A Niner Watches Babylon 5 (NO spoilers, please)

[flavaflav]

yup, Martin Sheen does pop up as a Soul Hunter, but not until after the finale in a tv flick.

[Forbin]

Jan wrote:

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Yeah, I've got a lot, due in large part to having become a fan while the show was still on the air. It's nice that a number of fans here also have the script books now, too.

I've never known B5 fans to be anything but helpful to the new fans. Probably because we enjoy the vicarious experience of seeing the show for the first time again through threads like this.

Jan

Also 'cause we never got partitioned like Trek fans did - "You like B5 more than Crusade? Are you nuts?" "What? you think Legend of the Rangers' third season was better than B5: Lost Tales second season, you shiftless nerf-herder?!"

Maybe if the spinoffs had succeeded we'd be there, but maybe we're lucky they didn't.

[Forbin]

Soul Hunter: I always thought of that guy as "Evil Popeye."

[Sykonee]

TheGodBen wrote:

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I've been told that Martin Sheen shows up as a Soul Hunter at some point, is that true? Because that was one of the ways my brother tried to sell me on the show since he knew I was a big West Wing fan, but the idea of him as a Soul Hunter makes me worry.

Honestly, Sheppard's "crazy old-man" turn as a Soul Hunter was more memorable than Sheen's. At least Sheppard was... creepy.

[Jan]

TheGodBen wrote:

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Thanks for the offer, but I think I'll be okay without it. And sorry if I was rude to you yesterday, I was in a particularly bad mood for a variety of reasons, I hope you weren't too offended.

Thanks for the apology, it's appreciated.

I may still post some deleted or changed scenes from time to time just because I think they're interesting. And in a few cases, the shaved bits of dialogue would have had a real effect if they'd been left in.

Jan

[Silvercrest]

TheGodBen wrote:

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Soul Hunter (½)

I've always thought that the concept of the Soul Hunters had this gigantic hole. I mean, if someone doesn't believe in an immortal soul, then it's no big leap that they won't believe in an afterlife. But the Soul Hunters can prove that the immortal soul exists, and they still don't believe in an afterlife??!!

I know that the existence of the soul doesn't automatically prove the existence of a heaven, hell, etc. But the Soul Hunters are already a lot closer to those metaphysical concepts because of their profession, so you'd think they would have a more open mind. As it is, they appear to be covering their eyes and ears and chanting, "La la la! I can't hear you! La la la!" Really, it looks like someone has done a serious propaganda number on these guys.

[JoeD80]

Silvercrest wrote:

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But the Soul Hunters can prove that the immortal soul exists, and they still don't believe in an afterlife??!!

The point is that they *don't* believe in an immortal soul, unless they seal it within their soul globes before the person dies completely. If they don't get to save them at the instant of death, then they are lost forever, which is why the Soul Hunter was pissed at Delenn for stopping the Soul Hunters from saving the previous Minbari leader Dukhat. The Soul Hunters believe the soul ceases, and that's why they are trying to capture the important ones. The Minbari believe the souls go back to the "collective" of Minbari souls, which is why Delenn frees them.

[Jan]

JoeD80 wrote:

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The point is that they *don't* believe in an immortal soul, unless they seal it within their soul globes before the person dies completely. If they don't get to save them at the instant of death, then they are lost forever, which is why the Soul Hunter was pissed at Delenn for stopping the Soul Hunters from saving the previous Minbari leader Dukhat.

That's exactly it. The Soul Hunters collect something but is it an immortal soul or just a personality matrix?

The subject of what happens to souls will be discussed again (she says vaguely).

Jan

[Silvercrest]

JoeD80 wrote:

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The point is that they *don't* believe in an immortal soul, unless they seal it within their soul globes before the person dies completely. If they don't get to save a soul, then they are lost forever, which is why the Soul Hunter was pissed at Delenn for stopping the Soul Hunters from saving Dukhat.

I disagree. Though I will admit up-front that the disagreement may be due to differences in how we define the immortal soul.

My understanding of a soul is that it's supposed to be the person's "essence", separate and distinct from the measurable pattern of brain impulses. It's also capable of existing outside of the body and doesn't need it (hence the "immortal" part).

The Soul Hunters obviously believe in the first part -- that's what they're capturing. They must believe in the second part. They wouldn't claim that a soul "would be lost to the ether in an insubstantial existence" if it ceased to exist!

If they simply believe that a soul dies if it's not captured immediately, okay. But they don't talk about the lost souls as if they no longer exist. They talk about them as if they are lost and unretrievable.

Here's an existential question. If a soul can't exist outside the body, and dies when the brain dies, then how is it even defined differently from the brain? "A difference that makes no difference is no difference."

To put it another way, if it's irrevocably tied to the body, then you can't capture it and put it somewhere else. All you can do is make a copy. Can the Soul Hunters tell whether they're making a copy or capturing the original? I'll grant that they know the difference, and that they really are capturing the original. Which means that by their own definition, the soul has existence independent of the body, and can continue to exist after death. And could do so even if the Soul Hunters didn't grab it.

At that point, whether the soul has somewhere to go is a question for the philosphers. I seriously doubt the Soul Hunters have any way of telling. The part I find inconsistent is that, for whatever reason, they aren't even asking that question.

[Reverend]

^ As you say it depends on how you define a "soul". The simplest definition, (to steal a line from Star Trek) is "everything that is not of the body." Whether it exists independently of the body or if it is a chunk of recycled schizo universe brain is a matter of belief. The way the Soul hunters see it, whatever it is they think they're preserving cannot exist without a body unless they intervene.

[Silvercrest]

But what about lines like "lost to the ether in an insubstantial existence"? That says they believe it can exist without a body. Insubstantial existence is still existence, after all.

[Brian]

The Soul Hunter says in this episode:

All sentients have ephemeral souls. When a person dies, the soul expires into oblivion. However, soul hunters have a prescient attraction to death - if they so choose they can capture and preserve a soul "for the greater good" at the moment it leaves the body. They carry with them a bag full of the souls they have "saved", each in its own glass vessel.

Perhaps that "insubstantial existence" is transient, and is the decline/dissipation of a soul into oblivion.

[Silvercrest]

Ah, good call. I'd forgotten that line.

But at that point we're back to the difference between a pattern of brain electrical impulses and signals (a purely measurable and physical phenomenon) and an "ephemeral soul", which is claimed to be something different, but in reality behaves exactly the same as the electrical pattern, including the ability to be recorded, and fading out at death. There's no discernable difference.

Do the Soul Hunters have a way to differentiate between the ephemeral soul and the brain pattern/personality matrix? Not according to what they tell us. So all it sounds like is that they've slapped a different label on the brain pattern. Really, they could have saved themselves a lot of trouble by just claiming they're making recordings.

And if in reality the soul can exist after death, then the Soul Hunters can't capture it. How can they? They don't believe it exists. By their own admission, their technology only allows them to capture some of the essence (whatever it is) from a living person. If the soul is transcendent, it should be beyond them whether it's in the body or not. So all the Soul Hunter-haters out there have nothing to worry about.

[Brian]

JMS settled this argument back when the episode first aired. When asked, "Who's right, the Soul Hunter or the Minbari?" he replied,

Yes.

He later elaborated:

What the soul was, who's right, and even whether this is SF or Science Fantasy, was it explained enough to merit one over the other ... how can I put this...? I don't want to spoon-feed stuff to people. What I want is not to hit someone with a MORAL, or a message, or "This is what a soul is," or "This is what makes it an SF series," I want to start discussions. Arguments. Preferably a bar fight or two.

We present an issue. Here are the sides. Now...what do YOU think about it? I want this show to ask, "Who are you? Where are you going?" That's half the fun. Some of my favorites pastimes in college were sitting in the commons, or the library, arguing this stuff from every possible angle. You think I'm gonna tell you what to think? What it means? No. The goal is to provoke discussion. Preferably passionate discussion. Otherwise I might as well just start renting billboards and putting up signs.

So he seems to be succeeding.

[Silvercrest]

Hear, hear!

And please understand that I'm not arguing who's right, the Soul Hunter or the Minbari. Or whether the soul exists or not, or what it is. I'm just pointing out that there are some built-in contradictions in the Soul Hunters' own claims of what they're doing.

And that makes me think they were sold a bill of goods by whoever put them on the task in the first place.