Re: 'Bot Food...

From: Matt Penna <mpenna_at_vivanet.com>
Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 15:42:34 -0400

>AH here is the part that gets tecnical. The possibliity is that Robotization
>replaces certain senses with Robotic counterparts (eyes with optic sensors,
>ears with audio recptors, ect.) Look at Commander Data from the Star Trek:
>TNG series.

Here's another thing. Any of you trekkers on the list (I know that at least
SOME of you must be! ;) would probably remember that Data could not "taste"
things until the movie, Generations. In an episode of the series, the little
boy that he befriended (Timothy) asked him, "How does it taste? Is it good?"
And Data replied, "I cannot 'taste' things in the manner you suggest." He
needed the emotion chip in order to interpret the taste and decide whether
it was pleasurable or not.

Now, getting back to the 'bot question, does this mean that the worker bots
actually possess some range of emotions? Assuming you keep the Star Trek
parallel, emotions would be necessary to interpret the taste of something as
good, bad, bitter, sweet, whatever. Making another reference to Trek, Data
verbally analyzed the dessert that he was drinking. However, since he had
never 'tasted' anything before, he was unable to translate that analysis
into some kind of emotional response. He left it simply as, "The complex
polysaccharides...combined with the carbon dioxide..." With Uncle Chuck, he
might have analyzed the chili dog in the same way (Analyzed its sugar, fat,
and protien content) and translated that into tasting good. The only reason
that he would be able to do this is because he had felt the emotion in the
past, and would know what constitutes something that tastes 'good' or 'bad.'

One other possibility being that Uncle Chuck was just putting Sonic on, and
only said what he did because it was something that would be expected, and
he was being polite. (Haven't seen the ep in question, so I can't really
comment further.)

This probably ties back to the entire free will discussion all over again.
Free will is tied to emotions, as well, I suppose.


-Matt Penna
E-mail: mpenna_at_vivanet.com
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Received on Thu May 30 1996 - 15:50:14 PDT