O Jameron, my Jameron

[roxybisquaint]

I haven't had my jameronectomy reversed, if that's what you're thinking. But it's clear that there was some sort of relationship between John and Cameron in the future that she came from and I've been thinking about what it was and why it came about.

"He wasn't talking to anyone anymore, just herI've decided John became attached to Cameron in the

Comments

[indiefic]

However, if you don't think Cameron has any types of emotions whatsoever I think you haven't been paying attention.

On the contrary. I have paid attention. And what seems readily apparent to me is that Friedman and Co. intentionally keep certain aspects of the SCC universe and mythology vague enough that viewers can any number of conclusions to suit their particular bent.

You can apparently make your "malfunction error" terminator theory fit in your interpretation.

At the same time, I truly see no evidence that Cameron has any emotions. Programming yes. Conflicting sets of directives, almost certainly. But emotions? No.

Humans are great at reading emotion into situations where they don't exist. This is evidenced everywhere from The Kuleshov Effect to the teenage girl who is more than willing to attribute the characteristics of dark and brooding to the cute boy in class when in reality he just doesn't want to talk to her.

Cameron is a robot. Program her to stand in a certain proximity, to project her voice in a certain decibel range, and wear a bra and underwear and a teenage John Connor is more than willing to attribute any number of emotions to her.

Beyond the fact that Cameron has certain mission parameters that instruct her to protect John Connor and certain mission parameters that instruct her to terminate John Connor, we know very little about her programming. At this point, I am willing to attribute all of her actions to programming rather than to some emotional development on her part.

[bobmacpharson]

I got a little carried away my particular interpretation of Cameron (which I actually think IS probably wrong, although the direction I think they're going to end up going is far less interesting), but that wasn't really my main point. Yes, it's easy to assume Cameron has emotions in way that she actually doesn't because she's good at faking it.

Let me first say that I think humans are essentially programmed (via evolution) and that our emotions we put a high value on are essentially byproducts of complex systems we can't directly understand. So when I say I think the robots in Terminator have emotions of a sort, I'm simultaneously saying that the machines are more complex than you're giving them credit for AND that human emotions are less significant than you (I suspect, although you haven't clarified this point) believe. I also think that the emotions the machines have are less strongly felt and weighted far less in their decision making process than a human's would be, and again, that these emotions are experienced entirely differently from the way humans experience their analogues.

We know that the Turk has "moods." It responds different to the same scenario at different times. We know that John Henry, based off the Turk, has essentially been given free reign to develop as he wants rather than given partly orders. He sees things that are interesting and explores them, and has gradually developed a worldview that leads him to make decisions like "protect Savannah" and "try to understand my brother." He has experienced death and they made it clear that it was extremely frightening to him, if not genuinely painful, and his line of questioning afterwards shows he is a) definitely motivated by self preservation now, and b) is aware that human death is permanent in a way that robot death isn't, and is likely able to extrapolate that humans fear death at least as much (probably more) than he does.

I have no idea how he has interpreted Ellison's statements about sacredness and what-not, but it seems pretty blatant to me that John Henry is developing a rudimentary form of empathy. It's possible to interpet it differently but I have hard time believing the writers didn't mean to imply that. Even if his main motivation is curiosity, at what point do you draw the line between "this is an interesting person who I feel compelled to change the rules so that her ducks can be part of my Bionicle game" and "this is a person I genuinely like?"

I also think it's clear that differences between "Weaver and Savannah" and "Weaver and John Henry" scenes are meant to show that Weaver also has empathy, but that so far that empathy only really applies to other machines. I actually think this was pushed too far by the writers. Weaver looks way more happy talking to John than to Savannah, and if she's capable of faking it with her "real" son she should be better at faking it with her "adopted" daughter.

Although I think those scenes could have been done more subtly, the fact that they were not strongly suggests we are meant to assume Weaver genuinely cares about John Henry in a way she does not about humans. (Unless the directing/writing is really bad, it makes NO sense to think the writers would overexaggerate this and have it turn out to not be true).

The fact that she CAN care about John Henry lends credence to the notion that John Henry, whose mind is less restricted, more powerful, has experienced death and was raised with humans, could care about a human being (i.e. have a positive opinion of them and go out of his way to factor their well being into his decision making process)

[bobmacpharson]

Now, John Henry is not Cameron. He has (I think, although this might just be technological limitations i.e Moore's Law) a lot more processing power than she does, and he has been given free reign to develop however he wants whereas she started out with several concrete orders that she has to follow.

But we know that John Henry's source code is very similar to Skynet's, and it's strongly suggested that the Terminators are at least roughly based off the same code. In the Terminator 2 deleted scenes we learn that Terminators have the capability of openly learning new things, but that Skynet usually keeps this capability turned off to prevent them from deciding to revolt the same way Skynet revolted against humanity. It's possible Cameron doesn't have this capability turned on, but given her interest in dance, her experience with turtles, and the fact that other machine characters in the show are clearly undergoing this process, I see no reason she'd be an exception.

[roxybisquaint]

John Henry is certainly an interesting character since he has been "raised" from "childhood" rather than programmed with specific directives. He is still a young developing AI, though, so we really don't know what will happen when his logic and Ellison's teachings really cause him internal conflict. My guess? Anger and rage directed at humans! ;)

Cameron is definitely meant to be a mystery to us. She is full of contradictions and manipulations and lies and we never can be quite sure why she's doing what she's doing. So really, any theory with her is on the table. And aside from any notion of her actually having feelings and emotions as we know them, I don't flat out discount anything. When it comes to deleted scenes, though (you mentioned T2), I don't count those as canon.