Is 'data' of star trek to be considered a realistic android?

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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I’m watching star trek through again.

I wanted to watch it mainly cos of data as I like watching really rational characters (any other rec’s welcome :slight_smile:) I guess as loose role models to aspire to.

The more I’ve watched it is the more I question the authenticity of the character ‘data’ as a purely rational being.

They always stress in the 3rd season how he has no emotions but they also, I’m sure to make him somewhat relatable as it is family viewing and all, do certain little leaps of logic which hint at him having humanity.

Things like him saying he has friends, some of his facial expressions etc, can’t think of any more examples off hand.

Also what would be his motivation if he was a purely rational creature? As an android wouldn’t that make him not motivated the same way humans are, if at all. This can easily be covered up in the series under the catch all that his ‘creator programmed a fervent curiosity into him’ but what of a real life example minus the appeal to family mores? I guess like a computer the only ‘motivation’ would be his programming.

How would such a creature behave; robotic or non robotic as perhaps there will be distinctions although rationality is rationality yo.

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I love Data. He’s my favorite character on the show, mainly because his android characteristics are the difference between life and death so many times when he saves the whole damm crew or the ship from some imminent disaster.

Also, I think he’s programmed to study humans and figure out what qualities are best for incorporating into himself. It’s like a self-programming heuristic or something.

3

data behaves a little bit out of character from time to time, due to bad writing occasionally, but for the most part, yes, it was programmed into him. even though his creators chose not to give him emotions (they could have, but the previous experiment, his brother Lore, didn’t turn out so well with emotions), they still chose to give him human desires. The just generally gave him a sort of bias, a bias towards Star Fleet and Humanity and life. They gave him an ethics program as well, that was likewise biased towards those same things.

4

Well if I am gonna get geeky I watched the episode where he met his maker noooonian soong the other day and he was disappointed that data had joined starfleet instead hoping he would have followed in his own footsteps and become a cyberneticist.

As an aside I was watching some interviews of the guy who plays Data, brent spiner and he seems like a real snarky bitter asshole, but that is OT :slight_smile:- prob cos he is sick of interview with geeky trek fans so understandable I guess.

Yea I agree the bad writing is prob the main cause of the occasional out of character blip but on the whole seems good.

I was hesitant to watch the original star trek due to its dated’ness but I think I will now as I feel spock might be a more interesting rational archetype as he actually has emotions yet represses them as all vulcans do, so more in line with the human plight. I thought this after watching another recent TNG with spock’s pop where he has the vulcan emotional version of tourrettes :slight_smile:.

This draws me to another thing I have been thinking recently- what is the most rational employment of the emotions.

I was thinking just be stoic and suppress bad emotions while basking in good emotions. Note I put suppress and not repress, suppression being the ‘grown up’ version of repression. Course you can get lost in good emotions to your own detriment too I guess so that was a bit of a hasty statement now I think about it. Anyone care to refine it?

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ya, brent seems like a prick

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The original Star Trek is actually very good. The story lines set the default basis for the sequels. And yes, Spock is great.

Vulcan peace sign here.

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“Rational” means acceptable behaviour. It makes no pretension to anything called emotion or its absence. And if by rational you mean logical then logical has nothing to do with behaviour at all as it describes the movement of objects. Data is an example of anthropomorphic animism, the man-doll. And robots don’t “behave”.

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Isn’t Data like “motivated” by his programming? Can a human be purely rational? If not can those who cannot be purely rational create something purely rational? I suppose so. We’ve created things beyond our physical prowess.

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Is my car motivated? or my self-playing piano? When do we decide what lifeless object is motivated?
Aren’t we just playing philosophy in imagining that inanimate objects have processes, functions, tasks, expectations, hopes, fears?

I pointed out what you meant by rational. But you did not pick up on it, and are instead still using it like a platitude.

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Seems like you are getting your users mixed up broseph.

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Robots, androids, etc are man-dolls, and their inventor-scientists want other people, like us, to believe that they have identity, motivation, feelings even. When will we ever stop playing along with their childish hopes?

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when will you rid yourself of your childish hope that you’re anything but a machine?

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I couldn’t understand why they tried to make data more human, same applies to spok, they often had a ‘funny’ bit at the end where they mocked spoks lack of emotion. They are both very stoic but made more sense than the humans, I cannot think of many ways where emotions don’t just get in the way ~ except perhaps when getting laid, but hey one can act. :slight_smile:

I never agreed that data was a sentient being ~ where that was considered in a similar light to being human, thus I prefer spok because he was organic and had a soul albeit an emotionless one. Hmm, this is where it gets dodgy as I am unsure if data’s circuitry was quantum or three-fold rather than binary, at which point the line between human and machine gets real blurry.

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… Of my friend, I can only say this: of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most… human. from Kirk’s eulogy to Spock in Wrath of Khan

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am i the only one wondering what happened to Wesley Crusher? that little fucker became like…a god or something, and then never came back.

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[i]Captain Jean-Luc Picard: I don’t know if all this has made any sense, but I wanted you to know what kind of man he was. In his quest to be more like us, he helped us to see what it means to be human.

B-4: My… my brother was not human?

Captain Jean-Luc Picard: No, he wasn’t. But his wonder, his curiosity about every facet of human nature allowed all of us to see the best parts of ourselves. He evolved; he embraced change, because he always wanted to be better than he was. [/i]

on Data from Nemisis

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You’ve made my point. A machine fulfills tasks and requires intelligence to build and meet those tasks. As soon as you admit the existence of a machine you admit the existence of an intelligence.

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Yes, just like a little girls doll has feelings, so other non-life forms that look like us have feelings, especially if they are “technical”. Is that what you are saying? if I make a man out of tea-cakes, how can I respect its wishes?

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Whichever way Data is constructed it’s still only the name of a DOLL, a mannequin, a dummy.

Like most scientists we want to breath life into our dummies. We can’t. So we should just let it go.

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quetzalcoatl I enjoy your posts. I laughed at the getting laid thing cos it’s so true form my exp. inc. the acting part :wink:.

Peope now seem to be homing in on my main inquiry, whether it was a realistic depiction and it appears now some are saying no.

As I said, when watching, it led me to question marks.

Jonhjones, I think yours is a naive assumption if you are expecting people to just magically cease projecting our feelings onto our creations.

You say it like it is easy to stop and anyone who doesn’t are weak and frail.

Maybe so, but it still is not as easy as you seem to be making out.

We naturally anthropomorphize things. This is even true of things totally inanimate like how people made nature into god etc so they could relate to it more or whatever.

Now if we do it for totally inanimate things how much harder is it going to be to resist doing it when something walks and talks like a duck?

I think it is even harder than trying to force yourself not to be turned on by porn. You know it isn’t real yet you have to force your natural instincts/responses down consciously.

Hmm, to continue this line…I think data can/should be appreciated as we would any other piece of fine art. We know it isn’t real yet we can authentically appreciate it precisely because it causes us to question the boundaries of reality and perception. I think the case of data and similar case studies should be taken in the same vein; as beautiful lies.

Then again to call it a lie would be an injustice on some level to say that it is less justified that of true/natural life. I think doing away with the ‘lie’ bit and raising art up to the level of life (only the most exquisite art mind you) would satisfy the shortfall here.

As such anything of exquisite beauty synthetic or otherwise has equal right to residence in the world.

Now of course each species is going to have its own biases for wanting residence in the world over another if it comes to a push and shove (it doesn’t nec have to come to that tho and shouldn’t in this day and age :slight_smile:) or one vs. the other so I guess we get a rise of the machines Terminator armageddon scenario :slight_smile:.