Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 2x05 - "Saints of Imperfection"

[Tuskin38]

It’s fictional science

Ira Graves did it in TNG, albeit digitally

 

[XCV330]

True. This is why, as I said, it would have helped them to have a science adviser to run the scripts by first. I mean, it's still nonsense, but then it would be nonsense which at least doesn't create new and additional conflicts with our 21st understanding of science.

They're not going to find a science adviser equipped to handle rebuilding bodies from souls etc. There's no scientific basis for the transporter, or Vulcan terra-cotta soul jars, or resurrecting Culber.

For my money I would have liked to have seen Culber come back like that guy in the comic book in the Aha "Take on Me" video. Anyway glad he's back. I know there's this feeling this was done to correct the mistake of killing his character but you can see my responses during season 1. I never thought he was permanently gone, and the season strongly hinted at it anyway. So nyaaaa.

It wouldn't bother me to SEE some kind of unified soul-ology framework thing in Trek, though it would be too difficult to go back and retcon all the previous mess and it would pigeonhole future writing. I don't think a scientific expert or "hard sf" writer would the route to go. For that kind of intricate metaphysical world building you want, need really, N.K. Jemisin. But i also don't think it's necessary for trek.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

It wouldn't bother me to SEE some kind of unified soul-ology framework thing in Trek, though it would be too difficult to go back and retcon all the previous mess and it would pigeonhole future writing..

VOY: Eminations touched upon the idea of souls, with an ambiguous ending that included the Voyager detecting a slight increase in neural energy to the asteroid burial ground, suggesting the possibility that the Vhnori -- upon death -- transfer something mysterious from their bodies to the total energy of the asteroid field.

 

[Photoman15]

What if he came back straight?

 

[XCV330]

What if he came back straight?

He was kind of curled up.

 

[eschaton]

I think it would be bold to find out that Culber "came back" as sort of a construct of everything that Stamets knew about Culber, rather than actually containing all of his memories.

Of course, that would mean that Culber would be useless as a doctor, because I'm sure Paul knows very little about that. But it would be interesting seeing the ramifications of trying to deal with the knowledge you're a construct - portions of a person, rather than the entire thing.

 

[Longinus]

That was the part that got my eyes rolling, because it's clear no one in the friggin writer's room had any idea how the human brain actually works.

Basically, a lot of people falsely believe in Cartesian dualism - the idea that the mind and the body are separate things. Under this loose analogy, the brain works as "hardware" while the mind is the "software." The body is "matter" and the mind is "energy."

But the fact of the matter is, there is no such division. There are of course purely energetic elements of the human mind, like electricity and magnetic fields. But there are also elements of the mind which are only energy in the chemical sense (meaning, unless you want to want to count borrowing an electron here and there, they're bound up in matter). Much of the mind is just the pure physical structure of the brain. Destroy the structure, and that element of the mind is gone. Fundamentally, "we" are not energy. We are organization, which falls apart via entropy.

There are ways you could use an understanding of how the mind works to make resurrection happen. For example, the whole Star Trek "transporter clone" thing is correct, given a materialist understanding of the universe. Perfectly copy someone's body - including the brain - and you have continuity of consciousness - it's literally the same person. Similarly, in principle a virtual copy of your brain down to the molecular level (most scientists don't think quantum phenomena really impact consciousness) would be enough to make a self-aware copy of you in a machine. And in an infinite universe, the chance of "you" somehow inexplicably popping into existence somewhere else after you die is...well...certain eventually.

But just talking about the mind as "energy" is new-age woo. That's the religious concept of a soul, not how the human mind actually works.

I'll grant that Trek has already implied that Vulcan minds do work like this with all the Katra bullshit, but this is at least semi-believable, because maybe Vulcan brain structure is very different from our own, with their minds operating as "software" rather than the mixed software/hardware of our own minds.

Whilst I think the 'science' in this episode was pure nonsense magic, and evoking conservation of energy there was particularly painful, I don't think that working of the mind is really understood on the level you imply at all. Sure, we pretty well understand how brain works in mechanical sense, how certain stimuli create certain reactions. However, no one really has a fucking clue why we actually subjectively experience any of this. As far as physics go, we all should be just robots, philosophical zombies, yet we are not, we have qualia, phenomenal experiences. No one has even remotely satisfactory answer for this Hard Problem of Consciousness, as Chalmers called it. I'm of course not implying existence of souls here, but merely pointing out that this is a subject which directly involves one of the biggest, if not the biggest, unanswered questions we have.

 

[Longinus]

Anyway, they really should have said that Stamets somehow transferred Culber's information to the mushroom plane, rather than his energy, it would have made a tiny bit more sense that way.

 

[cooleddie74]

What if he came back straight?

The conservative fans would still bitch about him.

 

[DaveyNY]

The conservative fans would still bitch about him.

I'm sure some of them are still trying to get over him coming back butt naked.

 

[cooleddie74]

A naked butt in Star Trek? How dare these libs ruin Trek with human flesh.

They'd be so mad they would see only the wrong number of lights.

 

[Greg Cox]

To my relief, I honestly haven't seen many complaints about the butt shot.

Certainly nothing on the level of all the hand-wringing about the F-word last season.

 

[cooleddie74]

I wonder how many Trekkies complained about "double dumbass on you" back in 1986.

 

[Longinus]

I wonder how many Trekkies complained about "double dumbass on you" back in 1986.

That was like the only valid reason to complain about 'fuck' on Discovery. ST:IV clearly established that 23rd century people don't curse like we do today, so 'fuck' was a continuity error!

 

[DaveyNY]

That was like the only valid reason to complain about 'fuck' on Discovery. ST:IV clearly established that 23rd century people don't curse like we do today, so 'fuck' was a continuity error!

Though Kirk did seem to completely understand what the F-U Finger meant...

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[Bold Helmsman]

That was like the only valid reason to complain about 'fuck' on Discovery. ST:IV clearly established that 23rd century people don't curse like we do today, so 'fuck' was a continuity error!

Tell that to Picard. He was known to let some invections slip from his mouth from time to time.

 

[XCV330]

Tell that to Picard. He was known to let some invections slip from his mouth from time to time.

even Saavik cursed.

That was like the only valid reason to complain about 'fuck' on Discovery. ST:IV clearly established that 23rd century people don't curse like we do today, so 'fuck' was a continuity error!

It was already established that Stafleet officers cursed (COTEOF, TMP, TWOK). Kirk's colorful metaphor line was a throwaway that had did not jive with previous instances or later instances. They cuss all the time, they just aren't as good at it.

Kirk: let's get the hell out of here
Kirk: Damnit Spock.
Kirk: I ought to knock you on your god-damned ass.
Kirk: You Klingon bastards you murdered my son
David Marcus: You son of a bitch.
Saavik: Damn.
Spock: Go to hell.
Spock: Damn you sir!
McCoy: Green blooded son of a bitch
Scott: That Klingon bitch killed her father.
Uhura: I'm going to xxxx your head off and !@#@ down your throat while you're head is still watching if you don't get in that #$#$#!@ closet you ^$@@king little privileged puke. (deleted scene, ST III TSFS)

 

[Campe]

Uhura: I'm going to xxxx your head off and !@#@ down your throat while you're head is still watching if you don't get in that #$#$#!@ closet you ^$@@king little privileged puke. (deleted scene, ST III TSFS)

I missed that deleted scene.

 

[Noname Given]

My favorite part of the episode was how Culber came back from the network perfectly groomed!

In the instnt before the transfer the Mycelial beings managed to chomp his facial hair at just the last second.

 

[XCV330]

In the instnt before the transfer the Mycelial beings managed to chomp his facial hair at just the last second.

It was based on Stamet's criteria. Who knows what other tweaks he gave him.