I was thinking about, "measure of a man." And I got to thinking; if they could reproduce data's brain, why would it need to be put in a humanoid body when they could build it into a ship itself? I know that Andromeda did in fact have sentient ships and explored the conspect.
Why not build a ship with positronic brain?
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I've always viewed the Enterprise's computer as being more sophisticated than a positronic brain. I think a positronic brain just allows an android to act and move like a Human does (which might be a bad thing for a starship to do on second thought).
We've seen pretty good sentience achieved with old-fashioned multitronics already...
Positronics was something Noonian Soong was desperately trying to perfect, but his competition with Ira Graves seemed to be chiefly in the field of robotics and associated sciences. We don't know what good positronics are outside android applications, but apparently Soong thought that androids would be the best way to showcase his breakthrough, so there may be some connection. Perhaps positronics helps pack sentience in a very small piece of hardware, an ability that starships would have little use for? That is, a big positronic brain or a cluster of such brains would offer no advantages over a single small one, and starships can afford larger brain types and have no shortage of onboard space.
We hear of only one other application for positronics - brain prosthetics, an apparently well-working therapy type just ten years after Soong's work was uncovered in "Datalore". That, too, seems to be an application benefiting from compactness.
Timo Saloniemi
Positronics was something Noonian Soong was desperately trying to perfect, but his competition with Ira Graves seemed to be chiefly in the field of robotics and associated sciences. We don't know what good positronics are outside android applications, but apparently Soong thought that androids would be the best way to showcase his breakthrough, so there may be some connection. Perhaps positronics helps pack sentience in a very small piece of hardware, an ability that starships would have little use for? That is, a big positronic brain or a cluster of such brains would offer no advantages over a single small one, and starships can afford larger brain types and have no shortage of onboard space.
We hear of only one other application for positronics - brain prosthetics, an apparently well-working therapy type just ten years after Soong's work was uncovered in "Datalore". That, too, seems to be an application benefiting from compactness.
Timo Saloniemi
But Bashir can make positronic brain prosthetics. See "Life Support".
Before Data, nobody believed positronics would be possible, and Soong was laughed out of the court. In "Datalore", our heroes learn that Soong succeeded after all (although probably by that point it was already realized that Data was positronic, even if his origin was unclear). Beyond that point, UFP at large enjoyed full access to any work Soong left behind on Omicron Theta; since he also left Lore in full there, we don't need to believe that he would have destroyed all his papers and whatnot, so the later use of positronics by other UFP scientists or engineers is quite plausible.
Data hasn't been duplicated - but prior to Data, there were no duplicates, either. Yet the Federation knows how to build androids; it gained access to such knowledge in TOS if it didn't already possess it (as in "Return to Tomorrow" where Pulas... I mean, Mulhall apparently only feels the existing human techniques would be too slow compared with what the Sargonites were doing). It just seems that androids are useless, and sentient androids even more useless than the other types - except for flaunting your recent perfection of positronics, which Soong tried to do but for some reason never got around to actually completing (as he never released either Data or Lore to the public).
Also, I have never heard it stated that no one would know how to make them except Soong. Where is that from?
Timo Saloniemi
Before Data, nobody believed positronics would be possible, and Soong was laughed out of the court. In "Datalore", our heroes learn that Soong succeeded after all (although probably by that point it was already realized that Data was positronic, even if his origin was unclear). Beyond that point, UFP at large enjoyed full access to any work Soong left behind on Omicron Theta; since he also left Lore in full there, we don't need to believe that he would have destroyed all his papers and whatnot, so the later use of positronics by other UFP scientists or engineers is quite plausible.
Data hasn't been duplicated - but prior to Data, there were no duplicates, either. Yet the Federation knows how to build androids; it gained access to such knowledge in TOS if it didn't already possess it (as in "Return to Tomorrow" where Pulas... I mean, Mulhall apparently only feels the existing human techniques would be too slow compared with what the Sargonites were doing). It just seems that androids are useless, and sentient androids even more useless than the other types - except for flaunting your recent perfection of positronics, which Soong tried to do but for some reason never got around to actually completing (as he never released either Data or Lore to the public).
Also, I have never heard it stated that no one would know how to make them except Soong. Where is that from?
Timo Saloniemi
Yeah, that didn't work out too well.
The difference between Data's reasoning ability and the ship's reasoning ability seems to be more the ability for Data to generate his own goals and desires. They both have the ability to recognize patterns and make subtle determinations the way a human can, only the ship can only do so when specifically commanded to whereas Data can decide to himself.
So maybe a positronic brain is what is necessary for a computer to rewrite its own programming? The same way human brains can generate new connections between neurons.
So maybe a positronic brain is what is necessary for a computer to rewrite its own programming? The same way human brains can generate new connections between neurons.
Maybe, but the EMH could do that as well, so could moriarty. But Voyager and possible other ships like enterprise E have organic circuits.
Though, I think the tactical upsides of M-5 prompted Starfleet to try again... just with a human element at the helm and most of the danger ironed out of the design (the Prometheus).
Except... wait, the ship is filled with holo-emitters. The crew will be murdered by Professor Moriarty and a roving band of Fair Haven denizens by the end of the week. Forget the part about danger getting ironed out, bad example.
It's kind of moot, I think. Holographic AI is superior to the positronic brain. It's faster and cleaner since it doesn't have to interface with any other microprocessors other than a holoprojector if needed.
It would also seem to be more stable than the positronic brian. All p-brains except for Data were unstable.
It would also seem to be more stable than the positronic brian. All p-brains except for Data were unstable.
Then come the Cylons followed by the Butlerian Jihad.
And the ultimate AI ace in the hole... Genuine People Personalities.
Warning! Danger! Google Avatar Alert.
The (iirc) TNG Officer's Manual said that the computer in the Enterprise Dee was a M-6.
I think that when an order like evasive pattern delta, or attack pattern four, is given, from that point forward the computer is largely in control of the ship. The patten not only tell the ship what it can do, but also imposes restrictions on what it can't do.
Narrow parameters.
From a certain point of view they don't completely "trust" the ship's computers, so they don't give it free reign. The example of the Voyager's EMH shows what their computer science can do, and what happen when the EMH's ethical programming was "disconnected" shows the problem.
The 24th century that we've seen holds nearly no robots, lack of trust for an autonomous machine?
Lack of budget for robot props.
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