The man who came up with the default test for intelligence didn't come up with a test for emotional responses. In "Blade Runner" the test for "replicants" is based on physiological responses for emotion.
The biggest problem is that it is clear that "replicants" do in fact have emotions based on the very premise of the movie. And knowing what we know about the range of emotions in "normal" people, it is clear that looking for "abnormal" is a lot trickier than thirty to forty questions about turtles on their backs or a child's butterfly collection.
Now there are "universal responses" in humans. Anger, fear, and unease all have certain physiological signs. However these are hardly a way to test for humanity, given that those base responses truly are universal. If somehow the replicants were not genetically engineered beings (and the conversation between Roy and Tyrell makes it clear that they are) then approach taken by Blade Runners to identify replicants would be valid.
Unfortunately that is not the case. On the flip side, it makes for more interesting viewing than seeing Decker take a blood sample to identify by genetics. Much more dialogue with the flawed test.
The real question is where we draw the line about humanity. As the character Rachel showed, with an emotional framework even a replicant could provide the "correct" responses to the emotional stimulus test. However, that damned genetic test makes the whole premise of a replicant passing as a human a moot point.
In a broader context "Blade Runner" and "Millenium Man" are almost the same movie. What truly makes us human, and what truly makes humanity worthy to lord over it's own creations. If you liked "Blade Runner", consider watching "Appleseed" to see the flip side of the premise, what happens when the synthetic beings are in charge?
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3 comments:
This was an interesting comment on the topic of identifying insanity:
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2011/01/10/requiem-for-a-dream/#comment-137684
Also, read The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout. I read that about 4 years ago so my memory is cloudy, but I think it is the MRI test that might be usable for identifying sociopaths. When interviewed by a psychologist and asked a question about how they would react given an emotionally-laden situation which the psychologist presents to them, the lobe of the brain used for logical analysis is activated in a sociopath, while the lobe used for emotional reactions is activated in a normal person. This is because a sociopath, who knows he/she is different and must hide his/her lack of a conscience from the rest of us, has to think over how an ordinary person would react to such a situation so that he/she can provide the "right" answer.
This is a pretty rough summary of what Stout presented. I recommend the book highly.
Daniel K Day
There is no such thing as a perfect test. To say that using an MRI and questioning might be useful is one thing, and I tend to agree that it would help single out socioupaths.
BUT....this is simply comparing a "normal" brain with "emotional function" to brains that do not exhibit "normal" function.
So it would identify people who lie on the Autism spectrum, and people who who are highly analytical.
One person's "emotional question" is another persons logic puzzle.
The rate of false positives to false negatives would be very interesting to see. As true sociopaths are relatively rare and people on the Autism spectrum are continuing to grow in number.
I hope you don't mind another comment on this semi-buried thread.
Thanks to John Venlet, I just found another post mentioning the role of brain damage in one's ability to reason ethically.
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/10/ethics-trolley-problem/
To save time, you can search for
"ventromedial prefrontal cortex"
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