SF Debris: Quality of Life

[Captain Seafort]

Link

Definitely one of Chuck's better reviews, although I'd give the episode a six rather than five, on the grounds that I think the pieces for something as great as Measure of a Man were all there - they just weren't assembled properly. I also have a bit of an issue with the use of the term "life", and Chuck's unquestioning acceptance of it, although he does touch on it with his suggested separation of various forms of "life", and the notion of varying degrees of importance.

The exocomps aren't alive. Neither is Data. They're lumps of metal which can be switched on and off, disassembled and reassembled at will. The real question is whether they're sapient and/or sentient. Are they capable of internally-generated objectives, or do they simply identify the optimum methods of achieving externally-generated ones. Even by the end of the episode, I'm not sure the exocomps demonstrate this.

[Mikey]

I think you're concentrating on a niggling trifle rather than the real picture. "Life" in this case just happens to be a convenient shorthand or vernacular for "sentient or sapient self-motivating machines, whether or not organic in origin." That seems to be pretty much a given in this conversation.