Does anybody know the answers?

Dude OMG I Moon Girl O_O

PLEASE don't go back to look at it nor get near it in any way.

Seriously, I may die of guilt if you get rabies because of me. Seriously. Don't go investigate any bat like thing, ok? Can we both agree to just...stay inside and away from bats?

Like, seriously I Moon Girl , guilt is the worst thing for me, Ok? Like...the WORST WORST thing.

I have this big phobia that I have/will cause something terrible to happen to someone...so, if you went and put your face all up close and personal to a bat corpse because of my bat anecdote... like...guilt is going to come and stab me in the heart and I will worry about your well being to...like... an extremely excessive degree, every day for the rest of my life ok?

Have we not learned enough from Milburn and Oram, to not mess around with weird wild things...??

OMG, please be safe out there I Moon Girl, please be safe or I am seriously going to cry.

Did you put your face near the dead bat? PLEASE DON'T PUT YOUR FACE NOR ANY PART OF YOUR BODY NEAR THE DEAD BAT! I am worried about you now.

Ever heard of Sum 41?  It's the name of a bat disease because one of the member of the band Sum 41 died because of it.  That's him on the cover.  He later died.  True story!  He got that because the bat's decaying odor got in his eyes.  

I just remembered that fact after your last comment.

::sigh:: I could be trouble.

Okay.  I am just kidding!  Seriously!  I didn't touch the bat, but I did look closely at it just for me to be sure.  I wan't anywhere near touching it.  Don't worry.  I will be fine.

Lol! Aahhh...don't scare me I Moon Girl , I'm already quite traumatized as it is! Since the bat incident I've been huddled up in bed with my dismembered Bishop doll (who I rather like, because he looks as panicked as I normally feel - even when I've not been scratched by a bat). I go for my second rabies shot tomorrow T_T

As for Walter, I don't think his emotions are a defect and I don't think him developing feelings for Daniels was specifically triggered by his interaction with David.

Emotions are just...internal processes that cause one to gravitate toward or avoid certain experiences.

I think the synthetics are programmed to have emotions, albeit emotions that are generally useful for their programming.

It's much the same with humans - we evolved to have emotions that typically increase our chances of survival.

Our emotions usually cause us to do things that are safe and avoid things that are unsafe.

Android emotions (usually) cause them to do things that protect and serve humans and avoid thing that harm humans.

But, just like humans can make errors (fear evolved because it may cause us to avoid danger, but in some specific circumstances it may paralyze us from taking action to save ourselves, etc. )

Androids can also make errors - emotions that normally cause them to serve and protect humans (emotions like caring for humans, anger towards entities who endanger humans, etc.) could cause them to take the wrong course of action in specific circumstances.  

Walter is programmed by imperfect beings and he is imperfect. He is complex and made a miscalculation. I think all Walters are capable of emotion though, and in most normal circumstances their emotions probably make them charming and useful to their owners.

Wasn't the Walter model rid of human emotions?  That's how I remembered it in the movie at least, but I could be wrong.  Something similar is described on p.208-209.  It seems in the novel, Walter's are not to be made so sophisticated and independent in thinking.  They are not allowed to create either, according to David.  There is a sentence on those pages that is interesting. "Walter's response was delivered without the slightest hint of emotion. He was simply stated a fact."  Plus, Walter doesn't believe that he loves Daniels.  It's simply duty to him (p.218).  He knows what love is too, so he might be able to recognize what that feels like.  I believe Walter when he was saying that he was just doing his duty.  It makes sense.  Bishop did his duty in Aliens.  Bishop and Walter seem to be similar.  Ash is probably similar too, but he was just corrupted.

I gotta get to bed now. Maybe I'll add more another day to this thread.

This is a good discussion, I Moon Girl .

I disagree with you though. I think Walter lacks creativity and independence, but not emotion.

The book lists several of his affinities and aversions. I don't think one can have affinities and aversions without experiencing emotions.

I'd like to look up page numbers and get back to you with citations (but I'm not promising anything, because I don't want to jinx myself again!) off-hand, I recall that he likes:

the sound of his own voice, to keep himself busy, the green-house, whistling, and the fact that Mother is programmed to be polite to him even though he is a synthetic.

He dislikes: a sense of helplessness.

He "felt good" about sweeping Daniels' hair out of her face (and questioned whether he felt good because he had served or because of a specific attachment to her.

I also recall, (despite no humans being present) he "smiled reflexively" when Daniels smiled in her sleep, also symptomatic of emotion.

The line that you mention, where Walter states "But we're not 'alive'" without the slightest hint of emotion doesn't mean that he never experiences emotion, he just doesn't resent being 'not alive' and it is not an emotional topic for him. He is not aspirational like David. He doesn't mind that he is made to serve humans, he's programmed to be satisfied with that lot in life.  

Bishop also displayed emotion - he was averse to going on a potentially suicidal mission stating something along the lines of "Believe me, I'd prefer not to. I may be synthetic but I'm not stupid". Bishop also pretty clearly exhibits some kind emotion when he's being ripped apart by the xeno queen (it seemed like pain or fear, either of which is logical to program into an android, or it will sustain a lot of damaged from not avoiding harmful situations). 

I am going to bed too. This is a good topic, and I hope we get to pick it back up sometime, without any further calamities happening in the interim! ...<_<

David is quoted in saying, "I understand human emotions, although I do not feel them myself.  This allows me to be more efficient and capable, and makes it easier for my human counterparts to interact with me."  This was in the David interview Prometheus commercial that I found on youtube.com.  Walter was made to be even more efficient and less free-thinking so that they will operate within their programming.  I don't know why they would allow a Walter model to feel emotions even though they would understand them.

By the way, I like reading your analysis of the story.  Very descriptive and interesting.  This is a good discussion!

Hello I Moon Girl !

Don't worry, the delay wasn't caused by another close encounter with your Antoinette! Last night I wanted to log on, but my computer spent what seemed like forever, doing updates. ...I guess I have to let my computer do routine maintenance like that once in a while though...or it could turn into a murderous psychopath <_<

This is a good discussion! Androids and emotions, it is an interesting thought exercise! Ok, here's what I think about the whole thing...

"David is quoted in saying, 'I understand human emotions, although I do not feel them myself.  This allows me to be more efficient and capable, and makes it easier for my human counterparts to interact with me.'"

Yes, David says that. He also cheekily adds the word "emotional" to describe himself at the very end of the commercial ;-) Plus, he's not exactly the most trustworthy fellow. Despite the fact that he says he doesn't experience emotions, his actions in Prometheus and Covenant would certainly seem to indicate otherwise, wouldn't they?

Plus, if you look here at some Weyland-Yutani promotional materials: https://imgur.com/gallery/WqQhd and scroll down to the 14th image (with David sitting criss-cross on the floor in front of a green marble wall), among the bullet points we see "Fear Center Safety Program (Can Be Disabled)."

This indicates Weyland-Yutani gives their androids responses that are at least analogous to human emotions and serve similar purposes. 

The Weyland-Yutani promotion goes on to say "David 8 can record, process, understand and express many complex emotions, but he will never know true human feelings such as love, grief and compassion".

I think this is an assertion that Weyland-Yutani cannot make with any certainty.

I think it's impossible to create something analogous to or in mimicry of human emotions and know for sure that you haven't created the real deal.

The internal experience of human emotions cannot be observed or quantified. We can only define emotions by the observable behaviors associated with them.

You can only assume that another being has a similar internal experience to your own, because his behaviors and reactions are similar to yours.

You probably assume that if someone repeatedly seeks a specific experience they probably enjoy that experience. If someone avoids a specific experiences, it probably causes them suffering. 

The brain of a human being is a physical and chemical thing and emotions are physical and chemical processes.

Weyland-Yutani has built a physical, chemical processor whose output is very similar to that of a human brain.

Despite what Weyland-Yutani's intentions might be, I think they are presumptuous to say for sure that the androids are not experiencing emotions.

Natural selection has programmed humans with aversions and affinities useful to our survival.

Weyland-Yutani has programmed their androids with aversions and affinities useful to the service of mankind.

Well programmed androids, like Bishop and Walter, find serving humans to be a reinforcing experience (one they seek to repeat) and letting humans come to harm an aversive experience (one they wish to avoid). I think that these affinities and aversions unequivocally constitute emotion (especially since we can only identify emotions in others by their observable symptoms). 

Walter is different to David in many ways. He is a lot less human-like than David, but I don't think it's due to a lack of emotions. He is devoid of ambition and creativity but not emotion. He is content with servitude, which David and most human beings would not be.

Emotion isn't what makes androids unstable. Poorly programmed androids just experience the wrong emotions in response to the wrong stimuli.

Badly designed androids (like David) seem to find harming humans reinforcing, and performing service to humans aversive. That is not the sort of robot one would want to have around.

One whose emotions are opposite would be pretty stable and helpful, though.

Nicely put VivisectedEngineer :)

@Lawrence of Arabia

Thank you! ...I've probably devoted way to much of my life to thinking about androids, lol.

While you present some great points, but as I read your post, I couldn’t help but question it.  I don’t think about androids very much, so I am in no way thinking that I am right in my post, but I thought I would just share what’s on my mind with you.  Also, I found your link to David 8 promotional material VERY interesting.  I thank you for sharing that with me.  It was well presented and informative.  VERY GOOD STUFF!!!

Okay, so….with an android, we can actually know what the android is thinking.  Humans are developing technology today which can read human thoughts and transfer that thought to an action that would imitate that motion the original thought intended.  For example, paralyzed people can move a cursor across a screen by only using their brain.  This technology would probably be similar to an android.  Someone would make a computer "brain" and transfer those ideas to motions.  The technology we have is very early in it's "life".

I could see the David in Prometheus exhibiting emotion because, after all, that David is the personal David of Mr. Peter Weyland.  I think he could be comfortable living with a David 8 with more customization because he thinks he is like a god or something.  That is probably where David got his "I am a god" attitude from.  Life father, like "son".  I don't know, but I wouldn't doubt the David we see in Prometheus is a special David just for Weyland.  Plus, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the human traits of the surrounding people, not including Weyland, rubbed off on David.  Like love, for example from Halloway and Shaw.  David has been “alive” for a long time when we see him in Prometheus, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he had some surprises in his actions for us.  I am sure he has learned a lot since he was first built.

I think David adds the "emotional" to the interview because he is much more capable of interacting with human beings because of his emotion mapping.  That doesn't mean he can experience emotions, but he knows how to deal with emotions outside of himself from people much more efficiently and properly than previously before.  Thus, he has become less robotic and more human-like.  "like" being the key word.  So he adds at the end, the word “emotional”, because he can properly deal with the emotions of humans around him.

The Weyland-Yutani promotion goes on to say "David 8 can record, process, understand and express many complex emotions, but he will never know true human feelings such as love, grief and compassion".

I don't see how a android could feel "love, grief, or compassion" unless it was programmed to understand that emotion or unless it was allowed to learn emotions from many experiences.  What I am saying is, I don’t see how a robot could develop the chemicals not put in it to feel love on it’s own.  I am no scientist, so maybe love uses similar chemicals when comparing to other emotions David feels (if he feels).  I am sure Weyland Co. would pick chemicals for some emotions that the android wouldn’t get confused with thinking, “that’s what love feels like,” but maybe they had no choice and had to use them.  I think in humans the feeling of love comes from endorphins.  I could be wrong, but I am not going to fully research it because it is complicated. 

I think it would do a simple diagnostic test on the androids “brain” to easily see what it is thinking or feeling.  The same goes for humans.  The person doing the test just needs to know what to look for.  For androids, they would have to also look for things that the android could be feeling but shouldn’t just to be safe and to cover the company’s rear end.  I am sure Weyland Co. did their due-diligence; otherwise, they wouldn’t have been in business to make a David 8.  Apparently Weyland Co. isn’t the only android maker after reading around, so with multiple businesses research the same problems to make money, I am sure they are all trying to do their best.

There is this device which was developed which can detect a person’s emotions using wireless signals and is 87% accurate.  By measuring subtle changes in breathing and heart rhythm, this device is claimed to be able to detect if a person is excited, happy, angry, or sad and can do so without on-body sensors.  I am no scientist, but I bet they could do a much better analysis with on-body sensors and increase the accurate percentage.  The wireless sensors could be something the androids we know in the Alien franchise use, but just better.  I am sure in the time period of David 8 and Prometheus, the technology development could easily be finished and in its perfect form.  Especially since there are androids released which can interact with human emotions.  If Weyland Co. understands the chemical processor and how it works, they will know how to understand if that android is feeling emotions.  For example, people have developed devices which can know if a human is feeling an emotion and this amazing task is done on a body that we humans did not create.  If we humans can create an android body and mind, I am sure we would know how to understand how to read it’s emotions through a computer.  We can do that with ourselves, so why not with something we actually created (down to the smallest piece).

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160921093924.htm

“You probably assume that if someone repeatedly seeks a specific experience they probably enjoy that experience. If someone avoids a specific experiences, it probably causes them suffering.”

I don’t believe that since there is this thing that bothers me everyday and I do nothing to change.  I hate this thing, but I do nothing.  I even think that if people look at me, would they assume I have no interest in that thing.  I think they might or might not, but the truth is, I have a VERY strong interest in that thing.  The problem is I don’t know how or I can’t solve it.  It’s complicated, so I’ll just leave it there.  I know that just because someone doesn’t do something for a short time or over a long time doesn’t mean that they do not enjoy that thing because that thing could be on their mind a lot. 

As you describe Walter and Bishop having emotions, I might agree, but as Weyland Co. has claimed, the David 8 cannot feel love, grief, or compassion, so Walter should not be able to fall in love with Daniels.  He knows what love is, but doesn’t actually feel it.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he could play the part of a lover and we may or may not notice; that’s if he thought it should be done of course.  I am sure it would be a logical decision.  In Alien: Covenant, David thinks he knows what love feels like, but he is all over the place in his kissing.  He isn’t very good at deciding to kiss at the right moments.  I mean, he JUST met Daniels and now he’s kissing her on the lips some hours later.  Maybe David is a slut?  Probably not… He is probably just trying to understand what love feels like.  I guess he thinks if he can do the moves at the right time, then he must know what love feels like or something.

I am not to sure what to think though about emotions and androids.  You introduced me to a lot of new information and I thank you for that.

Hello I Moon Girl !

I've just noticed your response and this is a placeholder reply to let you know that I intend to reply in the near future! This is a good and though provoking conversation!

But, as it is, I'm on a beach vacation, which is somehow a lot more exhausting than it sounds, so I'm sort of asleep on my feet right now.

I very inattentively read what you wrote, and I can tell that it is something interesting and well thought out, and something that I would enjoy thinking about when I am awake enough to process it.

In the mean time, please enjoy this completely irrelevant image of the dismembered Bishop plush. This isn't a picture of my Bishop plush, but I have the exact one. Didn't bring him along on my trip, though.

Haha, cool.  I like the Bishop doll.  I guess something that cool could only be found online.

Thanks for the rain check post!  I'm going to have to show Antoinette that picture!

I will be patiently waiting for your in depth analysis.

Hello I Moon Girl !

I had an excellent beach vacation, and an excellent Alien themed birthday! I'll post some photos soon!

I think all the info you gave about new ways of detecting people's emotions is very interesting and I would like to learn more about that!

"I don’t believe that since there is this thing that bothers me everyday and I do nothing to change."

I am curious about that and I think I can relate. Still, I believe in situations like that, we must still find the effort needed to change the situation more slightly aversive than the situation itself.

And, while Androids might not have the exact same neurotransmitters as us, I think we can't be sure that there aren't other chemicals and processes which can arrive at the same result. 

Actually, I've realized that this issue of trying to conceptualize the emotions and internal experiences of others is a problem that has been close to my heart from a young age.

Because I'm high functioning Autistic, many things that come naturally to most people have never been intuitive for me. My father and my occupational therapists had to explicitly teach me the right emotional reaction to each situation and how to display that reaction.

It's long left me wondering whether I'm actually feeling the appropriate emotions or just pantomiming them.

I also can't help but stand by my position that emotions are subjective and we can only know for certain what our own feel like. We can know what other's look like, through their behaviors or on an fMRI... but we can only know what our own feel like.

A long time ago I realized that this could lead to a sort of solipsistic view of things which I feared could lead me to sociopathic behavior.

I'm mostly only able reason in simplistic, black and white, rule-based terms. So, seventeen years ago, when I was 14, I made up a value system or rule for myself that was meant to prevent me from ever lapsing into solipsism and sociopathic behavior!

I needed a definition of sentience/self-awareness/emotions/suffering that didn't risk 1)excluding me or 2) excluding everyone but me.

So, I set my definitions of sentience to be extremely broad (broad enough to include animals and insects, instantly leading me to become vegetarian).

And, apparently also broad enough to include Androids.

My position might not be adaptive for everyone, but it's not something I'm likely to change my opinion on, as I'm suddenly realizing that it's pretty integral to my ethical reasoning.

My view on Android emotions might be in error, but I'm not going to examine that possibility too closely because then I may have to throw out my entire model of sentience which would likely lead to even bigger errors. 

And...maybe part of my bias also comes from the fact that... I've always had a sort of soft spot for Androids. I can usually relate to them more than any other characters! :)

(Also, if you are looking for the dismembered Bishop doll, I got mine on Amazon! I think he was like...$15. Lately, I set him on the bathroom counter whenever I'm having morning sickness. He always makes me feel a little better because, as crappy as I might feel, at least I'm not ripped in half by a Xeno queen.)