TNG: The Persistence of Memory by David Mack Review Thread (Spoilers!)

[Ood Sigma]

Absolutely outstanding. I was completely riveted the entire time. I never wanted to put the Kindle down. Part 2 was just so wonderfully done. David absolutely nailed Noonien Soong's voice and thoughts.

I've read all of Trek Lit, and this was definitely the best novel since... well, probably, the Destiny trilogy. I can't recommend it highly enough.

[shanejayell]

About the only thing I'm... less than please with in the book is how Geordi's progress in Indestinguishable from Magic has been pretty much completely rolled back.

Lost his 'Captain of Engineering' rank, apparently. He's even back dating a girl who transferred OFF Enterprise in IFM. I thought Leah Brahms MOVED IN WITH HIM after IFM. What the....

Bad editing? Or did Dave not get a copy to read before starting?

[Christopher]

Well, we all know how bad Geordi's luck with women has perennially been. Maybe things didn't work out with Leah.

[Hartzilla2007]

Christopher wrote:

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Well, we all know how bad Geordi's luck with women has perennially been. Maybe things didn't work out with Leah.

Or they hit the reset button a little too hard this time.

[Lonemagpie]

Christopher wrote:

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Well, we all know how bad Geordi's luck with women has perennially been. Maybe things didn't work out with Leah.

It was meant to tie into All Good Things...

[shanejayell]

Christopher wrote:

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Well, we all know how bad Geordi's luck with women has perennially been. Maybe things didn't work out with Leah.

Then it should have been at least mentioned. Bad editing, if not possibly bad writing.

[Sho]

Haven't read IFM yet (but really looking forward to it), but I was rather fond of the Brahms-LaForge coupling on the show ...

Edit: So how does TPoM do at establishing compatibility with Countdown, given that Data is "back"? Because if TPoM allows us to assume things are headed in that direction, AFAIR it also establishes Brahms as marrying La Forge.

[Christopher]

Sho wrote:

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Edit: So how does TPoM do at establishing compatibility with Countdown, given that Data is "back"?

Too early to say. Data (or an android who calls himself Data and has the original's memories) may be "back" among the living, but he's not back in Starfleet, and at this point, it's too early to say whether his path will take him there again.

Also, he doesn't exactly look the same way he did before; the new android has a more human appearance, although he could modify it if for some reason he wanted to look like his old self.

So while it doesn't specifically conflict with Countdown at this point, it doesn't seem to be building toward it either.

[Edit_XYZ]

Christopher wrote:

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Too early to say. Data (or an android who calls himself Data and has the original's memories) may be "back" among the living

'calls himself Data and has the original's memories'...

If it looks like a duck (beyond trivialities), quacks like a duck, even thinks like a duck, then it IS a duck.
The 'it's not really Data' the book apparently attepts is highly unconvincing, a feeble excuse to have the cookie and eat it too.

The book is a standard resurrection story - much like 'The eternal tide'.
Well - trek lit has just become the equivalent of a generic comic book line.

[Newspaper Taxi]

To Edit XYZ:

Check out the logic paradox of Thesues' ship.

Now imagine if Thesues' ship was sentient being. That's the dilema with Data.

The comparison to Janeway doesn't work here because Janeway isn't a ship whose had all of her planks replaced; she's just a dead soul one of the Gods decided to bring back. That's more of a Deus ex Machina.

EDIT: I suppose if you wanted to get hyper technical you could argue that Janeway's Ressurection was partially a subversion of the trope in that her revival didn't solve the core conflict as originally expected. But it still took a 'God' to resolve the conflict of letting her survive her fatal encounter with the cube.

[Christopher]

I can only assume that Edit XYZ hasn't read the book, or he'd never claim

that the difference between the original Data and the new one is trivial. There are major differences that we've barely begun to see the extent of yet. Even if one does choose to believe it's somehow the "same" Data, it's still a Data who now has emotions (again) and a very different, more powerful and versatile body, and who has been profoundly changed by his experiences with his father, to the extent that he's not sure he'll ever return to Starfleet. Either way, it's anything but a reset button.

[Edit_XYZ]

Newspaper Taxi

Theseus' ship is less a paradox and more a matter of defining terms. And it applies only in the real world:
For example - for a japanese, function and form defines the identity of something, not the atoms that made this something at one time.
For a greek, it's the atoms that make an ancient temple/etc.

About conscious beings (humans); indeed, for all living entities:
Did you know that the atoms that make you are completely replaced every ~7 years?

For the trekverse/ANY fictional universe:
The fictional persons/things/etc have no material existence. They are merely an amalgam of characteristics.

Meaning, the same characteristics that made Data/anything else will always make Data/said anything else.
No semantic hair-splitting about replacing planks that never exited in the first place.


About Janeway being resurrected by a god - irrelevant. It doesn't matter whether one's resurrected by technobabble, god, or the tooth fairy - or any imaginative combinations the comic lines came up.
It is STILL cheap, blatantly standard resurrection in its essence, meant to bring a popular (read - which sells comics/books) character back.

Why cheap?
Because, while technobabble/magic allows for fictional resurrections, the real world does not. In the end, resurrections are only a facile wish-fulfillment fantasy, on the level of those marketed toward 7 year olds - regardless of the in-universe ...babble you came up with for 'explaining' it.
And because it cheapens the story - now everything is fair game for a reset button; who cares about what happens in a meta-story only interested in milking some popular characters for all they're worth, where everything can be reversed AKA nothing has any 'punch'.

If you truly care, Newspaper Taxi...well, it doesn't take much to get you invested in something, on the proverbial 'edge of the seat', does it now?

[Christopher]

Edit_XYZ wrote:

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Did you know that the atoms that make you are completely replaced every ~7 years?

I know that's one of those many inaccurate factoids that most people assume are true because they've heard it many times, like the old "we use 10 percent of our brains" myth. In fact, different body tissues are replaced at different rates. Some cells, like blood and skin and stomach lining, are constantly being shed and replaced, while others, like heart and brain cells, and of course stem cells, stay with us throughout our lives. Every woman is born with her ovaries containing thousands of egg cells, only a few hundred of which will go through ovulation before she dies, so those cells and their constituent atoms are with her throughout her entire life. The atoms within cells can be replaced at varying rates, but many of those replacement atoms will be recycled from elsewhere within our own bodies. Studies of people born before and after atomic testing increased the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere have shown that in the former category, most of the DNA in their neurons had carbon isotope ratios consistent with the atmosphere before nuclear testing, proving that most of their neurons were formed in childhood. That proves their neuronal DNA molecules were still made of the same atoms they'd been made of decades before.

For the trekverse/ANY fictional universe:
The fictional persons/things/etc have no material existence. They are merely an amalgam of characteristics.

Meaning, the same characteristics that made Data/anything else will always make Data/said anything else.
No semantic hair-splitting about replacing planks that never exited in the first place.

As long as you keep making assumptions without having read the book, you'll just embarrass yourself further.

As I've already stated repeatedly, yes, "Data 2.0" has most of the "charateristics" (or at least the memories) of the original, but the crucial point is that he also has new characteristics that the original didn't have. Those memories are being run by different, more advanced software and firmware modeled on Noonien Soong's own brain architecture, so I expect he's going to turn out to have an amalgam of Data's and Soong's personalities -- as I said, like a Trill joining. This isn't about the philosophical niceties of identity -- it's about the fact that, from a strictly story-based viewpoint, this is not a return to the status quo ante, because there are real and meaningful differences in who Data is now, whether or not you believe he has continuity with the original.

[Deranged Nasat]

My copy just arrived. Starting it now.

[Edit_XYZ]

Christopher wrote:

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I know that's one of those many inaccurate factoids that most people assume are true because they've heard it many times, like the old "we use 10 percent of our brains" myth. In fact, different body tissues are replaced at different rates. Some cells, like blood and skin and stomach lining, are constantly being shed and replaced, while others, like heart and brain cells, and of course stem cells, stay with us throughout our lives. Every woman is born with her ovaries containing thousands of egg cells, only a few hundred of which will go through ovulation before she dies, so those cells and their constituent atoms are with her throughout her entire life. The atoms within cells can be replaced at varying rates, but many of those replacement atoms will be recycled from elsewhere within our own bodies. Studies of people born before and after atomic testing increased the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere have shown that in the former category, most of the DNA in their neurons had carbon isotope ratios consistent with the atmosphere before nuclear testing, proving that most of their neurons were formed in childhood. That proves their neuronal DNA molecules were still made of the same atoms they'd been made of decades before.

As long as you keep making assumptions without having read the book, you'll just embarrass yourself further.

As I've already stated repeatedly, yes, "Data 2.0" has most of the "charateristics" (or at least the memories) of the original, but the crucial point is that he also has new characteristics that the original didn't have. Those memories are being run by different, more advanced software and firmware modeled on Noonien Soong's own brain architecture, so I expect he's going to turn out to have an amalgam of Data's and Soong's personalities -- as I said, like a Trill joining. This isn't about the philosophical niceties of identity -- it's about the fact that, from a strictly story-based viewpoint, this is not a return to the status quo ante, because there are real and meaningful differences in who Data is now, whether or not you believe he has continuity with the original.

Fine.
If you insist on being utterly accurate in this tangential issue, then yes, only about ~90% of our atoms change in ~7 years (feel free to search for the exactly precisely etc accurate values if you wish).

This biological fact more than proves my point regarding this nature of living systems in relation to an overthought greek definition-seeking of the concept "the same".

And in relation to thought and consciousness - tell me, Christopher, is your mental world - your thoughts, feelings and aspirations - the same as 7 years ago? As 1 year ago?

I'm aware Data received character development in the discussed book.
And?
Receiving character development (AKA changing in response to events as Data would) does NOT undo the resurrection.

As, apparently, is needed to say, character development != new character; of course, it does not erase the resurrection.