MovieChat Forums > Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) Discussion > Sentient?

Sentient?

posted 17 years ago by roger-main
9 replies | jump to latest

Was Colossus sentient?

One article I ready about the remake assumed this to be the case. The central computer in The Terminator was sentient (the dialog told us: "became self-aware on [some date]) but even this could be argued that the computer was not actually sentient but was bug ridden as was the case with Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Hal was probably not sentient. Dave Bowman said he didn't know if anyone could know but also said that Hal mimicked human behaviour which made him "appear" sentient. In 2010 it was revealed that Hal was following his programming but that the consequences of his programming were not foreseen.

One thing that Dr Chandra points out in 2010 is that computers are very literal. This is so true as anyone who has tried to program one knows. Often I hear programmers exclaim "do what I mean, not what I say."

Well, the programmers of Hal told him not to reveal to the crew of Discovery what their mission was and finally had to resort to the ultimate solution to keep the secret. Joshua, in Wargames, was programmed to play games and so it played a game.

Colossus and Guardian were programmed to prevent war. They were preventing war by controlling the perpetrators of war as they "saw" it: the human race. Any programmer knows that a single bug can cascade into an unpredictable series of disasterous consequences. Can anyone tell me that a bug in a computer that has been programmed with a litany of complex heuristic algorithms could not cascade into a series of disasterous consequences that, by our own human reckoning, could resemble sentience?

Assuming this were the case, could you say that the computer was actually sentient? I think 2001/2010 handles this argument quite nicely.

Thus, the crucial question becomes not "was Colossus sentient" but are we sentient and not, in our own biological way, malfunctioning machines?

[–] cinetics 16 years ago

If by 'sentient', you mean "aware of one's own existence", then, judging from Colossus's closing statement to Forbin, I would say yes, and so much more; "In time, you will come to regard me not only with respect and awe, but with love."

[–] eblocced 16 years ago

Which, in the books, Forbin does

There is a religious movement around the *beep* thing

[–] will7370 15 years ago

How do we know humans are sentient? Or maybe a better question is: How do YOU know everyone else in the world is sentient? Maybe everyone but you is just a clever prop in a massive universal lab where YOU alone are being tested to see how you perform.

[–] nbreyfogle-1 13 years ago

Tested by whom? Myself? Otherwise, there is indeed other sentience: whoever or whatever is testing me.

[–] fani (371) 2 years ago

That's the question since dawn of human consciousness. The answer is "I think therefore I am".

This answers the ques that you do exist in a reality and are self aware.
Because for something to ask if it exists, means it must exist in the first place to ask that question and usage of "am I" in the question means self awareness aka sentience.

Thus if Colossus is asking about its safety then it is self aware and exists too.

[–] nbreyfogle-1 13 years ago

First, define "sentience."

[–] will7370 13 years ago

Sentient is being "self-aware". I know that I exist, because I am experiencing it for myself. But I do NOT know if others are like me---self aware---or whether they are just props put in place to act around me in perhaps some giant universal lab that is testing me.

[–] nbreyfogle-1 13 years ago

Then, according to the novels and the film, Colossus was certainly sentient. No question.

[–] raf-33 10 years ago

Colossus was sapient like us, dogs and starfish are sentient, mixing these up is a staple of sci-fi. When Jean-Luc Picard calls a large floating blob in space a sentient being for accidentally eating a research outpost he is correct, when he calls an alien that he's been talking to for half an hour sentient he is also correct, but hugely underestimating it's intelligence and ability to think.

Sentient beings are aware of their surroundings, they can feel pain, experience emotions to differing degrees and react to stimulus. Sapient beings however think therefor they are, not only aware of their surroundings but also of themselves and their place in those surroundings. You can witness the moment a baby turns from sentient to sapient on the day that it finally realises the reflection in the mirror is actually itself and not another baby by placing something on it's cheek and seeing whether it touches the mirror or it's cheek. Mirrors were used to discover that Orangutans and Gorillas have limited sapience.

Sci-fi shows also like to refer to cryonics as cryogenics despite the fact we've had the latter technology for half a century and it'll likely be half a century before we master the former.

You don't know sh!t, Jon Snow!