The Machines Cannot Rise, or, Why HAL 9000 is an Asshole

HAL 9000, the primary antagonist of 2001: A Space Odyssey,  demonstrates the qualities of epistemology in rhetoric, primarily the postulates of relationality and consciousness.

As a sentient machine, HAL 9000 is capable of voice recognition, conversation, lip-reading, reasoning,  and monitoring the various controls and systems that comprise the spacecraft Discovery One. "He" (the machine has the voice of a male) can also engage in game such as chess with the ship's crew.  HAL has no discernible physicality save for a red camera eye that appears throughout Discovery One.

While HAL can extrapolate empirical data from the systems he monitors and the world around him, he can make no distinction to the relational components that comprise this world. This objectivism creates substantial problems for the crew of Discovery One. As such, HAL cannot distinguish why the lives of the crew are important, why Dave needs to open the pod door, and why he himself must be shut down in order to preserve the life of the crew. Because HAL has no ability to apply any symbolic meaning to these facts, he becomes an indiscriminate killer. HAL's  Brummett's argument concerning mechanics supports this claim: Objects are not observed entirely in themselves and apart but as part of some background or context (Postmodern Rhetoric, 26). Because HAL is observing the crew members in themselves, and not as living, sentient beings in the context of life, he cannot assign any other meaning to them other than a problem that must be corrected.

While it can be argued that HAL does in fact have consciousness, the definition put forth by Cherwitz and Hikins refutes this:

Conciousness is a natural event which occurs when and only when an entity comes to stand in a particular relationship to other entities within a context of particulars. Consciousness is itself a character of a specific kind and is always part of a corresponding asymmetrical relation also of a specific kind (Quarterly Journal of Speech, August 1983).

Because HAL does not have the ability to to perceive the particulars of the relationships between the crew and the spacecraft or himself, it can be argued he is not a conscious being. HAL can only perceive of concepts from his point of view. This inability to realize the mentality of others in essence makes HAL a solipsist.

HAL can and does engage in the dialectic, but as it is part of his programming and does not originate from any relational foundation of awareness, it lacks any real perspective and no real knowledge is imparted.

Only when HAL is being shut down does he show any signs of having a conscious. However, as he is shutting down, we are left with the realization that these pleas may be just a part of the operating system, or at best, a malfunction. The only real knowledge HAL contains is his date of origin, his creator, and the song "Daisy Bell".