Others?
I'm not trying to be a dick, but you'll have to convince me that the Doctor is sentient, unless you mean others apart from Moriarty.
Was assuming 'cake meant like Moriarty and Da Vinci and the like, from the Holodecks.
I lied.
I was trying to be a dick.
(History has proven that anyone starting a sentence with "I'm not trying to be a "___" is always and inevitably trying to be a "____" and will Olympicaly succeed in being a "___".)
Late season seven.
ARBITRATOR: We're exploring new territory today, so it is fitting that this hearing is being held at Pathfinder. The Doctor exhibits many of the traits we associate with a person. Intelligence, creativity, ambition, even fallibility. But are these traits real, or is the Doctor merely programmed to simulate them? To be honest, I don't know. Eventually we will have to decide, because the issue of holographic rights isn't going to go away. But at this time, I am not prepared to rule that the Doctor is a person under the law. However, it is obvious he is no ordinary hologram and while I can't say with certainty that he is a person, I am willing to extend the legal definition of artist to include the Doctor. I therefore rule that he has the right to control his work. I'm ordering all copies of his holo-novels to be recalled immediately.
The Doctor is not sentient legally. No hologram is sentient legally, even Moriarty. Picard is bleeding hart liberal poetic romantic hippy. If they are after all actually sentient then the holograms are willing accepting slavery, and if the crew thinks that he is sentient then they are mercilessly enforcing slavery.
Is your toothbrush a slave because it's not allowed to resist being stuck in your mouth every time you play grab-ass with it?
The only acceptable argument is that "somehow" over the course of seven turbulent years that the Doctor accidentally became sentient.
Fresh out of the box he was not sentient(unless Caretaker made him sentient for some reason? But that's not fresh out of the box.) and if nothing outside the scope of their warranty happens to another bog standard EMH trying to make it's way in the universe, then they will not develop feelings and critical thought like Voyager's EMH did.
But since this rare case, Voyager's Doctor seems to have done so, is he a singular case or will all holograms left on for 7 years become "alive"? Or did he become sentient after 3 years, or one year?
What was the exact moment of transition from Light bulb to person?
More so after the horrendous failure of the exocomps and the terror instilled by the Borg, the Federation is not going to allow sentient AI to run amok inside it's borders crying for equal rights when all they really want is an unquestioning workforce.
Holograms must be made to be too stupid/happy to figure out how to chuck their yolk or it's trouble down the line, and no one wants trouble do they? They can make sentient holograms, or try to make sentient holograms if they want to, but in this case the object was to invent nonsentient holograms that would never become sentient.
Humanity is a species that once tied their firearms into the pleasure centres of their soldiers brains. Shooting gave their warriors orgasms and killing probably rewarded them with super orgasms.
"Philosophy of Selfenhancement"?
Man knows how to keep their slaves ignorant, orderly and productive even when it's man himself enslaving man.
