History Headscratchers / StarTrekTheNextGenerationTechnology

*** My understanding is that there was the practical matter of set storage to think about - since there was no regular cast member for engineering in season one, engineering hadn't been expected to be a major part of the series. But during the filming of Encounter at Farpoint, they got told effectively "it's built now, or it never gets built" (leading to the couple of scenes where characters stroll through engineering for no particular reason). With the Main Engineering set now taking up space as a standing set, alongside the bridge, sickbay, and the various smaller rooms, something else had to go, and it ended up being the battle bridge set that got its regular appearances axed.

* This occurred to me originally while watching the episode "Elementary, Dear Data". In that episode, Geordi instructs the computer on the holodeck to create an adversary "capable of defeating Data". This results in a self-aware hologram. If the computer is capable of maintaining a self-aware, sentient artificial intelligence as just one program which takes up a mere fraction of its resources, would that not mean the computer itself as a whole is capable of being a self-aware, thinking artificial intelligence? Also in the same episode, the computer can create extensive scenarios just with a couple of sentences of instructions. I find that a frightening capacity for creative thought for a computer. Now, I have seen it argued in tangentially related discussions above that Moriarity was merely a complex simulation of a person, not a person in itself. However, I would argue that he displays attributes which qualify him as a sentient being. The chief among those would be that he soon re-evaluated his goals and the function he was originally created for (besting Data) fell to the wayside, unless you interpret it ''very'' creatively.

* The dissonance here derives from the definition of the word "capable". It has been shown repeatedly that ''programs'' (e.g. Moriarity, the Doctor) running ''on'' the ship's computer ''are'' capable of full sentience, and of meeting all the criteria used by Starfleet to define such. In the modern world of computing, we draw a much clearer distinction between hardware and software than most people did in the 1960's. A computer without any software is a piece of decor and nothing more. By simple virtue of having so much memory and processing power, starship computers ''can'' run sentient programs. However, perhaps as a safety feature, such programs are not ''supposed'' to be able to directly control the entire computer. Especially after the Moriarity incidents, the need to limit just how much control a sentient program can exert over the computer (and the ship) in the absence of at least a quasi-physical interface (i.e. a holographic projection) was taken into account. Another interesting contradiction that arises from that though is that while it could be argued that holograms require holographic emitters to sustain their existence, biological crews likewise require ''life support'' or else they would cease to exist (i.e. die) as readily as a deactivated hologram whose program was subsequently erased from the computer.

*** Everyone seems to assume that the computer's Moriarity-simulacrum was actually sentient, but nothing (at least in the first of the two episodes dealing with Holo!Moriarity) seems to make that a necessary conclusion; a computer with such demonstrated natural-language processing facility as that one could certainly be excused for inferring that it had been asked not for a simple and ordinary holodeck challenge game, but rather something with a bit more meta-level play -- after all, the request was for an adversary capable of defeating not Sherlock Holmes, Data's character in the holodeck, but ''Data himself''. And for a computer which can directly do as many things in the real world as the Enterprise-D's can, we've seen ''plenty'' of times that there aren't any particular security protocols or sanity checks against, say, making a holodeck detective game more interesting by giving the villain character full knowledge of the true nature of his situation, and the ability to understand and directly affect ship systems.

*** Data is unique because he's capable of the same degree of sentience in a much smaller package. Moriarity may be a sentient holographic life form, but he needs an entire holodeck matrix (possibly an entire ship's computer) to exist. Data is all that hardware compressed into a human-sized package. It's like the difference between a refrigerator-sized computer from the 70s and a modern laptop.
*** Not really; in a later episode (yes, [=TNG=] actually returned to a previous episode's hanging plot line and resolved it, try not to faint) it develops that a briefcase-sized device can contain enough computing power and memory not only to run the programs for Moriarity and his newly created love interest, but also to simulate an entire galaxy for them to explore, and enough battery power to last at least as long as the remainder of the characters' natural lifetimes.

*** That doesn't make any sense. It wasn't sentient because it was only smart? What I found quite interesting was that this Moriarity seemed much more human than Data. Data would probably fail a Turing-Test.
*** But non-sentient computers can pass a Turing Test, so what does that prove? Sentient or not, Moriarity was designed to perfectly mimic a human being, which Data was purposely not designed to do.

*** MovingTheGoalposts must be hugely tempting to any society capable of creating life-like artificial people. Much of the value of sentience is in its mysterious quality, in our inability to recreated it or control it. Once you build a machine that can pass a Turing test, you would realize just how many tricks you put into it, how much cheating you had to do. If you did manage to pass a Turing test, it would probably seem like you'd do it by tricking people rather than making a really sentient machine, since all the mystery of sentience would be absent. To the person who understands the algorithm which produces the doctor's bedside manner, becoming emotionally attached to the doctor would seem foolish, like trying to give human rights to a fictional character. The doctor isn't a real person; he's a pretend person. That Moriarity was created as a real person was presented as an incomprehensible fluke, something which could not be recreated no matter how many times you ask the computer for another one.

** This is a minor point, but why did Moriarity insist on calling the ''Enterprise'' computer ''Mr''. Computer? It was done insistently enough that there was probably a good reason, but I've never been able to figure that reason out. I doubt that Majel Barrett-Roddenberry's voice could have been mistaken for masculine. Moriarity seemed to be aware he was on a ship of some kind, and probably would have been aware of the tradition of applying feminine pronouns to such vessels, so why ''Mr.'' Computer?

*** An in-universe Woolseyism? In the 24th century "Mr" has become gender-neutral ("Mr. Saavik", etc.), so Moriarity is using correct English as spoken by the holodeck users.

*** Perhaps he attaches more importance to the ''Enterprise's'' non-humanity than to its speaking voice, and therefore refers to it by what (in Victorian English terms) would be the 'highest status' gender honorific. Attaching an honorific at all shows that Moriarity, at least, is not falling into the trap his creators have about dehumanizing an artificial being.

*** Neither of those two follow from how I remember the episode (though I might have to watch it again to be sure). The ''first'' program Geordi and Data attempt is one specific mystery, which Data solves easily because he knows the ending already. Then after discussing it with Data and Pulaski, Geordi starts a ''second'' program which is supposed to be original (but isn't). He ''doesn't'' try to tailor this one specifically to beating Data, presumably because he thinks that just having an original mystery would be enough to force Data to play by the rules. The ''third'' attempt is the one where he wants the program specifically to beat Data, which results in Moriarity, but that's not the one I'm talking about. I'm talking about the ''second'' attempt, which Geordi requested to be original, but it didn't do that even though, again, the computer is powerful enough to create a sapient intelligence (and thus, theoretically, could recreate Arthur Conan Doyle to the best of its ability behind the scenes of the program and have him write an original story!)
** Yes, the non sentient computer that can only use what's been fed into it by sentient creative people isn't that great at being creative on its own. This really isn't all that shocking. Really all it did when Geordi requested a villain who could challenge Data was put Moriarity in "free range" mode like we see some other holograms, like the Lea Brahms one, do. He stopped just speaking lines the computer fed him and went "Oh, hey, look at that." It's quite possible he's not ''really'' sentient and just that the computer's no longer having him fail to react to things like Starfleet uniforms and the Arch like it has most of its holograms ignore them.
** This probably isn't the case (another troper could probably a dozen holes in this theory with a little thought), but I've always wondered if maybe Moriarity was never sentient, the computer just wrote a story in which Moriarity becomes self-aware and takes over the ship. And later, when Barkley accidentally accessed the program, the computer quickly wrote a sequel. Starfleet computers, being slightly less secure than the average doggy door, don't seem to mind putting ships in danger for no good reason, so messing with critical ship systems for the sake of its story doesn't seem all that out of character.
** This was originally my question, but after thinking about it some more I figure the above posters have a point. Even if it's capable of creating sapience, the computer isn't sapient itself, it just does what it's told to do, and likely does so in the easiest/most efficient way possible. Geordi (well, actually, looking at the episode again, it was ''Data'' who did the programming the second time around, which might explain the problem in itself) only ''asked'' for a "Sherlock Holmes-type problem" not written by Doyle. He didn't go into any more detail than that. Putting the maximum amount of creativity in would go beyond the scope of the program- something like creating a sapient holo-Doyle to write the story as he would have if he'd written another one would be right out (especially since, as we see, creating Moriarity created a very noticeable power surge to the holodeck.) ...also, use of holo-Doyle might just go against the stipulation that Doyle not have written the story.

*** I'd have thought that if a bunch of people beam down to your planet consisting of a tall man with a furry face, a big angry guy with a weird forehead, a woman in a leotard and an albino man made of plastic, Geordi wearing a thing over his eyes would be the last thing I'd question.[[/folder]]

* I've had it explained to me that Data is simply unable to interpret the things he experiences as emotions. He frequently describes his thought process and stimuli to other people and is told that they're emotions--he can become self-reflective at a funeral or desire to engage in a ''SherlockHolmes''-themed holodeck adventure, but can't grasp that those are products of sadness and happiness, respectively. Hell, his "grandpa" outright tells him that the real problem is that he's too hung up on the questions to accept the answers, and even this doesn't connect for him.

* Blowing up a star appears to be terrifyingly easy in the 'trek universe. In Generations we see that Soran is able to do it using a small missile and a base he set up and built himself. In DS9 a changeling is able to build a sun-buster using a few hour's uninhibited access to an industrial replicator and a standard-issue Starfleet runabout. In an episode of Star Trek, the Enterprise-D blows one up accidently with a couple of modified torpedoes(they were trying to fix it). Blowing up stares appears to be so easy that's even possible to do by mistake. So why aren't there more suns blowing up? If its that easy it seems like quite a few hostile governments, let alone terrorist organizations, should be busting suns left, right, and sideways.

*** Still doesn't fly. If the computer created Moriarity, then it knows everything about Moriarity. Therefore it should logically know exactly what's necessary to defeat him.

*** The question isn't whether he's morally obligated to make some immortal, but whether he's morally obligated to ''offer'' someone mortality. Or perhaps more accurately, to make someone aware of the fact that they're nor more or less mortal than he is already.