Shades of Gray
Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 4x02 - "Anomaly"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
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that was expressly a copy.
I looked into the matter at Wikipedia, at mind uploading, and it describes two ways of accomplishing this: copy-and-upload or copy-and-delete. If I went with this, then what the mind transfer does is copy what already exists and then transfers that to the new body, which is exactly what we seen in the known cases in the Star Trek universe. Now, Discovery is adding a new twist to it, as the original mind does not exist, having been lost with the generation ship, and suggesting that what the symbiont carries is equivalent to the mind. If Gray does come back into an android body, this will be two copies over. How much degradation will there be?
Mind uploading - Wikipedia
Mind uploading - Wikipedia
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But this is what we understand TODAY with today’s science, in the Star Trek universe you can very clearly transfer your conscience to another body, as seen in several episodes.
Not to mention being the entire plot of Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock.
It should also be noted that it is kinda irrelevant for these purposes if the Grey which Adira can see is the "real Gray" or some sort of simulacrum based upon his memories within the symbiont. What matters is if the process can pull him out of the symbiont and into the android body.
The DS9 episode Facets already canonically showed a telepathic process by which hosts can meet with previous hosts. There's also the Rite of Emergence which Ezri used to bring out Joran Dax. The best way to explain Grey seems to be that Adira accidentally did the Rite of Emergence spontaneously.
The DS9 episode Facets already canonically showed a telepathic process by which hosts can meet with previous hosts. There's also the Rite of Emergence which Ezri used to bring out Joran Dax. The best way to explain Grey seems to be that Adira accidentally did the Rite of Emergence spontaneously.
But for the ceremony they did in DS9 they explicitly say it is just the transfer of memories that allows the past selves to "inhabit" current people. It's not like a katra transference, the previous host isn't really alive again. Additionally, both Jadzia and Ezri had varying "visions" of Joran, but he wasn't thought to be alive either, it was just mental manifestation by the physical/host body and mind. If the whole point is to dramatize people in the real 21st century world being able to feel seen and heard as they really are, then it undercuts the whole point if you are simply transferring memories and not an actual person/spirit/katra. That would be like programming a synth body using some dead person's diary entries, it may sound somewhat like them, but it's not them.
I know the Discovery writers, and the characters obviously, are treating this like a done deal and verified reality, but for me due to the lack of sufficient exploration or discussion of the whole "Gray is still here" topic, to me it still feels like this is just Adira's mind envisioning a memory of Gray and how he would act. I wish this storyline felt more real for me.
Oddly, the lack of a more rigorous examination of this topic reminds me of several other moments on Discovery, the most recent of which came in "Anomaly" where Stamets arrives on the bridge and just by looking at the viewscreen (with whatever filter Burnham asked for), Stamets is able to come to all sorts of conclusions about the anomaly. I know it is for storytelling purposes and to make the characters look like supergeniuses, but I find it silly. It's about a million times better when they do even a few button pushes on a console (as Saru often does/did), get some more data and a little analysis/confirmation from the computer before stating complex scientific conclusions. I can't remember the number of times characters on Discovery have made this kind of summary analyses on an away mission without even pulling out a tricorder and doing a quick scan.
Come to think of it, if Discovery was actually interested in making something out of their 32nd century sci-fi setting, they could have all the officers have tricorder functionality built into some implant in their body and projected into a contact lens, imbedded ocular screen, fed into their optic nerve, or projected into a noumenon (internal head space). That would be a neat way to use cool new tech and get those rapid genius character moments to actually make sense.
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As I said upthread, it actually doesn't matter if the Grey in Adira's mind is actually the "real Grey" in terms of having continuity of consciousness. He believes he is real, and so does Adira. If they can put him into an android body, than he will be a real person in all ways that matter.
Regardless, in terms of Trek logic, it makes way more sense than how Culber came back. Didn't that have something to do with Stamets' tears?
actually that was probably a copy: Spock made a copy of his mind inside McCoy, then immolated himself to save the ship, until he died there were two copies of spock’s mind alive at the same time.
that is, unless he opened a link with McCoy instead and the transfer only happened at the death of the body. It COULD be interpreted this way if one wanted to but the bottom line is that there is not enough evidence either way.
I still have no idea how he came back. Speaking of other parts of discovery that don’t make sense...
Yeah, I agree that that makes more sense than Culber's resurrection (which still feels to me like a really bad retcon in execution, but not character development or impact). But as for Gray, it does matter if it is just memories transferred or something more. Just programming a synth to think it is alive and giving it memories from some person, doesn't make it that person. (For me, a person is a combination of their memories and their physical brain structures - whether physical or emulated/simulated - which governs their decision making and reactions to stimuli. Without both of those you just have a bunch of records of experiences of that person, not the actual person. Other people, depending on their spirituality, might add an additional requirement of a "soul" or other core energy/element.) And until you have some kind of independent confirmation that Gray as an entity actually exists in some form other than just memories, it doesn't matter if Adira's "vision" of Gray thinks its alive or if Adira thinks that Gray is alive (because those would be the same thing) because that is just Adira's mind's interpretation that Gray would want to be alive.
Now, if DIS says Gray is real and not just memories, then that is fine; it's the clear stated intent of the show. But that doesn't mean it has been justified by what has been shown, it has just been enacted via fiat. Not unlike a lot of other Discovery (and some other Trek) story beats and character decisions/moments.
Yet that would be a distinction without a difference. Assuming it is a copy, it was implanted in Spock's body at the end of the movie, and thus it would be a "copy" of Spock from the end of ST3 forward through Into Darkness. The body might be the original, but the consciousness would be a "copy". Yet no one complains about it being a copy of Spock. I honestly do not understand why it would be different for Picard, other than people just like to dump on things.
You're OK with this being on your tombstone if you should ever happen to drop off this mortal coil and somehow leave me in charge of funeral prep, right?
good
OK? I'm hoping future students have to memorize the epitaph and write long essays theorizing the meaning.
Exactly so. The mechanics of which may vary but Trek has always postulated that consciousness transfer is absolutely possible since TOS onward.
Eh. Picard established that synths were self-aware people, whether or not they were direct mind transfers (or copies, whatever). It's not like Soji isn't a real person despite all of her memories being false. From a story perspective it doesn't matter what Gray is. We only really knew the "real Gray" in flashback in Forget Me Not.
Last season, seeing holo-Gray on the ship with Su'Kal was supposed to be the confirmation that he is "real." That's good enough. But even if he's just a mental construction, there's real world analogues, like multiple personality disorder, where the individual alters may indeed in a sense be separate conscious individuals inhabiting the same brain.
I see no reason not to think that Gray isn't actually a self-aware individual within Adira's body given what the story has told us - even if he might not be identical to the Gray that passed away. And I see no reason why the process used for Picard couldn't be used on Gray, provided they can figure out where exactly his consciousness is stored in Adira's body (presumably somewhere in the symbiont).
A bit of an aside, but I do feel increasingly that Discovery over-learned the lessons of the bad response to Season 1 and is now way too conflict averse.
I mean, in this episode, Tilly snaps at Adira once, and is given advice to lay off them because they look up to her. Then later in the episode, she tells Culber she needs counseling. It took me time to put two and two together - that the inference is the only possible reason Tilly could be short with Adira is because she's not mentally well.
That's...awful. Conflict is a normal part of human relationships, not a sign of mental illness.
I mean, in this episode, Tilly snaps at Adira once, and is given advice to lay off them because they look up to her. Then later in the episode, she tells Culber she needs counseling. It took me time to put two and two together - that the inference is the only possible reason Tilly could be short with Adira is because she's not mentally well.
That's...awful. Conflict is a normal part of human relationships, not a sign of mental illness.
There will be a statue of your buttocks right next to the one of Miles O'Brien.
That daert will clearly be in the Bullseye.
Yeah, I understand what you are saying. I just don't think they have really shown that Gray is separate from just memories and "real". I guess the holoship thing is one bit of proof, but they haven't even tried to explain how Gray is still there and why he is any different from the other symbiote memories. WHY isn't he just a collection of past host memories like all the rest of the symbiote memories?
And I think it does matter if it is the same Gray or not. Sure you can program a synth and, based on the degree of self-awareness shown by the most advanced synths (for example, not those on Mars), they should be considered alive/people. But just having a living synth with Gray's memories doesn't make it Gray. It needs to be an actual "transference"/copy of the Gray entity while alive or recently enough after death, or an exact reproduction (memoires and brain structure) of Gray with sufficient fidelity to the original entity, otherwise it is just like Data holding the colonists memories and records from before the Crystalline entity, or B-4 holding Data's memories, or any Trill when they move into a new host they have the old memories but aren't that person anymore.
It will be interesting to see if Discovery goes in the direction, at all, of exploring if Gray is a different person now than before. Will he feel different? Will he see Adira differently? Will Adira see him differently? They have touched on this a little in previous Treks, but I don't think they have done it from this precise angle.
I agree that they have become too conflict adverse. I think they have rounded off the more interesting corners of their characters and their interactions.
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I recognize the inference options of Tilly either doing preventive maintenance on her mental health, or learning to better manage her relationships with other people in general and people assigned to work in her department in particular. Or both. And yes, like everyone else from the 23rd Century contingent of Discovery's current crew, she's also dealing with ongoing issues from that particular time-transit.
As for Gray, obviously there's something different involved that ensured his survival - as a dependent entity connected both to Adira and the symbiont Tal - that holo-tech of 3150's vintage was able to "latch onto" and create a body for. Tal's transfer from Trill humanoid to Earth-human host was also without (recorded and acknowledged) precedent, if I remember correctly.
As for Gray, obviously there's something different involved that ensured his survival - as a dependent entity connected both to Adira and the symbiont Tal - that holo-tech of 3150's vintage was able to "latch onto" and create a body for. Tal's transfer from Trill humanoid to Earth-human host was also without (recorded and acknowledged) precedent, if I remember correctly.
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