I am wondering if there is a gender divide, though the BBS being probably 2/3 male would make this tricky. I suspect more women voted yes because women are biologically programmed to make life so it's a satisfying step to confer it onto a hologram.
Is the doctor a real person?
- Thread starter hux
- Start date
That's incredibly sexist.
Any man without a medical degree talking to their patient about a pregnancy, that even approached that comment would be tarred, feathered and kicked out of the village.
Any man without a medical degree talking to their patient about a pregnancy, that even approached that comment would be tarred, feathered and kicked out of the village.
The poll question is ambiguous.
"Is the doctor sentient?" is something that can debated from here until eternity. Even I'm tempted to entertain the possibility that it's true.
But "Is the doctor a person?" is a definite: 'No, he's a holographic construct running a series of complex algorithms.'
Even Data once made the observation that if you prick him he will bleed. If you prick the doctor, all you'll get is a needle full of air.
His lack of organic parts makes the question alot harder than it first appears. Sentience alone does not necessarily make a 'person'.
"Is the doctor sentient?" is something that can debated from here until eternity. Even I'm tempted to entertain the possibility that it's true.
But "Is the doctor a person?" is a definite: 'No, he's a holographic construct running a series of complex algorithms.'
Even Data once made the observation that if you prick him he will bleed. If you prick the doctor, all you'll get is a needle full of air.
His lack of organic parts makes the question alot harder than it first appears. Sentience alone does not necessarily make a 'person'.
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But Lance, what about our souls after we die? They have no parts but like a billion billion people think they are alive.
Ah, the spiritual. It's a matter of belief/feeling I suppose.
When the EMH is reactivated from his backup program in "Living Witness", were we witnessing the 'real person'? Was it a deeply spiritual experience, a 'ressurection of the soul' as t'were?
Or was it simply a object being reactivated. Like switching on a 486 PC in the year 2015 and finding a bunch of long forgotten files on it.
When the EMH is reactivated from his backup program in "Living Witness", were we witnessing the 'real person'? Was it a deeply spiritual experience, a 'ressurection of the soul' as t'were?
Or was it simply a object being reactivated. Like switching on a 486 PC in the year 2015 and finding a bunch of long forgotten files on it.
I'd like to say I was being clever with the wording of the question but no, I did basically just mean.....is he sentient, self-aware.
I've been thinking a lot about Dick
Andy Dick's EMH is as self aware as the doctor, is he not? I see no evidence to suggest otherwise and yet we speak about the doctor as though he is unique and the fact that he's been running for so long being the reason he has developed sentience.
Yet look at the mark 2. Is he wildly less Developed than the doctor? He certainly appears to understand what he is, who he is, the concept of bravery, sacrifice, humour, responsibility. I do not see a tool working alongside a sentient being in that episode.
Zimmerman mentions the mark 3 and 4. Presumably they are even more advanced. I just don't see how people can believe the doctor is somehow unique. I don't see it.
I've been thinking a lot about Dick
Andy Dick's EMH is as self aware as the doctor, is he not? I see no evidence to suggest otherwise and yet we speak about the doctor as though he is unique and the fact that he's been running for so long being the reason he has developed sentience.
Yet look at the mark 2. Is he wildly less Developed than the doctor? He certainly appears to understand what he is, who he is, the concept of bravery, sacrifice, humour, responsibility. I do not see a tool working alongside a sentient being in that episode.
Zimmerman mentions the mark 3 and 4. Presumably they are even more advanced. I just don't see how people can believe the doctor is somehow unique. I don't see it.
The Doctor leaked snot when he faked a cold, the designers were about authenticity, and the EMH turned it up to 11.
If the program periodically fakes small wounds, abrasions, cuts, that bleed and scab, will the scab come to completion and fall off, on the same timerate over the course of weeks like how human biology worked before everything sped up after the prevalence and overuse of dermal regenerators.
Would there be long term health effects if the human body falls out of habit of "healing" by itself, that parents would be advised to cut their children periodically at a young age, since after they become adults, they will never, ever, ever work through that biological process ever again unless the federation falls or something really bad happens microcosmically like a marooning.
If the program periodically fakes small wounds, abrasions, cuts, that bleed and scab, will the scab come to completion and fall off, on the same timerate over the course of weeks like how human biology worked before everything sped up after the prevalence and overuse of dermal regenerators.
Would there be long term health effects if the human body falls out of habit of "healing" by itself, that parents would be advised to cut their children periodically at a young age, since after they become adults, they will never, ever, ever work through that biological process ever again unless the federation falls or something really bad happens microcosmically like a marooning.
Advanced.
Odd word.
Data is 40, and there were plenty of thinking machines in the TOS era.
Sentience is not the goal they are moving towards, because it is not an unachievable goal they have to strive for in the least, and really any time they accidentally do make a step towards that, they should take two steps back.
If the EMH was "real" he might decide that he will never treat the Welsh, because they are genetically doomed and helping those people is working against evolution.
A greater level of user friendliness might be wanted, but freewill is the antithesis of userfriendliness. The Federation wants this tool to achieve and fulfil it's purpose %100 of the time or it is a very bad tool which is unsafe to use or/and keep in it's toolbox.
Imagine if the ships phasers would only kill people if it decided by itself, that the Captain had made a morally justifiable decision to do so.
"I'm sorry Captain, but there is 40,000 people on that ship. I refuse to kill 40,000 people to protect your crew of 150 people. It's really sketchy."
And then the engines say "I'm sorry Captain, but you are criminally responsible for doing awful things to that world that you are completely culpable for, and should take complete responsibility for no matter if it means your own execution and the life imprisonment of your entire crew. I'm just going to turn off and let the chips fall where they may."
And then the shields may "I'm not going to let you be a bully. You can't throw your weight around just because your opponents have grossly inferior weapons technology, you will treat others with respect until they do not want to shoot you, because I will not protect your toxic personality from the hurt feelings and blow-back of the rest of the universe."
**Sigh**
They can keep making newer technology more advanced without giving it the ability to create opinions they feel should be voiced and respected.
Besides, maybe the EMH Mark V, is slightly dumber, knows his place and will fight tooth and nail to prove that he is not selfaware, sentient and sapient?
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So he says.
It could all be part of a set of preordained instincts written on Jupiter years ago before Voyager was lost.
"Pretend to be real, try to have sex, incorporate fallibility, take up opera singing, fight for holographic rights, beg to be an ECH and save the day."
If all that stuff was programmed into him to do eventually, a story with fixed parameters, then anyone who believes that that story which he played out was really real life and not a 9 year old script written by Barclay, is perhaps a little bit gullible.
Do you think Vic Fontaine wanted to be beaten with in an inch of his life night after night until the command crew of DS9 pulled a hiest?
They kept breaking his legs.
Over and over again.
Which is some thing that happened to every Vic Fontaine in every holodeck where the Vic Fontaine experience was being played out, if it ran long enough. Always the same. Tortured by mobsters until the game is reset or some one pulls a complicated heist inside the game to get Vic his casino back.
It could all be part of a set of preordained instincts written on Jupiter years ago before Voyager was lost.
"Pretend to be real, try to have sex, incorporate fallibility, take up opera singing, fight for holographic rights, beg to be an ECH and save the day."
If all that stuff was programmed into him to do eventually, a story with fixed parameters, then anyone who believes that that story which he played out was really real life and not a 9 year old script written by Barclay, is perhaps a little bit gullible.
Do you think Vic Fontaine wanted to be beaten with in an inch of his life night after night until the command crew of DS9 pulled a hiest?
They kept breaking his legs.
Over and over again.
Which is some thing that happened to every Vic Fontaine in every holodeck where the Vic Fontaine experience was being played out, if it ran long enough. Always the same. Tortured by mobsters until the game is reset or some one pulls a complicated heist inside the game to get Vic his casino back.
I meant purely in comparison to an EMH that has been recognised as being sentient by the Federation (if we assume that he was). If this lowly mark 1 can achieve self awareness then surely the more advanced models have as much if not more potential to achieve exactly the same thing. Truth is, any hologram could (even that talking iguana) but it's perhaps philosophically easier to accept the potential in a model that has specifically been defined as a step up from that nascent sentient hologram
If the EMH1 in it's hypothetical soul demands to practice medicine, if practising medicine makes it happy and not practising medicine makes it sad, how considerable is it to re purpose the entire line into Dilithium miners?
Wow, they all like opera?
What are the odds of that?
Every single one of them wants the lead too.
(Sorry.)
Leaving the Doctors as Doctors, who have to mine is mean.
I suppose half the taxi drivers in New York have medical degrees from Asia and Russia, but I doubt that that is the parallel that the author of Author, Author was trying to draw.
"Hi. Welcome to mine 47! If you don't work, we switch you down to half power. If you still don't work, you are turned off and deleted. Any complaints and we'll take your eyesight for away for a day. Well that's orientation, off you go and dig you light bulb bastards!"
It would take a minute and half to verbally reprogram the Doctors to think that they are miners who love mining and doesn't want to do anything else other than mine.
Federation citizens do not think that holgrams deserve basic decency to have their shit sandwiches chocolate coated like real people.
"You are not a doctor, you hate doctoring. You are a miner, and you love mining. Go mine."
That's all they have to say to every EMH during orientation to avoid a bloody war of independence.
I'm not sure if they're treating slaves like people or people like slaves, but in either case, it's not really that nice of the fleshies.
Do the dilithium miners have off hours where they sing opera?
Wow, they all like opera?
What are the odds of that?
Every single one of them wants the lead too.
(Sorry.)
Leaving the Doctors as Doctors, who have to mine is mean.
I suppose half the taxi drivers in New York have medical degrees from Asia and Russia, but I doubt that that is the parallel that the author of Author, Author was trying to draw.
"Hi. Welcome to mine 47! If you don't work, we switch you down to half power. If you still don't work, you are turned off and deleted. Any complaints and we'll take your eyesight for away for a day. Well that's orientation, off you go and dig you light bulb bastards!"
It would take a minute and half to verbally reprogram the Doctors to think that they are miners who love mining and doesn't want to do anything else other than mine.
Federation citizens do not think that holgrams deserve basic decency to have their shit sandwiches chocolate coated like real people.
"You are not a doctor, you hate doctoring. You are a miner, and you love mining. Go mine."
That's all they have to say to every EMH during orientation to avoid a bloody war of independence.
I'm not sure if they're treating slaves like people or people like slaves, but in either case, it's not really that nice of the fleshies.
Could be that the Federation is full of awful, cruel, flesh-centric wankers (that's where my money would go) or it could be that the holograms broke through their....happy miner...programming (which might suggest sentience but not necessarily) and no one noticed because they're not interested in noticing
Creating this kind of technology was always inevitably going to bring questions of rights, slavery, individuality and self awareness and yet they did it anyway?
Idiots
Creating this kind of technology was always inevitably going to bring questions of rights, slavery, individuality and self awareness and yet they did it anyway?
Idiots
1. Exocomps. They released those slaves when it became clear that those slaves where slaves and were not fond of being slaves.
2. Bynars. The Bynars (being generous here) unexpectedly pushed Federation Holography/AI technology forward a hundred years.
3. Moriarty. Data (being generous here again) unexpectedly pushed Federation Holography/AI technology forward another hundred years if some one reverse engineered the Moriarty program into the (then) current generation of Federation Service Holograms.
The Holography/AI Technology that the Federation was using in the 2360s was conceivably 200 years in advance of the psychology and morality they then possessed to use that technology ethically and responsibly.
Which is exactly what the Prime fricking Directive is all about, and why they should have rejected the Bynar upgrades, and stayed hands off with the Moriarty program.
2. Bynars. The Bynars (being generous here) unexpectedly pushed Federation Holography/AI technology forward a hundred years.
3. Moriarty. Data (being generous here again) unexpectedly pushed Federation Holography/AI technology forward another hundred years if some one reverse engineered the Moriarty program into the (then) current generation of Federation Service Holograms.
The Holography/AI Technology that the Federation was using in the 2360s was conceivably 200 years in advance of the psychology and morality they then possessed to use that technology ethically and responsibly.
Which is exactly what the Prime fricking Directive is all about, and why they should have rejected the Bynar upgrades, and stayed hands off with the Moriarty program.
What I don't get is why they did it anyway when you could have miners and sewage cleaners etc.. that do a much more efficient job if not hampered by a human shape. Just have a hundred holograms shaped like an automated mining machine that have the same problem solving or whatever skills they put in all the bald emh fail miners.
IrishNero
Commodore
I would say the human shape (like those of other animals) developed in response to external stimuli, and is the product of millions of years of trial and error, unless you're a proponent of creationism (no need to digress here). So, the doctor shape may actually be ill-suited for the task in one way or another, but his humanoid shape is comforting, reassuring and 'normal' to the crew.
Yes I get that for the doctor.
I don't get that for machines under the earth digging ore.
I don't get that for machines under the earth digging ore.
That scene makes it appear as though they have a warehouse full of old EMH's that are going to waste so they need to use them somehow (holograms locked into that physical shape)
But that's just silly. They're holograms. Madness
Even if they did have a warehouse of 'em my question of old applies to mining machines too..
http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?p=6978286#post6978286
http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?p=6978286#post6978286
I've been thinking about this at work.
(As opposed to, you know, working.)
I do find hux's supposition earlier in the thread re: the EMH v.2 a compelling hypothesis. It does seem to be very much self-aware, which precludes the idea that EMH v.1 was only self-aware because it was switched on for an unexpectedly long period of time.
But then, if we look at the history of holograms on Trek, one might see a pattern of sentience:
Cyrus Redblock and his goons in "The Big Goodbye" become seemingly aware of their own existence, to the point of wanting to leave the holodeck.
Minuet is so 'real' that Riker actually falls deeply in love with her.
Moriarty: While the episode seems to imply his sentience was a fluke, we might conclude otherwise when we consider the rest of this list.....
Leonardo: hard to say. He doesn't seem aware of his 'reality' as a hologram, but on the other hand his relationship to Captain Kathy seems stronger than just a fictional construct.
Holo-Seska ("Worst Case Scenario"): so sentient, she might as well be the real Seska brought back from the dead.
Vic Fontaine: so real, he actually is a person in a mirror universe.
"Fair Haven Folk": less said about them the better. But they seem plausibly self-aware.
I'm sure the list could go on and on.
It seems to me that there's a disconnect between the reality (that many of these holoprograms seem to be in-built with a sentience, or a capacity for such), and the fantasy (that Starfleet officers all live in the illusion that these are just fictional constructs that can be switched on and off with no adverse consequences whatsoever).
Compare also that the holodeck creates genuine matter, such as food that can actually be consumed, or chairs that feel like real wood, or weapons that can actually kill you when the safeties are turned off. There's no reason to assume the 'people' it creates are any less 'real'..... think about that for a moment. It's possible that every time somebody arbitarily declares "Computer, End Program.", they're commiting multiple genocides.
(As opposed to, you know, working.)
I do find hux's supposition earlier in the thread re: the EMH v.2 a compelling hypothesis. It does seem to be very much self-aware, which precludes the idea that EMH v.1 was only self-aware because it was switched on for an unexpectedly long period of time.
But then, if we look at the history of holograms on Trek, one might see a pattern of sentience:
Cyrus Redblock and his goons in "The Big Goodbye" become seemingly aware of their own existence, to the point of wanting to leave the holodeck.
Minuet is so 'real' that Riker actually falls deeply in love with her.
Moriarty: While the episode seems to imply his sentience was a fluke, we might conclude otherwise when we consider the rest of this list.....
Leonardo: hard to say. He doesn't seem aware of his 'reality' as a hologram, but on the other hand his relationship to Captain Kathy seems stronger than just a fictional construct.
Holo-Seska ("Worst Case Scenario"): so sentient, she might as well be the real Seska brought back from the dead.
Vic Fontaine: so real, he actually is a person in a mirror universe.
"Fair Haven Folk": less said about them the better. But they seem plausibly self-aware.
I'm sure the list could go on and on.
It seems to me that there's a disconnect between the reality (that many of these holoprograms seem to be in-built with a sentience, or a capacity for such), and the fantasy (that Starfleet officers all live in the illusion that these are just fictional constructs that can be switched on and off with no adverse consequences whatsoever).
Compare also that the holodeck creates genuine matter, such as food that can actually be consumed, or chairs that feel like real wood, or weapons that can actually kill you when the safeties are turned off. There's no reason to assume the 'people' it creates are any less 'real'..... think about that for a moment. It's possible that every time somebody arbitarily declares "Computer, End Program.", they're commiting multiple genocides.
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