resister relatively identical radiation levels even though different photons are striking each Gieger counter because consistency is the fricking point the scientific method.

I'm almost certain that you are not finished being a smart ass, so please continue.

Well, you are one yourself but you apparently can't focus on an idea for too long without getting all confused. I am not talking about using the Geiger counters to measure radiation levels!!! I am talking about using the clicks as generator of randomness. Which is a completely different kettle of fish. Like if yours contains sardines, mine contains lobsters or vice versa. The random clicks of the Geiger counter, that I hope you've understood by now can't be repeated, are used as a source of numbers. Since these clicks are by their very nature impossible to repeat and unpredictable they become ideal random numbers that could be used for example to simulate free will in a machine. So that if two or more equivalent solutions are presented to it. It would be impossible for an outside observer to predict which one will be chosen by the machine. Unsurprisingly, this method is actually already used in the real world. of course there are much more elaborate ways to achieve randomness but this one is already practical, in and of itself.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Heisenberg Compensators.

In Star Trek they can anticipate the position and speed of subatomic particles simultaneously, so therefore forecaste the unrandom clicks made by photon strikes on a Gieger Mueller tube.

 

[Lord Manitou]

By the way, the clicks in a geiger counter are not photons but protons or little bullits. if the count is to high you better move to a different place.
Dont' you think the technology that offers up the holographic doctor awfully smart? Maybe 4 or 5 times as smart? Much smarter than the human-robot interface for human interaction. it would do no harm to offer the doctor sentience. Also, this implies he is just a tool.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Still learning, sorry.

There was something about gamma photons half way down the page.

Never mind.

RICKY: Never play with anyone, even your best friend, if he offers you an honest game of chance, Harry.
PARIS: One replicator ration is all it takes to play, and the only thing you have to do to win is pick a number. Just predict what the radiogenic particle count will be at twelve hundred hours tomorrow, and if you hit the pot is yours. Minus a small handling fee for the bank, of course.
CREWMAN: I'll take a piece of that.

And...

COMPUTER: Radiogenic particle density at the measured co-ordinates was one eight seven three per cubic metre.
PARIS: And the winner of sixteen replicator rations in the Paris radiogenic sweepstakes is? Computer?
COMPUTER: There is no winner today.

It seems that they can measure particle density remotely, which means that more than one antenna can count the particle density at the same locus at the same time.

Here's the problem with using clicks to create randomness. The clicks have to be live, which would imply that the AI is connected to a device that constantly reads or creates new unknown randomness. If it's not new live data then what we are looking at are just random number tables that could have been generated recently or years ago. And quite frankly if it's just a string of a millions of randomly generated numbers, then those numbers can be copied and reused for every EMH.

Besides, even if an EMH is expecting to receive new random numbers, you can lie to it and give the program known numbers or repeat old random numbers. Which is more likely to have been what happened with the Federation's service holograms because the federation wants unwavering beasts of burden, not self aware problems bitching about civil rights.

 

[hux]

So you guys spent Saturday night discussing Geiger counters and Heisenberg compensators

Your poor penises must hate you

 

[Guy Gardener]

Oh, I had a rage boner the whole time.

Bright red and spitting mad.

 

[Lord Manitou]

There is all types of particles in outer space, betweeen the stars, in a void but they aren't photons. There is approximately 1 particle per cubic yd.(more or less). These would be discernable if the ship is traveling 1000 lt speed.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Yes, I already apologized for using the wrong word.

What about the optical distortion on the windows at warp? That's just old photons, placeholding for what distant stars were getting up to X number of years ago. But as soon as those photons strike a warpfield, they smear like pudding down a blouse.

 

[Lord Manitou]

Photons have a dual matrix. They are both a very small particle and a wave form. A wave form doesn't necessarily have substance.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It's light hitting something that distorts light.

Light hits a puddle and seems to be a rainbow at the right angle.

No difference.

Nothing to do with quantum physics and everything to do with optics.

 

[Lance]

It isn't the light, it's the way the eye perceives the light?

The EMH is perceived as a 'person' by the crew, simply because he looks, sounds and quacks like person. But in actuality, he's a series of sophisticated subroutines projecting an illusionary matrix that looks humanoid. On brass tacks he's just a bunch of 1s and 0s that are being maintained and presented in a way that the crew can interact with as if he were a person. But he's no more a 'person' than the ship's computer is. Or the Fair Haven townsfolk. Or Janeway's holo-DaVinci. All of these programs might show some sense of growth or self-awareness if allowed to function for as long as the EMH does, but none of them (including the EMH) qualify as people.

But EMH is treated like a person, because the crew 'perceive' him as a person. It's like giving your stapler a name and attributing it with a personality. The EMH is only a person because the crew choose to perceive him as one. The reality is that he is a simple tool.

Data, by contrast, has got a physical form, and emulates the precise metaphysical AND anatomical functions of a humanoid.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It isn't the light, it's the way the eye perceives the light?

Looking out the window sure, but what about the forward view screens? When they're travelling 8 times the speed of light, that's not actual, it's sensor rendering.

 

[SPCTRE]

Q.E.D.

 

[STEPhon IT]

It isn't the light, it's the way the eye perceives the light?

The EMH is perceived as a 'person' by the crew, simply because he looks, sounds and quacks like person. But in actuality, he's a series of sophisticated subroutines projecting an illusionary matrix that looks humanoid. On brass tacks he's just a bunch of 1s and 0s that are being maintained and presented in a way that the crew can interact with as if he were a person. But he's no more a 'person' than the ship's computer is. Or the Fair Haven townsfolk. Or Janeway's holo-DaVinci. All of these programs might show some sense of growth or self-awareness if allowed to function for as long as the EMH does, but none of them (including the EMH) qualify as people.

But EMH is treated like a person, because the crew 'perceive' him as a person. It's like giving your stapler a name and attributing it with a personality. The EMH is only a person because the crew choose to perceive him as one. The reality is that he is a simple tool.

Data, by contrast, has got a physical form, and emulates the precise metaphysical AND anatomical functions of a humanoid.

I love when people bring up the word REALITY for a topic that is complete FICTION. Begs the question if the person doesn't understand the topic or never watched an episode of Voyager. His equivalent to the discussion is the Voyager crew chooses to perceive him as a person??? Not calling The Doctor "it", like his stupid comparison to a stapler, just shows how flawed his comment is.

Data and The Doctor are considered sentient because they have gone past their primary programming; they've gone at length to CHOOSE, and make decisions on their own. Let's see a stapler do THAT!

 

[hux]

But EMH is treated like a person, because the crew 'perceive' him as a person. It's like giving your stapler a name and attributing it with a personality. The EMH is only a person because the crew choose to perceive him as one. The reality is that he is a simple tool.

But how will Starfleet command perceive him?

If they decided he was just a tool and should be reset, how many of the Voyagers crew would protest? I suspect it would not be as many as people might think

This is a tricky one for sure

I strongly feel that the doctor simply imitates sentience very effectively and he is merely programmed to appear self aware. It's not black and white (as the poll suggests) and it's a very hard one to call.

My main evidence for the prosecution I think, would be the events of Equinox and how easily they turned him into something else, someone who abandoned his supposed ethics at the flick of a switch. Doing that to Data might be possible but I think it would be a far more complex undertaking. Similarly, making a human being change who they are with such immediacy would also be even significantly harder

Dunno

But I think the consequences of the Federation recognising his sentience would change holo technology use dramatically forever which I think in turn would strongly influence their final judgement (against)