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Resolved: Lt. Commander Data Is Not a Person
Star Trek is a frequent topic of conversation at Ricochet, and with a new Trek feature film and new Television series impending, it’s a topic which once again merits some discussion.
At its finest, Star Trek is much less space opera than it is high-concept science fiction which explores philosophical issues using the trappings of space travel as a backdrop. I have several thoughts that I’d like to get people’s take on.
Since I was young, I’ve been fascinated by the ninth episode of season 2, of The Next Generation called The Measure of a Man.
In this episode, The Enterprise arrives at a star base whereupon a Starfleet researcher, Commander Bruce Maddox, insists that Data accompany him to essentially be disassembled and studied in order to be copied. In due course, Data would be reassembled, his memories restored and be free to continue his service to Starfleet.
Data refuses to have what is at best, a speculative mechanical procedure performed on him, and when ordered to undergo it, he resigns from Starfleet in protest.
Much high courtroom drama ensues when Riker (prosecution) and Picard (Data’s defense) are pitted against one another by a Starfleet magistrate to argue for or against the idea that Data is Starfleet’s property, and thus has no right to decline being taken apart.
Various tests are undertaken to demonstrate that Data is a man-made machine and not human – for instance, he displays unnatural strength, is able to calculate tremendously large numbers and can retain vast quantities of information. Data is synthetic, and Riker pointedly demonstrates this by removing one of Data’s limbs and then switching him off.
Shocked at Riker’s ruthlessness, Picard retreats to the counsel of barkeep Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg… come on, it was the late 80’s) who hands Picard the key to winning any argument: comparing a situation you don’t like to slavery and then changing the subject from the matter at hand.
Guinan’s contention is that, if allowed to have his way, Maddox would essentially be copying Data into a whole race of androids (a race of Datum?) which would have been the equivalent of “disposable people” or “slaves” belonging to the Federation, being sent on various dangerous missions (replicate some Red Shirts!) or as an inexhaustible supply of soldiers.
The second part – the changing of the subject – is where Picard’s argument goes far off the rails. The Captain challenges the court to show that Data isn’t sentient after showing that Data is both intelligent and self-aware. Aside from the absurdity of being forced to prove a negative (the burden of proof should always lie with the party making extraordinary claims) which the Magistrate should have rejected on the grounds of Popperian unfalsifiability there are other issues at hand as well.
First off, even though Data is a cunningly devised human simulacrum designed to allow humans to interact with him in a natural fashion, he nonetheless lacks the capacity to experience emotions. While surely the Lt. Commander could pass the Turing Test he also equally lacks the ability to form emotional bonds or experience love, which are critical features of the human experience.
Second is the question of whether or not Data is actually even alive. While there are plenty of examples of life that we can point to which are unusual (even in a galaxy as diverse as Star Trek’s) it’s hard to argue that Data actually fits into any of those categories. Life at its most granular level is a self-perpetuating chemical reaction. Even viruses are not considered to be living organisms while bacteria are. By comparison, Data lacks many of the features of even a simple paramecium.
He cannot replicate himself, and did not lose such ability through age or damage. He is capable of being dismembered and reassembled with little consequence, as is put on display multiple times. Also, unlike sentient biological entities he exhibits the limited ability to transfer his consciousness into a new body, meaning he cannot suffer biological death. Even the normal cessation of mental activity which would define brain death or the end of consciousness for biological entities is defied by Data. If Data is alive, he certainly displays characteristics far outside of the normal parameters of what is considered “life.”
Lastly there is the human component to be considered. In “The Measure of a Man” it is ultimately decided that Data is not Starfleet property and has the ability for self determination. Data makes the decision that he will not undergo Commander Maddox’s procedure and continues with Starfleet. It’s hard to tell how many lives this decision ends up costing the Federation.
For instance, when the Federation ultimately engages in war with the Dominion, think of the possibilities: perhaps they could have warships crewed mostly by autonomous androids. Even if each Datum had 75% of Data’s capabilities this might be a bonus because they would have most of the capabilities but correspondingly less sense of self and therefore follow orders unflinchingly but make combat decisions flawlessly. This robot army would represent a massive strategic advantage to the Federation against the Founders without facing the ethical dilemmas of sending humans or other sentient beings into battle. What is dead can never die, after all.
So, it is resolved. Not only is Lt. Commander Data not a person… he isn’t even alive. Under that heading, the Federation should have copied him to the best of their abilities to save the lives of those who could die.
Published in General
We know from one of the Lore episodes that Data can feel emotions, he chooses (much like a Vulcan) to not use that piece of hardware. I believe Data also has a girlfriend at one point. He also can dream.
Don’t forget in the Star Trek universe there is clear evidence that you can have sentient being of gas, crystal, and even transdimensional ones like the Q and Bejoran Gods. Data is a much alive in that universe as any of those beings.
Doesn’t Data have a daughter, Lal? I don’t recall the details of the reproduction…
OK, not very normal reproduction…
On the contrary — after being seduced by Tasha Yar, he appears to treasure her and that relationship in a way different from his relationships with others. He appears to experience a frenzy of desire to save his daughter Lal’s life and appears to grieve for her death. He is reluctant to punish his brother Lore for his crimes, he hesitates to inform the woman he thinks of as his mother that she is an android — he even get tetchy when Dr. Pulaski calls him “Dahtah” instead of “Daytah.” From an out-of-universe perspective we can say that humans as emotional beings are really terrible at writing an emotionless character, but in-universe, Data has recognizable emotions even without his “emotion chip.”
My husband cannot replicate himself without technology and that didn’t occur through age or damage. I hope you think he’s alive. Yes, Data’s daughter dies before she can replicate herself, but so do the vast majority of living things. Moreover, I was left the impression (possibly erroneous) that no more attempts were made out of a desire to avoid further infant deaths, a very emotional reaction shared by many humans.
Considering the Borg I don’t think it is that unusual. The question is can anything non-organic even be considered a person or alive? Based on what we see from the show it is routine practice to consider non organic beings as both sentient and alive. Why Data should be an exception then is to be questioned.
I would actually like to propose that given Data’s claim to personhood the Starship Enterprise may also be argued to be a person. Since we know it can in fact generate multiple sentient beings as observed in the Moriarty episodes. Likewise the Voyager ship is capable of generating Dr. Zimmerman who is also seemingly sentient.
The real question to ask regarding Star Fleet battle practices is not why they don’t have an army of Data’s but why not have holographic defenses, since we know holograms can in fact kill.
Whether or not Data is a person, he displays enough characteristics of personhood that it is necessary for the moral well-being of the people of Starfleet that they give him the benefit of the doubt and treat him as though he is.
The episode “Time’s Arrow” shows a dead Data. He was killed in that terrible movie. He has also suffered loss of consciousness both from being turned off and more abstractly, in having retrograde amnesia in the episode “Thine Own Self.” (Which ended, as you might remember, in him being sufficiently damaged the people thought he was dead and buried him. He would have stayed “dead” were it not for the Enterprise crew beaming him up and reviving him.) Far from cheating death, he has experienced more than anyone, save perhaps Ensign Kim (to whom Death comes as a sweet temporary release from being Janeway’s butt monkey.)
I’m open to the idea that Data isn’t a person, but you need better evidence.
We don’t make copies of ourselves, unless cloning was recently perfected. Our children are only 50% of each parent. Even a clone of us would be unique due to epigenetics and individual experiences.
It’s clear that Data is an artifact of human technology capable of being “downloaded” with perfect fidelity whereas biological entities cannot be. Data’s appearance as a golem or simulacrum of a human masks the underlying reality that he is a machine.
Let’s ignore for a moment that the whole concept of an emotionless robot is undermined by Data’s desire to be human – desire being an emotional state.
Except Datas child was not a perfect reproduction of him at all. He did not simply copy himself and the result was an android of both different external gender and personality.
From a moral standpoint a being exhibiting as much evidence of sentience as Data should be treated as a sentient being until proven otherwise. Picard’s final argument re: slavery may have been week, but his point that Data displays all the elements of autonomous sentience is not.
Even setting aside sexual and familial love, Data pretty clearly loves his friends. The kind of love that’s not sexual or familial is often overlooked, but I do not consider it any less love for that.
Yeah, even Wesley, which is so beyond comprehension it must come from higher level sentience.
Except he can’t be — his creator couldn’t make exact copies of him, and nor could he when he tried. The best Data could do were provide memory ingrams to B4, but those are more akin to super accurate memoirs than copies of his own consciousness.
Data is super smart, not super wise.
One thing you left out of your story was that Data only refused the procedure when he learned that the chance of his personality being lost were extremely high. Facing the prospect of existential destruction Data chose to protect himself.
Of Mr. Data, I can only say this: of all the souls I have encountered watching Star Trek, his was the most… human.
How can we know that this wasn’t merely a programming feature which Dr. Soong entered as part of Data’s firmware? A self-preservation subroutine.
A machine designed to fool humans into believing it was human would act that way.
This is a conceit of the writers. The replicators are capable of producing (3D printing?) complex structures down to the molecular level. (Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.) With the scanning technology available to Starfleet they could copy Data down to the atom.
Gah … really wish I had a copy of 2061 by Clarke handy. There’s a great quote in the beginning when the scientist is trying to defend HAL as having emotions. Something like “it is certainly possible that HAL is only acting emotionally because he was programmed to act emotionally. But perhaps you are only acting emotionally because you were programmed to.”
The transporters can do that all matter, including living organism too — so either no one is alive in TNG and beyond, or the ability to be recreated at the molecular level is irrelevant to whether things are alive or not.
Tasha Yar,”Oh you wonderful machine!”
Clearly, as we see with Commander Riker with his unfortunate transporter bifurcation. The transporter and replicator are deus ex machina however.
There is never a question as to Riker’s sentience and being alive though.
My point exactly — if people can be reproduced down to the molecule and we don’t worry about whether they are people, then Data’s ability to be reproduced down to the molecule is irrelevant to the discussion of whether he’s a person.
That which is dead can never die.
Data clearly isn’t dead in any of these incidents and his machine nature shines through particularly in “Time’s Arrow” when his head travels through time to be reunited with his body.
Part of the problem is that Data’s actions and statements undermine the idea that “pre-Lore Emotion Chip Data” is actually an emotionless robot. An emotionless robot would be more like the Enterprise’s main computer – an affable but indifferent machine.
What is “transporter” technology other than downloading a person into data, and then uploading to a new location?
It could be argued that you die every time you use the transporter. Surely ethicists would have objected to its use on metaphysical grounds because you are killing the person in one spot and recreating them in another. What of the soul of the person whom you’ve killed? Do you now have a soulless golem wandering the universe?
I jest, of course… but only slightly.
The problem with basing moral judgments about humanity on … much as I love it … a TV fictional series that was usually poorly-written … is that it presents artificial scenarios as if they were facts.
The premise of this debate is whether you can base the definition of “humanity” strictly on intelligence. Is humanity merely intelligence? You really don’t need Star Trek to have that discussion, and Star Trek really doesn’t present any new “facts” to further the arguments one way or another.
Allow me to apply this argument to IBM’s Watson. Jeopardy! Champion Watson lacks a robotic physical presence a la Data, but under this heading, should we ever shut off Watson? We could be killing it.
My argument is “yes.” Watson can pass the Turing Test if instructed to do so but it lacks critical features of being alive. Most notably: it is a machine which will function the same way if we turn it back on as if we had never turned it off. It isn’t alive and the normal ethical considerations need not apply.
Perhaps a more rigorous test for personhood is required, but Data clearly doesn’t cross that bar either.
I didn’t realize the amount of emotional connection that people had with Mr. Data! Incidentally, I like him too, but I wouldn’t like him nearly as much if he weren’t Brent Spiner.
Or is a body and soul like the air split by an airplane wing — they naturally try to rejoin each other by some unexplained process?
Star Trek metaphysics are really messed up — the product of writers who don’t understand science or philosophy, and it’s no surprise that their inconsistencies and poor thinking create problems. But you’ve yet to supply evidence for Data’s lack of personhood that doesn’t equally apply to lifeforms universally agreed on to be persons. Is Odo not a person? Are not mentally ill who struggle with understanding and expressing emotion? Are not humans with fertility issues or genetic defects they do not wish to pass to their children?
Data is a person because he can conceptualize himself as an individual and express that conceptualization to other people. In the absence of clear evidence he is actively being controlled by another person to do that, I say as people we must give him the benefit of the doubt.
What level of autonomy are you going to say is the threshold for being a person?
You know that you are a person because you’re capable of saying “I think therefore I am” – something that each of us can do as well.
Ignoring the various deus ex machina problems introduced by the show which obviate the problem and directly addressing Data’s alleged personhood, the strongest argument I think that can be made in favor of the fact that he is not a person is that Data can simply be shut off without consequence. He can then be turned back on, which implies that he is controlled by the humans around him.
People and biological entities can’t be shut off. That’s called killing. But Data is different. You can shut him off, disassemble him, reassemble him and turn him back on and he would be none the worse for the wear, just like Watson. It’s just that in this case, Watson can walk around autonomously and is cleverly designed to provide humans with the comfort they need to communicate with a machine as if it were a person.
It’s called anesthesia and surgery. Turning people off is certainly a bit trickier than turning Data off, and some folks (i.e. Michael Jackson) don’t get turned back on again, but is the fact that it’s done with chemicals instead of an off button really that much different?
While we’re not quite able to reattach every severed limb, we’re making enormous strides on that front. And I’m not sure how better to describe heart surgery than turning someone off, cutting open their chest to take out the faulty parts, installing new ones (mechanical machinery or spare human or pig parts), reassembling the rib cage as best as possible, and turning someone back on.
We can even revive the dead, for a given value of dead, just as Data can be reassembled and turned back on, for a given value of reassembled. (I don’t think even the Federation can piece him together after the explosion in Nemesis.)