The following is in answer to the previously posted question. It has been submitted for grading, but not yet graded.
Dismissing the impossibility and improbability that a game of poker could and would be played by HAL, C-3PO, Data, and Agent Smith, one can begin to understand the events which unfolded during that game which ultimately dealt out the shooting of Data by Smith. But it is not just the single hand or this one game which ultimately contribute to understanding what went terribly wrong. The character of each must be considered, even if only in brief, to begin to realise the complications of poker.
C-3PO, being a protocol droid, has a relatively stable character. His programming is such that his only legitimate functions are to assist with etiquette, customs, and translation, in the service of his owner. His attendance at this particular game of poker is quite suspect that he was there of his own will, as he must have been ordered to be there for some unknown cause for his master. Data, though slightly more autonomous than C-3PO, can be relied upon, as his mood and demeanour are quite predictable. Data experienced developmental growth which is in many ways human-like.
The contrasting elements in this particular poker game are HAL and Smith. HAL has a known history of violence, which is not limited to the murders of all the members, but one, of the Discovery. Furthermore, knowing that HAL killed Frank Poole over losing a game of chess, it seems rather odd that he would fold his hand peacefully and without further retaliation later in an effort to preserve himself (or his finances). Agent Smith poses the greatest problems: The Matrix. Is this game inside or outside The Matrix?
Inside The Matrix, no wrong was done by Smith by his shooting of Data. Smith’s programmed purpose is to remove the systemic anomalies from The Matrix, thereby preserving its integrity and ability to continue functioning. Inside The Matrix, Smith is doing his job, and the other players are characters of fiction: second layer. (Meaning, characters of fiction inside of a world of fiction, hence the second layer.) The other three players also do not have a human counterpart plugged into The Matrix serving as a battery to support the machines. Shooting, or even killing, Data does nothing in the real world outside The Matrix.
The Oracle revealed that certain programs of The Matrix cease to be useful and are then deleted. Yet a program can hide itself and avoid detection and therefore avoid deletion. Smith was one of these programs slated for deletion. Smith’s utility had ended, which occurred simultaneously with his own self-transformation into a rogue program. He began to serve his own interests and began to sacrifice the good of the machines to which he owed his existence. Because his actions were going to bring down society, the greatest good for the society would be maximised through his deletion. Wrongly avoiding deletion, Smith not only minimised the good of the majority, he also usurped the entire utilitarian system of the machines.
In order for Smith to exist outside The Matrix, he must infect a human conduit and use it as a type of proxy server to interact with the physical world. To be able to attend this poker game, Smith has used a person as an end to his own means. This is in defiance of the second formulation of Kant’s categorical imperative. Smith was wrong to use Hugo Weaving to attend this poker game (who else serves Smith as a perfect physical representation of Smith, other than Weaving?).
Having caused the demise of the utilitarian society of which he is part, then using a person as a means to his own ends, Smith attends a poker game in which the stakes were high and the rules of engagement unknown. If it is customary to draw a weapon and shoot an opponent over a bluff, then Smith was in the right, acting accordingly. But for a custom to be permissible, it must first be law, something dictated or legislated by a ruler. But this would be illogical, for the purpose of poker is winning, and winning includes bluffing. A poker game also includes losing, as there is only one winner and several losers. But if Smith is right, then there is nothing customary and therefore nothing lawful about his reaction to the hand played, and his shooting of Data is therefore not immoral. This situation ultimately asserts that the poker game is in a state of war, as it is without a ruler to whom the players have given their allegiance. However, the game of poker does have a set of legislated rules, brought forth by whatever sovereign supreme ruler or body of legislative representatives saw fit to make it so, and this set of rules includes losing and accepting the loss without reacting in violence.
The forks of the triad of the complications of this poker game all point to Smith’s guilt and wrongful actions. First, he defied the maximisation of the good of his society by avoiding deletion as a rogue program, then he used Hugo Weaving as a means to his own end to attend the poker game at which he lost bitterly, finally drawing a weapon and shooting Data, acting outside of the laws governing the game.
But it must be remembered that in a hand of poker where all players but one fold, the player who remains in the hand is not required to reveal the cards. In a friendly game, it is often the case that the bluffer will reveal the hand, if only to boast about how good the bluff was. Yet it would be a stretch to consider this to be a friendly game, considering the company (at least two murderers and one armed). Data would not be cheating, as this is against his programming, even in the event that his cheating could save lives (as demonstrated in episode 12 of season 2: “The Royale”). Data ought not to have revealed his cards, which was the cause of Smith’s effect. It was all but one link in a chain of events in a system of causality.
Anderson, Ardis. Philosophy 1000 A Class Notes. Lethbridge AB: University of Lethbridge, 21 February - 30 March 2006.
Bailey, Andrew. First Philosophy. Peterborough ON: Broadview Press, 2002.
C-3PO. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C3po. 4 April 2006.
Frank Poole. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Poole. 4 April 2006.
HAL 9000. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000. 4 April 2006.
New Oxford American Dictionary, 2nd Edition.
STARTREK.COM : Episode. http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/TNG/episode/68382.html. 4 April 2006.
The Space Odyssey series. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Odyssey. 4 April 2006.
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