Data from Star Trek

  • Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.

    If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!

    To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.

outlier

Junior Member
Mar 6, 2018
18
2
0
#1
If you don't know him read this. Star Trek Data

I think that within a few centuries androids as self aware will exist for real.

If Data were real, would he have a soul and human rights?

Star Trek Data
 

Alertandawake

Senior Member
Aug 20, 2017
436
94
28
#2
With the way how the world is currently going, androids would probably have more rights with the direction humanity is headed, that is my opinion.
 

Lynx

Folksy yet erudite
Aug 13, 2014
24,799
8,103
113
#3
Data was the Next Generation version of "Character discovering who he is." Star Trek had Spock, Star Trek: The Next Generation had Data, Star Trek: Deep Space 9 had Odo, Star Trek: Voyager had both the Doctor and Seven of Nine...

Of course all those characters also had other functions in the shows. Spock, Data and Seven provided background technical information necessary for the plot. Spock, Odo and Data also provided much of the comedy, Spock as a foil for McCoy, Odo as a foil for Quark and Data as a naive innocent. But the "Character discovering who he is" is an important niche role that each of them filled very well.
 

JonahLynx

Senior Member
Dec 28, 2014
1,017
30
48
#4
I don't think an AI will be considered a person by the general public for a long while. As technology improves, eventually there will be little apparent difference between a human and a machine. But I doubt they will be considered equal until at least this point or two generations afterwards.

I'd say within 250 years, we'll see something like this unless there is a huge breakthrough in psychology/neuroscience before then.
 
Last edited:

Alertandawake

Senior Member
Aug 20, 2017
436
94
28
#5
I don't think an AI will be considered a person by the general public for a long while. As technology improves, eventually there will be little apparent difference between a human and a machine. But I doubt they will be considered equal until at least this point or two generations afterwards.

I'd say within 250 years, we'll see something like this unless there is a huge breakthrough in psychology/neuroscience before then.
I wouldn't be too sure on that. In Saudi Arabia, that AI Robot Sophia has been granted citizenship. Now whether or not this AI robot has more rights than the women there would need to be verified, but the very act of granting citizenship to a robot, means that those in power in the country concerned that deals with citizenship related matters recognizes Sophia as a living being.
 

JonahLynx

Senior Member
Dec 28, 2014
1,017
30
48
#6
I wouldn't be too sure on that. In Saudi Arabia, that AI Robot Sophia has been granted citizenship. Now whether or not this AI robot has more rights than the women there would need to be verified, but the very act of granting citizenship to a robot, means that those in power in the country concerned that deals with citizenship related matters recognizes Sophia as a living being.
When an AI asks me a question out of curiosity, then I'll know the end is nigh lol.
 

Lynx

Folksy yet erudite
Aug 13, 2014
24,799
8,103
113
#7
Sophia may have been granted citizenship, but it is still basically a chatbot mounted on a mobile platform. It may pass the Turing test but nobody can seriously or honestly say it is sentient.

When an AI no longer needs programmers to tweak its interactions, then we are getting close to a true AI. Sophia isn't even close.
 

outlier

Junior Member
Mar 6, 2018
18
2
0
#8
Data was the Next Generation version of "Character discovering who he is." Star Trek had Spock, Star Trek: The Next Generation had Data, Star Trek: Deep Space 9 had Odo, Star Trek: Voyager had both the Doctor and Seven of Nine...

Of course all those characters also had other functions in the shows. Spock, Data and Seven provided background technical information necessary for the plot. Spock, Odo and Data also provided much of the comedy, Spock as a foil for McCoy, Odo as a foil for Quark and Data as a naive innocent. But the "Character discovering who he is" is an important niche role that each of them filled very well.

​YES, BUT WOULD DATA HAVE AN IMMORTAL SOUL?
 

Lynx

Folksy yet erudite
Aug 13, 2014
24,799
8,103
113
#9
outlier you are applying theology to a definitely science fiction character. Whether Data has a soul is never addressed, nor (for the sake of the story) should it be addressed, because theology doesn't really exist in the Star Trek universe. Oh sure the Bajorans have their gods (which are aliens who live in a wormhole, as it turns out) and there are other religions that have their "gods" that always turn out to be either frauds or super-powerful aliens of some sort, but Jesus is not part of this story.

For Star Trek to say Data does or does not have a soul would be like Bill Watterson discussing whether Hobbes (of Calvin & Hobbes) is a real or stuffed tiger. Calvin & Hobbes is not about whether Hobbes is really alive, and the strip goes out of its way to avoid resolving the matter.
 

outlier

Junior Member
Mar 6, 2018
18
2
0
#10
outlier you are applying theology to a definitely science fiction character. Whether Data has a soul is never addressed, nor (for the sake of the story) should it be addressed, because theology doesn't really exist in the Star Trek universe. Oh sure the Bajorans have their gods (which are aliens who live in a wormhole, as it turns out) and there are other religions that have their "gods" that always turn out to be either frauds or super-powerful aliens of some sort, but Jesus is not part of this story.

For Star Trek to say Data does or does not have a soul would be like Bill Watterson discussing whether Hobbes (of Calvin & Hobbes) is a real or stuffed tiger. Calvin & Hobbes is not about whether Hobbes is really alive, and the strip goes out of its way to avoid resolving the matter.

Ok, if there are ever androids with Datas capabilities would they have souls?
 

Lynx

Folksy yet erudite
Aug 13, 2014
24,799
8,103
113
#12
Ok, if there are ever androids with Datas capabilities would they have souls?
There will never be androids with Data's capabilities because consciousness and sentience are not matters of programming. No computer can ever do what Data did. Sentience is an emergent property of the human mind, not a calculation ability of the human brain.

We can make robots that mimic, but we will never make a robot that duplicates human. No matter how fast the computer or how complex the programming, it will never be sentient.

Your question cannot be answered because it presupposes an impossibility. It is like asking, "If a cat can walk on water, will it be a boat?" You could put a cat on something that floats on water, but cats by themselves cannot walk on water, so the question cannot be answered.
 
Last edited:

Dino246

Senior Member
Jun 30, 2015
24,555
13,320
113
#13
insufficient-data-19722102.png

Truncated information.
 

tanakh

Senior Member
Dec 1, 2015
4,635
1,040
113
76
#14
DATA is descended from the Tin Man in the Wizard of OZ. He had no Heart
 

Angela53510

Senior Member
Jan 24, 2011
11,780
2,939
113
#15
The OP is confusing Science Fiction with fact.

I have always been a great Science Fiction fan, since I read the Time Machine by HG Wells as a 12 year old girl. I still read and watch Sci Fi, although the quality mostly leaves something wanting, both in ideas, and the writing, since all the great Sci Fi masters have died off.

But, never did I worry for one second about whether it was real. If you read older Sci Fi, you will find a lot of predictions that never came to past. Star Trek was a very interesting proposition, though. Did you know, for example, that Geeks watching OST, seeing the shadowy screen that Spock kept starring into to get his information, thought about developing personal computers, and actually worked on them. People like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.

The doors that sprang open whenever someone walked in front of them? Something we take for granted? It was two men on ropes on the other side of the door, opening them up when someone walked up to them. And yet, some Geek saw it, somehow applied lasers to the idea, and now we have doors that sense us and then spring open.

Not so much with warp speed, or the teleporter. True, a molecule has been teleported a few feet. But the interesting thing is that the machine actually tears the molecule apart to figure out the structure, transfers that information to the other side, which rebuilds it. I've read a number of Sci Fi stories which deal with this reality. And more than one copy appearing. As for being killed so I can travel faster, not so much!

So, yes, some things that are totally fiction have been made real, through really clever people. Others, and that includes an android like Data, simply cannot happen.

On a final note, remember that Data, and his twin brother Lore were the only androids, created by Dr. Noonien Soong, even in that distance future! And when Data tried to create Lal, his daughter, she did not survive, something about a
cascade failure in her positronic brain.

Instead of worrying about whether a fictional character has a soul, why not concentrate on studying the Bible, or witnessing, or volunteering a local shelter or food bank. Those are things that Jesus tells us to do, better to do the things we know God expects than worrying about the ontological status of an imaginary android.
 

Lynx

Folksy yet erudite
Aug 13, 2014
24,799
8,103
113
#16
I actually refreshed this page because I thought the picture had stopped loading. I regularly blow through my monthly AT&T high speed data before the month is out, and spend the rest of the month with an internet connection that is... glacial. So I thought the picture had just stopped loading, so I hit refresh... then I got it.