Data's Poetry:

[Kobayshi Maru]

The only complete poem that we know of is Ode To Spot:

Felis catus is your taxonomic nomenclature.
An endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature.
Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses
Contribute to your hunting skill and natural defenses.
I find myself intrigued by your sub-vocal oscillations.
A singular development of cat communications
That obviates your basic hedonistic predilection,
For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection.
A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents.
You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance.
And when not being utilized to aid in locomotion
It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotions.
Oh, Spot, the complex levels of behavior you display
Connote a fairly well developed cognitive array.
And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend
I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend.


It's actually quite good even though, it's kinda ripped off from the Modern Major-General's Song by Gilbert and Sullivan and of course it's not as good as the original.

Regardless, I must say that it beats the hell out the endless strings of technobabble Geordie Laforge imposes upon.

So to that I say : "Bravo Data! Keep up the good work!"

 

[Fashion Victim]

I'm shocked to find Data the apply named bipedal encyclopedia got something wrong, the taxinomical the correct taxinomical classification for house cats is Felis Domesticus. :O Either that or Spot is actually a very similar species to the common house cat that actually comes from another planet.

Yes I loved that poem I laughed so hard when I first heard it.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

I'm shocked to find Data the apply named bipedal encyclopedia got something wrong, the taxinomical the correct taxinomical classification for house cats is Felis Domesticus. :O Either that or Spot is actually a very similar species to the common house cat that actually comes from another planet.

Yes I loved that poem I laughed so hard when I first heard it.

Poetic license.

 

[Fashion Victim]

Well they can't ever accuse his poetry of not being creative.

 

[Mojochi]

Felis Catus is also correct, or Felis Silvestris Catus. I mean, where else would the word cat come from?

 

[Trekker4747]

It also goes along with the common thing that Trek often got wrong when it comes to sentience. Cats, like a great many mammals, are sentient.

They're not sapient, only a handful of animals -other than humans- on Earth are considered to even be close to sapient; but they are certainly sentient.

But, again, the sentience/sapience thing is something Trek messed up a LOT.

 

[Orphalesion]

^ That's a thing common knowledge often gets wrong. I found its generally easier to say "sentient" than "sapient", simply because more people will understand what you mean.

 

[Trekker4747]

^ That's a thing common knowledge often gets wrong. I found its generally easier to say "sentient" than "sapient", simply because more people will understand what you mean.

Yeah, but it diminishes the level of "intelligence" animals have or it mitigates the level of intelligence humans have over other animals.

One way it's saying, "it's okay, they don't think," and the other is saying, "we think the same way!"

When neither is true.

Most animals are capable of some level of thought, "feeling" and understanding of the world around them. Cats are sentient they can learn and adapt and "think." They have emotions and care about other those around them. In Data's poem he seems to marginalize Spot's feelings for Data somehow implying that Spot cannot care for him. Anyone who owns a pet knows pets are capable of caring for their masters, and as much of rep cats get; they do as well.

(I admit, though, we've no idea how much affection a cat would have when his owner is a machine rather than a person.)

Sapience is a whole other thing entirely. As humans we're all sapient. We're not only capable of thought and feelings but we're capable of wisdom, of understanding and expanding ourselves and learning how to interact with our world and learning how it works. We're able to, on the fly, change and manipulate or environment in order for it to suit our needs. The whole idea of using tools in order to make improvements we want and need. On a grander scale we're the only species we know of who have this ability.

So it's insulting to humans to put us on the same level as the rest of animals or it's assuming the rest of animals are capable of the same things we are. Which they're not.

There's a handful of species on Earth where an argument can be made for them being sapient, pretty much all apes, dolphins and most orca life; but by and large humans are the only ones.

So, I feel it's important for people to know the difference between the two and shrugging and saying, "Most people don't understand the difference," and going with lumping the two together is doing no favors. It's patting a kid on the head and saying, "You'll find out when you're older."

Nope. I'm not doing that. And, really, Trek shouldn't have either and should have done its part in helping viewers understand the difference between sentience and sapience.

 

[Orphalesion]

^ You are of course right. I just pointed out its a very common error and the writers likely didn't know the difference.

I don't know why I have this attitude of "dumbing myself down to the common level". I think it comes from a fear of not being understood otherwise (as it often happened when I was younger) I just at one point learned "if I use the words everybody does, even if they aren't correct, people will stop looking at me weirdly"
Of course that's not a good habit and now it happens that in serious conversation I sometimes appear less intelligent/eloquent that I actually am because of that.

I think I read once that elephants were near-sapient as well? Of course it has been a few years since I have read that and the view on it might have changed.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

There are two episodes of TOS with sapient cats. The Cat's paw and the one with Gary Seven...

 

[bolak]

I'm not a fan of Ode to Spot; to me it's like a 'look at me' poem devised by a precocious 12-year-old to demonstrate his vocabulary.

Data, even as an unemotional observer, understands art and poetry better than that.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

I'm not a fan of Ode to Spot; to me it's like a 'look at me' poem devised by a precocious 12-year-old to demonstrate his vocabulary.

Data, even as an unemotional observer, understands art and poetry better than that.

Personally I regret we didn't hear more of it.

 

[Spectral]

I'm not a fan of Ode to Spot; to me it's like a 'look at me' poem devised by a precocious 12-year-old to demonstrate his vocabulary.

Data, even as an unemotional observer, understands art and poetry better than that.

Yeah, but being able to understand and appreciate poetry, even to the point of gushing over its technical perfection or weighing the value of its cultural significance doesn't mean anyone is going to be any good at writing their own.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

I'm not a fan of Ode to Spot; to me it's like a 'look at me' poem devised by a precocious 12-year-old to demonstrate his vocabulary.

Data, even as an unemotional observer, understands art and poetry better than that.

Yeah, but being able to understand and appreciate poetry, even to the point of gushing over its technical perfection or weighing the value of its cultural significance doesn't mean anyone is going to be any good at writing their own.

And that applies to many other things. For one person that can write good music there are thousands that can merely appreciate it.

 

[Spectral]

Data mentioned a few times that his musical ability could be considered technically flawless, but it had been pointed out to him his playing lacked any individual variation that would be make it more memorable and meaningful for the listener. He wasn't able to inject the nuance of emotion.

With his paintings, he would talk about how he was constantly trying to master certain styles made famous by the greats. He would talk about the value of his painting to him personally as a means of expression, but he seemed to be much more guarded when speaking of it that way. Like he didn't fully trust the validity of an android needed to express himself and he wasn't sure anyone else would either.

Everyone else might have found his poem amusing or just dull, but the poor bastard probably tried really hard with it.

 

[Marsden]

I'm shocked to find Data the apply named bipedal encyclopedia got something wrong, the taxinomical the correct taxinomical classification for house cats is Felis Domesticus. :O Either that or Spot is actually a very similar species to the common house cat that actually comes from another planet.

Yes I loved that poem I laughed so hard when I first heard it.

And sometimes they actually change taxinomical classifications.

Funny, but I don't remember caring for it, but reading it here, I do enjoy it. Maybe I wasn't in a poetry mood at the time.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

I think it's too bad we didn't get to hear more of them. We hear the end of another one but there is no way to know if it was a long poem or a short one.

 

[Fashion Victim]

Felis Catus is also correct, or Felis Silvestris Catus. I mean, where else would the word cat come from?

Oh dam you're right, both my sixth grade biology book and my AP biology book have it down as felis domesticus, but felis cattus is correct as well. Which is funny taxonomical classifications derived mostly from Greek and Latin usually don't resemble the common name of a species in English, English also has Germanic roots dogs (canis lupus familaris) aren't canis dogus.

I'm not a fan of Ode to Spot; to me it's like a 'look at me' poem devised by a precocious 12-year-old to demonstrate his vocabulary.

Data, even as an unemotional observer, understands art and poetry better than that.

Data gives off the impression that he understood art a lot better, because his paintings seemed quite nice, but of course being an android his realism would be amazingly precise, as for other styles of art, it would be a simple matter of picking out the patterns of said art, maybe combing them with others. But when it comes to something like evoking a feeling with something as structured as a written language designed with the purpose of communicating ideas effectively it makes sense he'd struggle with creating his own.

However any cat lover might disagree that he failed entirely, in evoking emotion with his poetry, show that he "enjoys" observing Spot and he has come to appreciate her intelligence, just my opinion.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

Felis Catus is also correct, or Felis Silvestris Catus. I mean, where else would the word cat come from?

Oh dam you're right, both my sixth grade biology book and my AP biology book have it down as felis domesticus, but felis cattus is correct as well. Which is funny taxonomical classifications derived mostly from Greek and Latin usually don't resemble the common name of a species in English, English also has Germanic roots dogs (canis lupus familaris) aren't canis dogus.

I'm not a fan of Ode to Spot; to me it's like a 'look at me' poem devised by a precocious 12-year-old to demonstrate his vocabulary.

Data, even as an unemotional observer, understands art and poetry better than that.

Data gives off the impression that he understood art a lot better, because his paintings seemed quite nice, but of course being an android his realism would be amazingly precise, as for other styles of art, it would be a simple matter of picking out the patterns of said art, maybe combing them with others. But when it comes to something like evoking a feeling with something as structured as a written language designed with the purpose of communicating ideas effectively it makes sense he'd struggle with creating his own.

However any cat lover might disagree that he failed entirely, in evoking emotion with his poetry, show that he "enjoys" observing Spot and he has come to appreciate her intelligence, just my opinion.

And yet in Masks which is a late episode Data fails to create anything original in his terracotta class until he's hit with the Archive's program.

 

[Fashion Victim]

Felis Catus is also correct, or Felis Silvestris Catus. I mean, where else would the word cat come from?

Oh dam you're right, both my sixth grade biology book and my AP biology book have it down as felis domesticus, but felis cattus is correct as well. Which is funny taxonomical classifications derived mostly from Greek and Latin usually don't resemble the common name of a species in English, English also has Germanic roots dogs (canis lupus familaris) aren't canis dogus.

I'm not a fan of Ode to Spot; to me it's like a 'look at me' poem devised by a precocious 12-year-old to demonstrate his vocabulary.

Data, even as an unemotional observer, understands art and poetry better than that.

Data gives off the impression that he understood art a lot better, because his paintings seemed quite nice, but of course being an android his realism would be amazingly precise, as for other styles of art, it would be a simple matter of picking out the patterns of said art, maybe combing them with others. But when it comes to something like evoking a feeling with something as structured as a written language designed with the purpose of communicating ideas effectively it makes sense he'd struggle with creating his own.

However any cat lover might disagree that he failed entirely, in evoking emotion with his poetry, show that he "enjoys" observing Spot and he has come to appreciate her intelligence, just my opinion.

And yet in Masks which is a late episode Data fails to create anything original in his terracotta class until he's hit with the Archive's program.

Exactly my point, he can make beautifully accurate to scale sculptures but when asked to do something abstract like music, all he comes up with is a treble clef lol, the sad part is that's the first thing that came to my mind when Troi mentioned it.

Not that anybody carers about who the hell I am in real life but I realize that I might have inadvertently given off the impression that I'm still in high school, I'm not but I had AP Biology in tenth grade lol.