Discuss Star Trek: Picard
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Did Kurtzman ever watch Voyager?
posted by mcse2000caSTAFFMOD on March 22, 2020 at 3:43 PM
Just wondering because his version of 7 of 9 is way off
Reply by Nexus71
on March 29, 2020 at 4:04 AM
Or watch reviews by Anti-Trekker(don't let the name fool you) that guy actually defended Picard and wanted to be open to changes but even he couldn't take it anymore after episode 7 and said Picard in many respects is even worse than STD and he loathes STD.
Reply by Knixon
on March 29, 2020 at 4:36 AM
I don't see any reason to believe, Star Trek or otherwise, that any kind of "transfer" that doesn't move the actual organic brain, is actually dealing with human consciousness, or "soul" if you prefer. Anything else is less, basically just a program, like Data, and is not, and never was, alive. Having a TNG episode where Data is found to be "alive" in a far-flung outpost courtroom that was no doubt appealed/overruled as soon as someone at HQ heard about it, doesn't make it valid or true.
Meanwhile, how many people who laud STP for showing the expansion of human dignity and whatever, are perfectly fine with, and vote for people who are perfectly fine with, terminating ACTUAL human life, all the way up to and even in the process of and AFTER birth?
The cognitive dissonance should make their heads explode. I hope. It would save a lot of actual human lives.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnp1jfLhtck&t=126
And if you actually think that stuff is serious, then you should be watching Space: Above And Beyond which took it far more seriously.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBaQFafK3ZU&t=30
Reply by AlienFanatic
on March 29, 2020 at 4:54 AM
Okay, Knix, I'm with you most of the way but I'm not going political :) You do bring up an issue, and I've bolded it, that I've seen discussed outside of Trek but only extremely briefly ON Trek and that's continuity of consciousness when transported or after death. This could easily have been explored, even briefly, when Picard is transferred to the Golem. Namely, if the consciousness is "transferred" or "teleported," surely that involves the destruction of the old body. Transporters HAVE to work that way. Unless you're creating some kind of fold in space, you MUST disassemble the individual, down to the atom, in one location and reassemble them elsewhere. Similarly, if you transfer Picard's consciousness from his human body to the new one, Picard must "die" for this to happen.
Does this mean that the person who died is merely a copy of the original or are they the same person? How would someone experience this? Even if the new individual FEELS like the old one, are they the same person? I seem to remember an episode of TNG where Picard's pattern, or at least I think it was his, was reassembled from an earlier transporter log when his current pattern is lost. He has no memory of the events that occurred past the point at which the copy is made. As I recall, the episode does briefly cover his dismay, but the moment passes quickly and there is little self-examination. But because we're an assembly of memories that have a direct influence on our development and personality, the individual that would have continued after a life-changing event must surely have been different, even in small ways, from the individual that was reassembled from a prior copy.
This is where writers like DC Fontana, Moore, Ellison, and many of the GOOD Trek writers have gone in the past. They've faced difficult moral dilemmas head-on. This is also the standard against which I judge people like Chabon, who seem technically capable as writers, but who only deal superficially with the issues in front of them. Picard was, as usual for these types of shows now, founded primarily on keeping character motivations secret and saving big reveals until late in the series. There is only one "big issue" (xenophobia), but the foundations of the series are rooted in nostalgia, controversy (like saying "fuck" a lot), and action set-pieces. (For instance, Legolas seems entirely designed to bring martial arts into Star Trek, but they forgot to give the guy a personality.) They drag you along by making the mystery compelling, yes, but when it comes to dealing with ACTUAL ideas, they dodge. The ideas they do explore have been beaten to death in every other series and, when all is said and done, they spent 10 episodes doing something that TNG, TOS, VOY, ENT, and DS:9 did almost literally on a weekly basis.
Reply by Wolf359
on March 29, 2020 at 5:18 AM
It depends on how you/we define being alive, a person, an individuum, the mind, and consciousness.
If you disassemble a person atom by atom, transfer atoms to another place and reassemble that person there, is that still the same person? Yes and no, it depends on the definition of "person".
The moment someone gets transported he/she has to die briefly. Is someone who returned from the dead still the same person? Even for events that happened in real life, some might answer that with yes, some with no. What about amputees? Are they still the same person after they lost a leg or arm?
Our bodies, our cells regenerate themselves every x months (can't remember after how many exactly). Are we still the same person after a few years? No? Then shouldn't people in prison have the right to be freed because they're a "different" person after some time? No, because they still have the same memories and consciousness? What exactly is consciousness? The soul?
It all comes down to how we define things. I wished ST would lean on those questions instead of delivering us crap we see in PIC and DSC.
Btw, afaik scientists are still not sure how to define consciousness.
Reply by Knixon
on March 29, 2020 at 5:18 AM
Well that TNG episode with Picard you could say, "touched on" the transporter issue, but it was already totally blown up even in the TOS episode with good/evil Kirk. Then again later in TNG with duplicate Rikers. Plus all the nonsense they did with transporters in TAS. And just because Emory Erickson says "we proved that" in an Enterprise episode, doesn't make it so. That's just another hand-wave. Bottom line, transporters exist in Start Trek because they were needed for writing etc, i.e., Because Plot. Or, just Because Reasons. An argument might have been made that they actually teleported the individual, with consciousness intact, if not for all the BS that followed.
And I don't believe Picard's or anyone's consciousness can be transferred outside of/beyond their organic brain. Now, the I, Mudd planet androids had that part right, at least:
I guess that's okay, if you don't care that your body is no longer really a body. And assuming that the android body somehow keeps the brain from deteriorating over time.
But Korby and so many others, were way off. And so are Chabon, Kurtzman, et al.
Reply by Knixon
on March 29, 2020 at 5:27 AM
The big issue there is whether they are actually the SAME atoms. Originally, the answer was supposed to be "yes." But once that changed to "no," which even if not stated outright was obviously the case once you have two Kirks, then you've essentially killed the original person and created a duplicate somewhere else. That might be acceptable to a totally utilitarian society such as China or Russia, but it shouldn't be acceptable to anyone else.
Not really, because death is the cessation of biological activity within a body. The biological activity doesn't really stop within the existing body.
Nobody that I've ever heard of, believes that someone revived after their heart stops briefly, is now suddenly a different person.
Please don't be ridiculous, I get enough of that from Invidia. Do your navel-gazing in the privacy of your college dorm room.
Scientific evidence at this point indicates that unlike other parts of the body, brain cells do not get replaced over time. Which definitely supports my position. But even if they did, over time, if they were being made as duplicates of the previous cells, it would be the same as saying that "my" toenail is still "mine" even if it's grown 2 feet in length over the years, and been cut off frequently.
Yes, but that's not a good reason to decide that Data is "alive."
Reply by Wolf359
on March 29, 2020 at 6:10 AM
It certainly does during transport. What about the DS9 episode where a transport got interrupted and some of the crew had to "wait" inside the transporter buffer (aka computer memory) and later had to temporarily "live" in a holodeck program? If you are bits and bytes inside a computer memory, you're dead.
Including me, but that doesn't mean that there's room for "believe" in science. That's what religions are for.
I'm not saying he is human, but, depending on the definition, he may be "alive". Nevertheless, it was a great episode.
Reply by Knixon
on March 29, 2020 at 10:35 AM
Not the same thing.
Just more "hey that sounds cool, let's do that! And it doesn't matter if it makes any sense!"
A dead body is a state of existence where the biological functions of the body have ceased. It's nonsense BS claptrap from start to finish, but just for the sake of argument, if your "consciousness" - memories, etc - are stored inside a computer and a facsimile of your body is on a holodeck, it can't be "dead" because it was never "alive." It's not a real body.
Okay then, I guess I'm waiting for you to prove scientifically that someone is a different person if their heart stopped beating for maybe even several minutes.
Actually it was just more BS claptrap nonsense from start to finish. But then Data always behaved more human than it would have, if it had actually been as described: no emotions, etc. The biggest problem, though, was the assumption that once Commander What's-Her-Face made her decision in that far-flung outpost toy court, it would be "the truth, for all time" as Picard... joked, basically. And the show basically ignored it too, otherwise what rationale could there have been for Starfleet to take Lal away?
Reply by Nexus71
on March 29, 2020 at 11:24 AM
Haven't you guys watched Tron that is how transportation works 😁
Reply by Wolf359
on March 29, 2020 at 12:59 PM
It was a real body right before transport..? Whatever, it's called science-fiction for a reason.
With "including me" I meant I don't think he/she would be a different person.
IIRC she decided that Data has the right to choose, not that he (or it, whatever) has to be considered alive from now on. Picard made good points though; Data is intelligent, self-aware and has consciousness, so in the end, he was considered a sentient being, I guess.
Anyway, that stuff is far better than any episode with expensive special effects.. or nu-Trek. It makes one think. Also, Tuvix comes to mind. I think Janeway made the right decision btw.
Reply by mcse2000ca
on March 29, 2020 at 1:04 PM
Was going to say the same thing haha
Reply by Knixon
on March 29, 2020 at 1:39 PM
That's how the show was written, but that doesn't make it valid. If anything, they basically "had to" write it that way, valid or not, or fans would have revolted.
The biggest problem with the whole issue, really, is probably that the android Data was portrayed by an actual human, and so it was simply impossible to portray an android being truly emotionless etc, which could easily have gotten a different verdict "for all time."
Well, I'll concede that episode was better than the one with the supposedly intelligent "robot workers."
Reply by Oduntola
on March 31, 2020 at 9:23 AM
"If you want honest criticism, watch Nerdrodic, Robservations or Red Letter Media. It's way better than listening to people paid or associated with Hollywood studios."
That ridiculous! To get "honest criticism" one should listen to those people who have a vested interest, no who make their money, by criticizing a show instead of listening to their validity of their arguments?
I am glad you admitted it but if you so badly want to see a "remake" I suggest you WATCH the old series, they are still in circulation or TO! ST was not BORN out of a desire to repeat what has been done before, quite the opposite in fact.
If the other points I make about the nature of ST versus other 'sci-fi' are beyond you then just don't bother with them. I have no time to explain further.
Like I said, the 'philosophical' argument whether a person's ESSENCE (soul, Chi, Ka, whatever you want to call it) can be removed from their body and transplanted to another platform is just that really a philosophical argument essentially whether you believe this essence exists at all. If the COVID-19 issue has taught us anything it is that there are a lot of very small things with have little understanding of currently. It is also true that just because such a transplant is NOT currently possible, there is no LOGICAL reason why it would remain impossible forever.
Finally I will note that EVEN THOUGH for a lot of "fans" of ST it is the heroism of their favorite character: Kirk, Picard, Data, Riker etc, that is crucial, ALL the various series have sought to examine the 'heroism or lack thereof of mankind' as reflected in the CURRENT society. The most recent iterations of ST are decidedly darker than the earlier ones because our world has grown progressively darker. The sunny optimism of TOS's money less, post racial, non patriarchal society where the basic needs humans are met and there is little material want....that society is NO LONGER A REASONABLE future. Perhaps the writers' decision to focus on the less positive aspects of our CURRENT society is to warn us of how far we have strayed from this ideal.
Perhaps ST is just becoming more REALISTIC. We might change our circumstances but that may not be able to change our NATURE. There will always be people who think like Knixon or Nexus whether we are in the 17th century crossing the oceans in ships carrying human cargo; or in the 21 century sitting behind their keyboards banking out theories of miscegenation; or in the 23rd and 24th century taking away the rights of all organisms that is inorganic.
ST is merely trying to point us to the similarities, it is NOT about giving YOU a masturbatory fantasy. That is what The Orville is for!
Reply by znexyish
on March 31, 2020 at 2:36 PM
Are you staying behind a podium when you write that Spear? I can see that. Do you have a podcast. You should. You should rail against The Orville. YouTube is just waiting for that.
Reply by Nexus71
on March 31, 2020 at 4:08 PM
😄😄