Daystrom Institute

3451 readers

4 users here now

Welcome to Daystrom Institute!

Serious, in-depth discussion about Star Trek from both in-universe and real world perspectives.

Read more about how to comment at Daystrom.

Rules

1. Explain your reasoning

All threads and comments submitted to the Daystrom Institute must contain an explanation of the reasoning put forth.

2. No whinging, jokes, memes, and other shallow content.

This entire community has a “serious tag” on it. Shitposts are encouraged in Risa.

3. Be diplomatic.

Participate in a courteous, objective, and open-minded fashion. Be nice to other posters and the people who make Star Trek. Disagree respectfully and don’t gatekeep.

4. Assume good faith.

Assume good faith. Give other posters the benefit of the doubt, but report them if you genuinely believe they are trolling. Don’t whine about “politics.”

5. Tag spoilers.

Historically Daystrom has not had a spoiler policy, so you may encounter untagged spoilers here. Ultimately, avoiding online discussion until you are caught up is the only certain way to avoid spoilers.

6. Stay on-topic.

Threads must discuss Star Trek. Comments must discuss the topic raised in the original post.

Episode Guides

The /r/DaystromInstitute wiki held a number of popular Star Trek watch guides. We have rehosted them here:

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

williams_482@startrek.website

Equals@startrek.website

LibraryLass@startrek.website

khaosworks@startrek.website

The Federation should not have been surprised that their holograms developed sapience (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by T156@lemmy.world to c/daystrominstitute@startrek.website

13 comments fedilink hide all child comments

We already know from TOS that Mutlitronic computers are able to develop sapience, with the M-5 computer being specifically designed to "think and reason" like a person, and built around Dr Daystrom's neural engrams.

However, we also know from Voyager that the holomatrix of their Mk 1 EMH also incorporates Multitronic technology, and from DS9 that it's also used in mind-reading devices.

Assuming that the EMH is designed to more or less be a standard hologram with some medical knowledge added in, it shouldn't have come as a surprise that holograms were either sapient themselves, or were capable of developing sapience. It would only be a logical possibility if technology that allowed human-like thought and reasoning into a hologram.

If anything, it is more of a surprise that sapient holograms like the Doctor or Moriarty hadn't happened earlier.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Tired8281@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

TNG had the strong implication that holodeck technology was pretty new, in the first season, at least at that level of sophistication. The early holodeck appearances are practically gushing about how realistic and "real" they feel, in a way they really wouldn't be doing if they'd had that sophisticated stuff all their lives. If it was really only around at this level for a few years, it's understandable that they wouldn't be prepared for all the implications right away. Look how long it took for us to adjust to the printing press, and we're struggling with the internet right now.

[–] passinglurker@startrek.website 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

TNG had the strong implication that holodeck technology was pretty new, in the first season, at least at that level of sophistication.

It wouldn't be the first time TNG-1 would be retconned by DS9/VOY/ENT/TNG-3+ though. While less extreme It was a bit like the early DIS/PIC of its day.

[–] transwarp@startrek.website 6 points 1 year ago

Yeah, the first scene where Riker is in awe of the holodeck also says Data was in the class of 78, Riker is reluctant to accept Data's personhood (as initially planned), and since they hadn't introduced the replicators yet, Data describes the holodeck as using transporter tech in a way that sounds very clumsy and patronizing now.

After that they mostly stick to holodecks just being new on ships, and not usually controlled by a computer as sophisticated as the Enterprise's.