Re: Data's progeny

["Judith Rosen" <***>]

Hi Dan,

Actually, Data DID create an "offspring", using his own neural net as a
model or something along those lines. He let the "child" choose what gender
and appearance appealed most, and it turned out to be a daughter, that Data
named Lal, I think. There was a fatal flaw, though, and I can't remember the
details because I didn't watch the whole thing-- it was too upsetting. I
think Star Fleet wanted to confiscate her, or something to that effect, and
the stresses sent her into some sort of cascade failure and she "died'. It
was a real bummer of an episode because of that. Everybody started to care
about her.

The example of Data isn't really the kind of example my father saw being
generated via his theoretical work. Data is more like a very complicated
machine with artificial intelligence inside it. His body isn't alive,
really. But his consciousness is. It's fiction! I think my father's
speculative "artificial organism" was more along the lines of a single
celled organism, in terms of complexity. I can't be sure though. He was very
cagey about it, because the potential harm was so great.

Judith

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Fiscus" <***>
To: <***>
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2003 11:25 AM
Subject: Re: [ROSEN] Free-will, interdependence


> Judith,
>
> I think these are different issues, but maybe I nitpick:
>
> Judith Rosen wrote:
>
> > A blow to the back of the human head where it joins the neck is
> > quite capable of rendering any living human as unconscious and
> > inert as Data was after Riker hit the "off button", for example.
>
> This is damage, destruction of internal structure/organization - not
> just removing link to necessary inputs. This would be like taking a
> sledgehammer to a computer more than unplugging. Not as loaded
> an example, for me.
>
> > Therefore, the fact that you could unplug a computer and turn it
> > off doesn't really prove that whatever "intelligence" we can creat
> > artificially is less than a human's. Human beings are as dependent
> > on oxygen as any computer is on electricity.
>
> But that oxygen is supplied not by inert surroundings, but by our
> "better half" and required co-bionts - autotrophic plants. Individual
> heterotrophic organisms are perhaps more like machines in the
> ways you describe, but life as a whole (ecosystemic teams, loops)
> have internalized plugs into physical context in complementary
> ways - plants "plug in" to animals (we produce the CO2 they need)
> and vice versa. Life as a whole plugs in to the physical environs in
> ways that to me are not simple like a computer's power plug, but
> are complex and self-referential.
>
> But still, maybe the stronger value of my example of using the
> existence of a simple, mechanical power plug (or your simple
> mechanical on/off switch for Data) comes not when the machine
> stops and is inert, but in the fact that unplugging (switching off)
> and replugging again does not harm the machine, but is impossible
> for an organism or life as a whole (ecosystem), beyond a certain
> threshold (like 5-10 minutes of no oxygen and human life ends).
> This goes back to the issues of entanglement with time and also
> fractionability of parts from whole and the relative effects of
> "stopping time" for machines (no big deal) vs life (very big deal).
> Oddly, what seems like a liability (entangled interdependence
> with time) is actually a key feature and strength of life. In the
> same way that it depends on continuous, unbroken time stream,
> it is able to extend itself forward into that same stream in ways
> that separable, time-fractionable machines cannot (and I think
> never will). Can Data create progeny to carry on his form of life?
>
> Dan