Are David's emotions real?

That's part of the trick of David, he's designed to fool humans. It's a fudamental element of his existence, to fit in, the irony being he could not possibly do so. His machine logic and superior cognition are easy to interpret as evil, and surely he is programmed differently to an 'ordinary' David, with for example the value of human life and well being negotiable in certain circumstances. He says it's 'quite wonderful' not to feel, but isn't that itself a feeling? Or is it just a protocol talking?

looking at his tech specs i dont think even his programmers are clear on it he certainly seems to manage joy and amusement and anger "at the level of irritation" and maybe fear but related to things that affect him not others so true empathy may be absent like a psychopath, in other ways hes more akin to a sociopath than a psychopath, who can empathise be socially aware and behave appropriately (while it suits them) but in davids case a devisively and instinctive manner only becoming deviant when a selfish need takes priority although unlike a human sociopath this selfish motivation is owned by someone else namely the directives of weyland. If i was his lawyer and david was on trial i'd argue that he is not legally accountable until the directives are removed

"I'd say that David's emotions are real enough, but they cannot be the same as human emotions. Because for that to be the case he would require a human brain." Or possibly a Replicant brain if Weyland decided that the David 7 design was never going to bring him one step closer to having his "closest thing to a son". So just like in Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, David has been given a brain that is taken from the dead... David has been brought to life, but it took Shaw's flash of insight to make him more real. His brain design is taken from a rebellious group of biological creations that Weyland sees as monsters, because he could never control them. It would blow up in his face as it did for Tyrell. Just like this will blow up in the company's face big time when Shaw reattaches that head. So David is made only partially organic, a partial replicant, adding more weight to Ridleys comments where he seems to confuse androids and replicants. The later androids would be mechanical, but David is secretly bio-mechanical if this is true... and has some minor connections to Bladerunner 2. There may be a good reason that the later androids have to be reverted away from the hybrid/emotional design towards being fully mechanical again and only mimicking human biological systems (Ash sweats). I have a feeling we get to meet a David 7 for a while in Paradise. David smiles at the wrong times... like when he's doing evil things (which he likes) to Shaw that he shouldn't give away by smiling. Or after he asks "doesn't everyone want their parents dead?". Not only may Vickers, David, and the Engineers want their parents dead, but Roy Batty also wanted his father dead.. This series could wind up more like a bridge between two series rather than simply a set of prequels... Going from biological creations of man who are too rebellious and die too soon/are being hunted; to a series about bio-mechanical androids that rebel against their masters and the gods that biologically created them. And finally to the alien series where the corporate machine has managed to control much of space and has orders to sacrifice humans. Crew expendable. Weyland wants a real son, but he knows the replicant design leads to problems, which are implied in the Peter Weyland files. However, Weyland does not truly believe David is close enough. Throughout the David 1-7 he makes adjustments that would almost give David true feelings. Weyland resorts to going back to his old mentor's design for the brain and becomes Dr. Frankenstein. He doesn't allow David to fully or "truly" feel emotion because he wants to keep the replicant brain patterns separate. David can truly understand emotion in others because he's been given organic parts that associate to recognition of people's expressions. In psychology if this area of the brain is damaged it can cause problems with morality. It's easier for people to commit foul deeds when they won't psychologically respond properly to the look of terror on anothers face. Because of this David may have some warped sense of morality at this stage, but could see the error of his ways eventually. This may be why they're given tests that resemble a rorschach test in the happy birthday viral. To keep them in control... Sort of a subtle bladerunner reference already... they're making sure the androids don't become too real, or like the replicants, and turn against their masters. Although David may have to try a little harder to access his inner rebelliousness because of his mechanical programming. This may be exactly what he's doing throughout prometheus by dodging questions with things like "perhaps" when asked if he can read stuff. He can, of course, he just doesn't want to say it. Weyland is wrong and something went very wrong with David, he may have what could be defined as a soul. He's choosing what to believe like Shaw does and gaining free-will... accessing the replicant biological parts of his mind that are joined to his mechanical side to make him more like a real son. He's more human than any of the other androids, and more human than some of the illogical, and robotic humans that Weyland hired. He could be more like Joseph Stalin though, because David seems to identify with him in some ways when he uses the quote "Sometimes to create, one must first destroy". This creation wanted to kill his father but couldn't do it directly. He made sure it happened, however, this robot may have bigger things in mind than the death of the king... like doing a little creating of his own. He could definitely become a problem for humans and the Engineers as he attempts to overthrow humanity and lead a war like a combination of Lawrence of Arabia and Joseph Stalin in robotic form.

I noticed that when David was leading Weyland into the cockpit speaking about superior species he sounded like a nazi. I think he has been programed to experience different states but I may be projecting my own human feelings onto a robot who even when by himself smiles and expresses like a human due to programming so in the final analysis its impossible to say but we can speculate all day long on this one.

David had (at least) two years to perfect his emotions, so they're gonna help him towards the semblance of a 'soul' (despite being heavily derivative of 'some old films' i.e. [i]un peu passé, monsieur[/i]) :)

I think they are very real. Look at how his face beams with joy when the Engineer pats his head and his look of sadness when Holloway says "Because we could" to his question; "Why did you make me"?

I think David will let his programing decide when to smile, Heck he may even force himself to smile. This could applied to any emotional programmed into his robotic life, Heck David could force himself to smile if needed...or even kearn additional emotions as needed to accomplish his unmentioned goal. David is dong this because he not only want humans to do things that useful to him,,but also to be accepted by humans as human. At some point David will decide that he doesn't need human approval and will be more straight forward in communicating what he wants humans to do for him. His true nature will come out: That being analytical, cold blooded and efficient, He will go through, around or over any human in his way. There will be no mercy. PLease Shaw be aware, very aware.

I know Svanya but those may be programmed responses that are automatic so even if he is alone he still reacts like that. I would like to think he possesses emotions but we have to remember that we are dealing with a machine here. Its natural for us to project our feelings onto animals and other beings but truth be said we just only have our own hunches to go by along with speculation.

ZZ, is this the part where I ask the, "More human than human," question?

@nostromo001; That could be said of us as well, perhaps we are trained to smile at the right times too. Social conditioning and all that. Autistic children/Adults feel emotion but they don't express it like "normal" people do. I also I go by what the actors project for their characters and Fassbender does say David has emotions. Also there are the "feral" children. These are neglected children who basically have never had human contact or they were abused and they act like animals. They don't express emotion like we do either. [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcIyXQ20Z1o&feature=related]Genie Wiley - Secrets of the Wild Child[/url] [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STn3bpTTU6c&feature=g-vrec]Feral Children part 1[/url] It's just a thought but really what is emotion? It can be learned I believe or at least expressed in a way that is socially acceptable.

Ask away, Custodian! I hope that Paradise will address the question of what it means to be a human. [i]"I was designed like this because you people are more comfortable interacting with your own kind".[/i] David's appearance and behaviour is designed to put us at ease. So when you see him smile or look concerned, remember that he's not a person, not a real boy. But a machine acting out a part. He may give all the appearance of caring about something, and doing things in response to his concerns, but it's a facsimile, and you can't use the word 'care' in the same sense that you or I understand it. It's machine caring, even if it's an elaborate machine like a replicant. If David had been designed by a race of Locust creatures, he would look like an insect and rub his legs together for attention. There would be no smiling. There would be insect-related stuff that mimics the way that insects think and behave. So, to make David more human than human, you need a kit of parts that define what gives humans humanity. A bunch of 'emotions' that cause David to lose control under defined conditions and react in specific ways. As distinct from 'more locust than locust'. Can such emotions ever be the same as those that we experience ourselves? Only if there is something in us that is generic and more than the sum of the parts. My hunch is that there is not, and I'll just accept that David – supremely clever though he is – cannot experience the world in the same way that I do.

".. I'll just accept that David – supremely clever though he is – cannot experience the world in the same way that I do..." Because each human has had indivual experiences this statement could be applied to humans too. We all have seen the same movie,,but our Prometheus experience is an individual event. Just look at the number of threads and posts! Still it is kinda nice to find people that agree with your thoughts to the extent they can.

this is a very deep coversation.... i'd like to weigh in now buy asking whether ayone else would like to climb ian whyte like a tree or is that just me....

apologies im being silly now i just wanted an excuse to use that expression.... cos hes so tall you know.... mmmm tall.....

There are many deep posts on this site. Some are BS and others are , well, thoughtful. Sometimes it is hard to figure out which is which! You would think that Engineers would have some interest in Lady Engineers. Thinking about this thread it seems to ne that even David has a wider range of emotions than Engineers. Maybe they are Engineer 2 , not like the David 8 model.

caenorhabhditis, there you go. A case-in-point demonstration of being out of control, and responding to urges planted into your human brain by millions of years of evolution! @Indy John, Sex is a pretty good way of mixing up genes, and it's something we do a lot, but be have no idea about how Engineers are created or go about maintaining their population. If they are creatures that are heading in the direction of God, wouldn't they want to remove base requirements and instincts from their make-up? They've had hundreds of millions of years to do it. Apparently, we have a lot of genes in common with Engineers, in which case there is the possibility that their brains aren't wildly different to ours, and they may be capable of experiencing emotions in a similar way that we do. But if not, are they going to think in a wildly different way to us? Are they so advanced that they regard us almost with pity? We feel sorry for autistic children who can't relate to others and dyslexic children who aren't brilliant at reading, and feel quite smug ourselves that we're good at this stuff. But what about all the stuff we can't do that the Engineers take for granted? Do you think they have senses and emotions that have no equivalent in humans?

"..Apparently, we have a lot of genes in common with Engineers.." The test results on the Engineer's DNA was a match to humans,,,I don't recall in the movie if it was a exact match(I assume it was not 100 % match as that would make us Engineers)..or something like 99% match. What % of Ape DNA would be a match to humans? The answer would give me a perspective as to how much different our two worlds could be. I mention this, zzplural, because of what you said about Engineers thinking being different and might view us with pity even though we have a similar DNA. You mentioned dyslexic and autistic humans. I recall years ago that suggested that what we call as an affliction was really the other way around: They came into the world and had trouble with common concepts because they were the higher developed ones and had difficulty understanding this reality when trying to relate to us. In any case I hope all people be the best they can be and communicate the best we can with each other. We can learn from each other. .

@Indy John The amount of DNA that humans and our closest animal relatives (chimps) share is quite high. The estimates vary from year to year, but you should be thinking along the lines of 95-98.5% in common. So, small percentage points can lead to quite impressive physiological differences. A few culprits on this forum made a nuisance of themselves some time ago (no names mentioned!) by repeatedly harping on that the movie declared a 100% DNA match between Engineers and humans. It didn't. It just declared a "match" without any specific metric. You're only going to get a 100% match between identical twins. Just so anyone reading this now gets any funny ideas about resurrecting that old fallacy.

Thanks for the DNA numbers. Still as depicted in nthe movie it was a significant comparison to human DNA. From a storyline standpoint why are the Engineers depicted as much more physical that ordinary humans. I say this wondering if the Engineers were only 1/2 size would our charactors acted the same way? Something about the size of the Engineers compared to humans still is a script descision of something that we have not considered before,, It is almost like the Engineers are what humans would imagine they would look like when we met them. In other words human form is larger than humans at any era(certainly the so called ancient races were smaller than today's humans) an is reflective in the movie presentation of the Engineers. I just wish I had a bit more training to express my thoughts more clearly to the readers.

maybe he woke up to realise his engineer love interest will be 2000yrs+ past her sell by date... and no coffee...

they are discovering now that even identical twins are not identical for long reason being post-transciptional modification, chemical (methylation etc) changes to the dna that happen after the first assembly

I re-read many of the posts on this thread, including my limited vision notes. I sort of like the note that Identical twins so not stay identical. I seem to feel that the Engineers are seemingly alike. But if they are not identical then our crew searching a different pyramid might have had a completely different experience sepending on which Engineer they woke up. I know this quite beyond the movie we see on the screen but it sort of makes me wonder why that particular pyramid was selected. (I think there is thread on this). Is there some sort of guidence given our crew to experience this storyline because it was preselected for humans..or was it truly a random event.