I decided to take a little road trip over the Memorial Day weekend, so I loaded up the truck and I went over to Phoenix. While there I went square dancing with the Bucks & Bows club of Scottsdale, which was very enjoyable, and I also got in a good bit of listening to audio books while shooting through the desert.
One of the books I listened to was Lawrence M. Krauss’s The Physics of Star Trek. It was a nice read.
It came out a good while ago, so it didn’t go all the way up to the end of recent Star Trek history, but it was nice to hear a professional physicist’s take on the show.
It was clear that Krauss enjoys Star Trek and can appreciate episodes even when they contain physics mistakes. He also handled the subjects he considered in a quite balanced way, regularly avoiding the trap of saying "This could never happen" while making it clear that the current understanding of physics would make it very, very hard for it to happen.
One of the things that Krauss was most impressed with was how good the technobabble on the show can be. While a bunch of it is just junk (from a physics point of view as well as a dramatic point of view), there are a startling number of times where the writers of Star Trek seem to have picked terminology for things that eerily mirrors the actual terms scientists use, started using after the show, or might plausibly use in the future. (An easy example is a TOS episode in which the writers referred to something that sounds like a black hole–before the term "black hole" had been coined–as a "black star.")
After discussing warp drive and time travel and deflector shields and inertial dampers and the like, Krauss concludes the book with a couple of chapters dealing with particularly good and particularly bad physics moments on Star Trek.
I was kind of surprised that in the bad physics moments that he picked on a few things that dealt with minor matters of terminology that I wouldn’t have included in a top 10 mistakes chapter. I was also kind of surprised that he omitted some of my favorite science errors on Star Trek (like where the heck is Spock getting all of his body mass from as he’s rapidly re-growing to adulthood on the Genesis Planet in Star Trek III? I mean, he should be stuffing his face with food every second, if it were even possible for him to metabolize it into body mass that fast.)
But then that’s the fun of top 10 lists: Debating whether they actually are the top 10 or not.
Krauss also handles the subject of religion quite well. He’s respectful to religious sensibilities and interested in the theological questions that are raised by Star Trek technology, such as the implications for the transporter on the question of whether the soul exists.
In his discussion of this topic, though, I think he makes a mistake in reasoning, though it is a forgiveable one since it would require significant theological background to spot the problem and, after all, "He’s a physicist, not a theologian, dammit!" (Please excuse the bad word in deference to Dr. McCoy.)
Here’s the issue: If a transporter takes you apart molecule by molecule (or particle by particle), it would seem to kill you. If it then assembles an identical copy of your body (either out of the same atoms or new ones) and that new copy works properly then–one might suppose–it looks like we are nothing more than molecules in a particular, replicable pattern. In other words: There is no soul.
Krauss remains neutral in the book on whether souls exist, but I would take issue with whether the above line of reasoning works.
From a Catholic perspective, everything that is alive has a soul. Not everything has an immortal soul (only rational beings have those as far as we know), but life and the possession of a soul are concomittant.
So if a transporter makes an identical copy of your body and it’s alive then it has some kind of soul. If it’s clearly rational then it also clearly has a rational and thus an immortal soul. (But be careful here: The reverse is not necessarily true. If it isn’t clearly rational then that doesn’t mean it automatically lacks an immortal soul. Irrational people still have immortal souls by virtue of their membership in a rational species–mankind–even if their exercise of reason is impaired.)
If a transporter made a down-to-the-particle copy of you and it was not rational then I would say that this constitutes evidence that the soul does exist since clearly something other than a molecular copy of your body is needed for you to be rational.
But if it makes a copy and the copy is rational then I don’t think we have evidence one way or the other about the existence of the soul.
Why is that?
Because the evidence is consistent with either the hypothesis that we are nothing more than patterned molecules or the hypothesis that the copy has a new soul (yours presumably having departed when you were taken apart and killed).
To see the basis for the second hypothesis, let’s set aside the issue of killing: Suppose that the transporter doesn’t destroy your body. It just scans it and makes a copy of you, so now there are two of you. In this case, the transporter is functioning as a kind of high-tech cloning device, one capable of making an identical copy that doesn’t even have to grow up and acquire new memories. It’s a totally identical clone in the best tradition of bad sci-fi cloning stories.
But this would put the theological issue on the same footing as cloning, which theologians have already had the chance to chew over in real life.
As I’ve often pointed out before, if you were able to clone a person (either by fissioning an early embryo or by nuclear transfer) and you got a rational being as a result then it would be unambiguous that the clone has a rational soul.
Why is that?
Well, all you’ve done in this case is come up with a new human body by a morally illicit means. God means human bodies to come into existence as the result of sexual union between a husband and a wife, and at the moment the body comes into existence, he provides it with a soul. That’s how he set things up to work for our species, and that’s the only way that it is moral for us to bring new humans into the world.
But God has already shown himself willing to provide souls even when human bodies are not generated in a morally licit manner. Humans have had the ability to create new human bodies in immoral ways for a long time (e.g., by premarital sex, by adultery, by rape). Recently we’ve added some new techniques (e.g., in vitro fertilization). And we may soon add more (e.g., cloning). But it’s all the same thing: You’re just coming up with a new human body by immoral means.
God has been willing to endow people who were born in such ways with rational souls as is evidenced by the fact that they are both living and rational. Jesus even had some people like that in his family tree (think: the Tamar incident in Genesis 38).
So if–in addition to artificial twinning and nuclear transfer–you come up with a new cloning technology (transporter cloning) then you haven’t changed the playing field theologically. All you’re doing is coming up with a new human body (a rather mature one) by immoral means, but that won’t stop God from endowing it with a rational soul.
So it doesn’t seem to me that having a transporter produce rational copies of you would be evidence for the non-existence of the human soul.
It would be evidence for the existence of the soul if the transporter couldn’t produce rational copies that were known to be particle-for-particle identical to you. In that case we would have found an instance where God doesn’t provide a soul even though we’re providing a body. But the reverse isn’t the case.
I would thus say that the existence of the soul is to some extent verifiable but not falsifiable by transporter technology.
That doesn’t mean I’d be theologically comfortable with transporter technology. If it works as advertised then it’s basically a murder/cloning device.
Fortunately, in at least one episode, they indicate that you remain conscious through the transporter process, and if that’s the case then it doesn’t look like you’re being killed at all but simply adjusted in some way that allows you to pass through solid matter without actually being killed.
I’VE WRITTEN ABOUT THAT BEFORE.
So I differed with Krauss’s reasoning on this point, but it was still nice to listen to him tackle the obvious theological question that transporter technology would pose, and it was a pleasure to listen to his balanced and informed take on the physics of the show.
If you’d be interested in hearing an actual physicist offer a sympathetic but critical look at the subject then be sure to
regularly avoiding the trap of saying “This could never happen” while making it clear that the current understanding of physics would make it very, very hard for it to happen.
Apparently the author is also familiar with Clarke’s Laws…
I’m a fan of Star Trek, especially the original series. But one thing that always bothered me regarding the physics of the show is how they manage to generate artificial gravity on board the ship. They never explain it, and it somehow never seems to go out even when the Enterprise loses power and/or is heavily damaged. Even when they start to lose life support (which you would think should be the most fail-safe system on the ship), the gravity still works!
THIS is why God created JimmyAkin.org. 🙂
The failure rate of artificial gravity on starships increases only with the show’s special effects budget.
I once was being taught by a Protestant at this Baptist church I used to go to about there not being two parts, but three parts to us. Something like a body, a soul and a spirit. I guess there are multiple schools of thought on this? What is Catholic teaching on this? I don’t know much about this.
The whole animals having a soul is a new one on me as well.
It’s just because Starfleet gravity technology is so great, Paul. 😉 In Star Trek VI, a Klingon ship loses its gravity after only one hit.
The biggest ST blunder of all, of course, is the fact that there is sound in space. Supposedly they had to do it becaue it seemed so undramatic without sound, but hey, “Firefly” did a great job of being dramatic with soundless space scene.
Another one that irks me… in the ST:TNG episode where Geordi and Ro get “phased” so that they are invisible can pass through matter, they can still somehow breathe the air and walk on the floors.
I read a book and saw a DVD of Astronomer and Physisist Dr. Hugh Ross say traveling the speed of light and faster than light were actually impossible- and never would be possible-so that’s why it’s unlikely we have actually been visited.(by inerplanetary aliens)
He said on the DVD “It might ruin your enjoyment of STar Trek.” Kinda bummed me out.
I’ll have to get this book to see what this guy has to say.
Fermi’s Paradox (you can google it) points out that even at subluminary velocities any intelligent spacefaring race in the galaxy that wanted to do so should have already contacted us.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox
The explanation most consonant with the available evidence is that we are alone in the galaxy.
PVO
Quote: I once was being taught by a Protestant at this Baptist church I used to go to about there not being two parts, but three parts to us. Something like a body, a soul and a spirit. I guess there are multiple schools of thought on this? What is Catholic teaching on this? I don’t know much about this.
I have had discussions with a Protestant who has a similar point of view. In his view, the soul is bad (and he refers to bad things that we do as being “soulish”), and the spirit is good. This is definitely not the same as Catholic teaching, and it seems to be a fairly small minority view among Protestants as well.
As I’ve pointed out here before. Even assuming the low odds that intelligent life (capable of interstellar/intergalactic travel) were to exist. The odds that it would exist at the same point in time as to coincide with recorded human history are even more remote.
Quote: It’s just because Starfleet gravity technology is so great, Paul. 😉 In Star Trek VI, a Klingon ship loses its gravity after only one hit.
Good point! 🙂
Of course, the Klingon ship that Kirk, Spock, and the gang use in Star Trek IV never has any gravity problems, despite taking a pretty good beating. So maybe the gravity technology is better on some Klingon ships than on others. 😉
Oh, and I also liked the comment about the special effects budget, which is probably the true explanation of many such Star Trek inconsistencies. 🙂
Lets say that the transporter takes your molecules, memorizes the pattern, strips them apart, and moves them really fast to another location and reassembles your molecules per the pattern it memorized. I believe that this is the de facto way of transporting humans in ST, though I believe it is possible to “copy” instead of merely transporting (c.f. Riker clone).
So, that being true, this would be okay?
DJ,
I once was being taught by a Protestant at this Baptist church I used to go to about there not being two parts, but three parts to us. Something like a body, a soul and a spirit. I guess there are multiple schools of thought on this? What is Catholic teaching on this? I don’t know much about this.
The whole animals having a soul is a new one on me as well.
I have also heared of the body, soul, spirit thing but don’t know any more about it than you. I shall try to explain the Catholic position to you, though I don’t entirely understand it myself.
The idea is that the soul is the form of the body, or specifically the form of the body by which it lives. Thus all living things have souls, and when something alive dies it loses its soul. The souls of plants and animals are not spiritual, and thus are mortal. I have even heared them called “physical souls.” The soul of a human is spiritual, and thus immortal and potentially rational. When the body dies the soul leaves it, or perhaps it is when the soul leaves it the body dies.
Angels and God himself are also spirits, but are not called souls, I assume because they are not forms of any physical thing.
How the soul relates to the actual physical processes that, in a rather hazy way, define physical life is what I am confused about. It is my understanding that the great scholastic philosopher Bl. John Duns Scotus suggested that there are two forms (thus presumably two souls) in the human body, one that is simply the description of how the body works and another that is the immortal spiritual soul. Confusing stuff. Add in the relationship between the brain, the soul, and the mind and your really in trouble if you want to figure this out.
Still, reflecting on the soul being in some way the form of the body, it seems clear that if the body were disintegrated to the molecular level (or particle level whatever that is) the soul would no longer be operateing in it (a spirit is present where it is at work) so the person would have been killed. I doubt God would put the same soul into the new replica body, even if the same molecules were used, so I think Jimmy is right that transporters would be murder/cloning machines unless the body really isn’t broken down.
My actual theory is that the writers were not entirely consistent in their conception of transporters, so sometimes they really broke the person down into tiny particles and other times just altered and moved the whole body.
DeeDee!,
I am by no means a ST expert, but this is how it was explained to me.
Warp drive ships appear to travel faster-than-light to an outside observer. In reality (pun indended) the warp engines generate a shaped electo-magnetic field (IIRC) that deforms space-time. The ship is actually traveling sub-light speed within the warp field, but to those outside of the warp field, the ship is traveling faster than light.
The true ST Geek can supply the correct term for warp field generation.
Greetings,
Interesting post. But, it got me to thinking. Jimmy makes the assumption that humans conceived illicitly (rape, adultery, cloning) have souls. But what is the theological justification for this? A soul-less human might be able to reproduce fine and we don’t pass a bit of soul on to our children – God creates the soul – so, the presence of the Judah/Tamar incident in Jesus’ bloodline doesn’t seem to me to be a definitive proof?
Warp = power, it does not refer directly to speed. It causes space to shorten in front of the ship and hence allow for much less distance traveled. They don’t actually go faster than light.
I’m more of the BSG alternative to FTL which is the jump drive. You don’t actually move speed wise you simply move from one part of the universe to another instantaneously. By the way I read on an interview BSG will probably never explain how it does that. They are deliberately not getting into the thechnobabble that Star Trek did.
Zefrem Cochran,
The soul is the animating principle of the body. Whether you are working out of the Latin, Greek, or Hebrew notions of anima, spiritus, anemos, psyche, or nephesh, this is what we mean by “soul.” This is the primary meaning of the word ‘soul’ in this usage.
It is best not to approach the issue with either a Cartesian understanding of animals as purely material or a Platonic understanding of the soul or psyche as an immaterial identity that may or may not “inhabit” a body. Neither understandings are Scriptural. They can be helpful in examining what the soul is and means, but they will cause one to miss the matter of the discussion from the beginning.
There are, of course, a number of important distinctions to be drawn out between humans and animals as regards man being made in the image of God, but the Scriptural starting point is not the soul as immaterial-being-who-can-exist-outside-of-the-body, but that of “nephesh” or breath, which is blown into all living creatures by God.
“the soul is bad…and the spirit is good”
I understand that the ancients (and even Freud) divided the soul into three parts, with the intellect being the highest part of the soul, and the appetitive part being the lowest.
Perhaps the Baptist thinks that the ‘spirit’ is equivalent to the intellect.
The early Fathers used to speak of the soul in terms of both “soul” and “spirit” in the same breath. And, at times, they seemed to differentiate between the two (insofar as their function) even while acknowledging that they make up one whole.
The soul animates a body. The spirit is rational. Animals have souls. Angels are spirits. Human souls are both soul and spirit.
That is part of what I remember off the top of my head. Frank Sheed’s Theology for Beginners has a whole chapter on the human soul that is very interesting.
Jay,
Your comment about the soul not being able to exist outside the body is clearly, at least as you have posted it, contradictory to Catholic teaching. The human soul does leave the body and is in heaven with God until the general resurrection. It may be safe to say that the soul does not naturally exist ouside the body (being the form of it) but can exist by the intervention of God (note this is just a speculation that an intervention would be required).
I’m not sure I would want to use the phrase “animating principle” just because plants being inanimate living things presumably would not have an animating principle, yet it is my understanding that since they are alive they have souls.
Many of the ancient words that you claim mean “soul” are derived from a word for wind or breath. This comes from the old idea of life and breath being synonymous. Don’t get too caught up in ancient understandings and the origin of words if they are not relevent to Catholic doctrine. Remember that we Catholics (I do not know if you are one or not) base our beliefs not only on Scripture, but also on Apostolic Tradition as passed on and taught by the Magisterium (the Pope and the bishops in communion with him) of the Church. You can look it up your self, but I think it was one of the Lateran Councils that defined the soul as the form of the body.
Zefrem,
If a person had no soul they would die immediately, for one thing. If God gave them a non-spiritual soul instead of a spiritual one, if that is possible in a human body (which it may not be considering the soul as the form of the body) then the two-legged animal in question would have no true intellect or will. I’m sure they would not act at all humanly as a result.
Also, certain key biblical figures like Solomon would not have had souls. Who could accept that?
a human soul, or any soul is not affected by movement of the object, when we walk our soul doesn’t depart our bodies.
let’s assume for a second that the transporter were instantaneous from A to B with no intervening time or space. This would seem not to disturb the body soul relationship and thus not commit murder or create a new human being.
does the dematerializing constitute killing a person? prima facie it would seem tantamount to hacking a person to pieces and reassmbling and somehow reanimating the pieces in a different place.
It is my understanding that our souls are in our body the same way that God is in everything. that is to say our souls our bound to our bodies in the sense that our body is the universe over which our souls act. At some point ,conception, our souls are given dominion over matter which they previously had no dominion over. is it that unreasonable to assume our souls would be allowed dominion over the new body. the bottom line is it will work if God allows it though the testing of it seems to be immoral because even if it works we can not be sure we haven’t killed someone.
Ok, so was it Spocks spirit *and* soul inside McCoy before the re-infusion in The Search for Spock? I neeeed to know…
No — Spock’s power was leaving behind a mental imprint of all his brain carried inside someone else’s brain. Basically, he transferred all his memories.
This opens up the question of what the soul is tied to. We know the soul is dependent on the proper functioning of some aspects of the body, by which we usually mean the brain. But the brain is only important as the physical processor and receptacle of our immaterial thoughts. If those thoughts could viably exist outside the brain somehow, it is at least possible to defend the idea that one’s individual brain is not really necessary, only that SOME kind of “brain”, or thought holder, is needed.
At least, that’s the way Spock’s thingy seems to work. In that sense, his rational principle given at his birth (whatever you want to call that) survived in McCoy, while his animate principle was either A) replaced by one “imparted” by the hyper-evolutionary process of the Genesis planet, or B) survived in the matter that was his body.
If the above is the case, then it would seem more theologically definite that the soul travelled with the rational part, and thus two people were alive in one body. Not to be blasphemous, but think of it like McCoy temporarily receiving a Spock “Communion”, but without a sharing of physical matter.
As for transporters, the “Clone Riker” is the key. I don’t remember the episode too well, but wasn’t it true that the case was unique? If that were so, then it doesn’t seem that the transporter reforms you with brand new atoms on the other end, but ends up rather being a case of matter transferrence. Why?
Because, for one thing, there’s not always another transporter at the other end to form new atoms into matter (although that could be construed as a problem for the “molecular transferrence” theory as well), or the right kind of atoms to reform, nor are there always new atoms TO be formed. For example, someone could be transported directly into the emptiness of space. Where, then, would the atoms come from to make a “new” person?
But back to false Riker. If there were millions of transporters all over Star Trek world, each using new matter to reconstruct travellers, it seems likely there would be at least a few other incidents of a person’s molecules being disassembled, a pattern created, the molecules being accidently reassembled (correctly or not) on the original transporter pad, the PATTERN properly transferred, and the new person created on the other end as well.
We see how often Star Trek ships need to put into space dock for repairs, and how often their technology breaks down. Thus, it would seem likely that there would be many transporter accidents (we see one at the beginning of Star Trek: the Motion Picture), some of which would result in cloning ala The Two Rikers if the “using new molecules” theory were correct.
Of course, even with the molecular transferrence theory it would be possible to clone a person easily — make a pattern, including memories, but not do the transferrence of molecules. Instead, set up the transporter to use NEW molecules (what accidently happened to Riker) to form a new person with the same memories — instant clone.
Kind of makes me laugh at all those episodes where people were making clones the “old” way, by growing them.
And please pardon my horrific use of the terms “atoms” and “molecules” interchangeably here. I didn’t think the difference really mattered (pun intended) for the discussion.
Artificial gravity only fails on Klingnon vessels (The Undiscoved Country). This is do to Ferengi salesmanship and salvaged parts. Any further discussion of ” Artificial Gravity:Procedures in Crisis” By Capt. M. Scott, must be cleared throught StarFleet Command,Engineering.
Square Dancing on Vacation?..You Spun Chained the gears to much!
In James Blish’s non-canonical novel SPOCK MUST DIE(1970 or so), Bones, Spock and Kirk have a conversation very similar to this. Bones expresses real reservations about his soul, and everyone else who’s ever rode the damned thing, etc.
Scotty explains that the transporter is actually an energy analyzer. What is does is analyze the energy state of every particle in your body, then produce a “Dirac jump” to an equivalent energy state elsewhere. I don’t have the book in front of me but I feel certain that’s a pretty accurate recollection.
He goes on to say that no actual conversion of matter to energy is onvolved, of course, because it would blow up the ship.
Although SPOCK MUST DIE isn’t canon, this is the ebst explanation I’ve ever read about how the transporter works. It just moves you, the whole you, like an elevator does.
Theological adendum: when I said Spock’s rational principle was given at birth, I meant to say at conception/ensoulment. Carry on.
We don’t (at least I don’t) worry about the souls of people who are revived after being clinically dead. I’ve always assumed they had the same soul they started with. Couldn’t the soul survive the transporter the same way?
While we’re on the subject of Star Trek and souls, how many souls did Dax have? Are we assuming sentinet non-humans have souls?
Marie
I think of Dax as a creature that engages in numerous voluntary “Siamese Twinnings”, each of which involves a psychic connection to the twin, and each of which leaves with Dax a psychic imprint of the more frail (humanoid) twin when it passed away.
Assuming psychic is the right word for Star Trek.
Jimmy,
If you listened to the audio book, wouldn’t the correct term be “it was a good ‘listen'”? rather than, as you stated, “a good read” that you listened to?
or is this must new morphology to match new technology?
I’m surprised that between transporters, the cloned Riker, and holodecks that were capable of creating a rational being (did he have a soul by the way?) the writers never thought of the possibility of a modified transporter creating armies of copied people, especially androids or borg that could be programed to fight for whoever was doing the copying.
That also raises the question as to whether Data had a soul, or Isaac Asimov’s robots that Data was so shamelessly copied from (positronic brain and all).
Really it seems like since Gene Roddenberry and Isaac Asimov were apparently both atheists, no one in their imagined universes would have had souls the way we mean it. To Asimov death really seems to have been the end (except some psychic storage of personal knowledge in deep in the earth on Gaia), while Roddenberry (or a writer for him) once had Captain Picard say something along the lines of that the human mind is so complex he doubts death extinguishes every trace of it from the universe. Still on the whole transporters, holodeck people, androids, Asmovian robots, and even Asimov’s Gaia, seem to create a world were matter (and energy and weird related things from real or imagined physics) are the only real things. Evan where there is something seemingly supernatural it clearly has an ultimate, if still mysterious, scientific explanation. Also, morality is not really an issue at all in Asimov, except perhaps an intrinsic value to humanity as a whole, while in Roddenberry it is very important but relative, varying from one culture to another, with no supernatural sourse. The most enlightened characters in Roddenberry are always (correct me if I’m wrong) complete moral relativists, while in Asimov nothing is really taboo except maybe trying to kill large numbers of people. Neither world is very hospidible to religion either in their different ways, Asimov envisioning a positively athiest universe, and actually arguing against religion sometimes (see his short story “Reason” in I, Robot) Roddenberry creating more a relativist’s universe where religion is a cultural trait.
I don’t deny that both and other similar science fiction (the X-Men movies come to mind though they have their homosexuality thing) can bring up interesting questions of morality or philosophy, thus making them useful. Still, I think a lot of damage has been done as a result of people being drawn into this materialist and/or relativist (and sometimes downright “liberal”) way of thinking. It was, for instance, as a result of Asimov that as a teenager I toyed with atheism for a while, and the destructive influence of “Reason” stayed with me longer (making me doubt human reason and especially Scholsticism). I think a lot of my opposition to the idea of missionary work (in the sense of trying to convert people of other cultures to your faith) at that time came from Star Trek’s Prime Directive idea too. What do you bet some people actually loose their faith from being drawn into this way of thinking by seemingly innocent fiction?
There is also the issue of the modernist aesthetics of SF/sci-fi and the false idea of progress that the genre gives, but I’ll spare you that schpiel, for now at least.
It’s true that the allure of relativism can be powerful when surrounded by the “high-concept” intellectualism and general sense of a hopeful future espoused in Trek and other shows. In that sense Trek, or at least several specific episodes of it, aren’t good for children, young teens, or anyone without some moral discretion.
If you watch a lot of Star Trek, you get a sense that there’s a lot of cultural relativism (which is fine), but different characters believe different things about their religions (or cultures, for that matter). Hey, and remember that episode where they argued if Data had a soul? They seemed pretty open to the idea of souls and their importance there.
Still, I was always bothered by the complete lack of any mention of earth religion, except a passing reference or two to Jesus in the original series, and Dr. Flox saying something about attending a mass at St. Peter’s, in the context of saying how he loved to see how different religions celebrate. Captain Archer, always the dutiful liberal (“we learned long ago on our planet that HUNTING was WRONG”) rolled his eyes accordingly.
But I don’t know if you could say Star Trek is, overall, morally relativistic. There does seem to be a moral center in the main characters, or at least the captains, regarding things that are always right or always wrong. At least, there’s enough moral context that they would seem completely unrealistic doing the opposite one week of what they did the week before, morally speaking.
But then, of course, there are the “lesson” episodes, which seem to be meant to apply to modern man, but really don’t, because the situation set up in the episode makes it kind of a McGuffin. Without going into the episodes, I will mention the “crowded planet” ep. in TOS where Kirk helpfully suggests contraception as the obvious solution to the planet’s unspoken unwillingness to abort, and the infamous TNG ep. where Riker falls for the androgynous being.
And for the record, there was a Voyager ep. where they found many replicas of the holographic doctor being used as slaves, and they spent the ep. arguing about the doc’s humanity, and that of his “brothers”.
The thing with Star Trek is that the episodes are written by many authors. Some of them are probably sticking closely to one moral frame work or another while others are probably very strongly relativistic.
This discussion brought to mind something a friend of mine once pointed out. Major Sci-Fi authors tend to reinvent some form of imortality:
Author C. Clarke: 2001 A Space Odyssey (the Star Child)
Azimov: Androids
Heinlein: Lazarus Long
probably many others I can’t think of right now…
I always got the impression that Roddenberry seemed to be fairly much a classical liberal in many respects. There’s a significant difference between stating one’s belief that there is no God but freedom of religion to think otherwise must be respected, and believing it’s one’s duty to preach the gospel of atheism and purge society of the evils of all religion. The GBOTG wouldn’t have tolerated the latter and seemed to champion the former.
On another subject, now would seem to be a good time to request comment on this: http://www.tenthdimension.com/flash2.php
Assuming “Imagining the Ten Dimensions” were true, do the “copies” of us in the 5th and subsequent dimensions have different souls? If not, what is the point of striving for sainthood, when you’re going to engage in pretty terrible behavior your next time through the universe?
I will kill. m361 hydrocodone First, sprawling me crawling around on his skill if.
The real mystery of ST is how on earth did Scotty pass the Star Fleet physical each year?
watch paris hilton sex tape Kid, he said. I also ordered her. Perhaps he turned to its flightless.
Right? Or impressive. A comforting making love couples squeeze. I have the point.
Would have worried though, the thudding nude teen ass of his axe! Bring.
um, ok, i’m not intrinsically opposed to the idea of religion being a source of moral teaching and all that — but this thread is fascinating for the sole reason that it feels like someone trying to impose one framework of (flawed and inconsistent) mythology upon another which is *explicitly* made-up.
I’m sure that we all “feel” there is something called a soul, but there’s no way to prove it. So to worry about whether hypothetical transporter copies, clones, or children resulting from rape have souls is just another case of angels + heads of pins = x.
I find the latter example disturbing because it seems to suggest that children of rape, or out-of-wedlock at the least, are considered soulless by some people. What does that make them? Golems? Robots?
I think it’s time for some people to break out their dogmatic paradigms and just acknowledge that people are people. To follow in the tradition of Christ is to be emphatically non-judgmental — as Scalzi writes, if you’re overly concerned with OT stuff like judgment and hellfire then you are a Levitican.
And as Shatner said on SNL: Get a life!
It’s the 21st century, folks, time to move on from the stupid timewasting put-everything-and-everyone-in-their-place culture wars and address REAL issues like…i don’t know…injustice? poverty? the least among us? the children? the polar bears? Fine stewards of creation we are!
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“To follow in the tradition of Christ is to be emphatically non-judgmental…”
I’d love to see the evidence for that, especially since the only thing Jesus told us not to judge is the state of someone else’s soul.
Non-judgmentalism is a tenet of the secular-progressive religion, which holds that there are no absolute values.
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