Does Data have a soul?
- Thread starter eskyliz
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There's definitely a great overall arc to Q. Were it not for Picard getting Q in humanity's camp by, well, just being Jean-Luc...humanity would have been wiped out. I loved their 'old married couple' relationship at the end.
My fanwank as to the existence of the Q, a race of near-omnipotent beings that have only a vague understanding what it means to be 'human' was that they were a group of telepaths who intentionally crashed through the great galactic barrier.
It immediately made me think, WORF: "I like my speeecies just the way it is."
Yup! lol
I think Q was basically the TNG equivalent of most of the near omnipotent TOS aliens acting as gods. Roddenberry seemed to have a hard-on for this trope and included it in practically everywhere he was involved.
I actually like Q as a character more than I do the TOS versions though. Q seems to be a god with which one can reason with to some extent, as opposed to the TOS gods who basically are set in their ways (Kirk either won by finding their weaknesses, or lost because they were too powerful).
Picard on the other hand, doesn't defeat Q, but simply convinces him that humanity is not as bad as Q thinks it is.
One thing the storyline with Data forgot is that whenever you hit his off switch, he's completely off. Switch him back on, he's conscious again, like a computer.
Same thing with the Doctor on VOY and he had much more emotional expression than Data.
It seems like the show takes a materialist view and strongly suggests he doesn't.
And yet on Voy there was an episode with Chakotey where he was out of his body and wandering the ship as neural energy or something.
The shows teeters back and forth on whether there is "something else" out there.
Same thing with the Doctor on VOY and he had much more emotional expression than Data.
It seems like the show takes a materialist view and strongly suggests he doesn't.
And yet on Voy there was an episode with Chakotey where he was out of his body and wandering the ship as neural energy or something.
The shows teeters back and forth on whether there is "something else" out there.
Ah, but is that death?
Then again, issues of death become odd since we had humans dead for 200 years revived.
If the soul is a literal thing separate from the body given to us at birth: No, Data does not.
If there is no literal soul and we define the soul as our conscious experience of the world that is the result of chemical interactions in our brain, then maybe he does.
If there is no literal soul and we define the soul as our conscious experience of the world that is the result of chemical interactions in our brain, then maybe he does.
This is because depending on the episode, the story either needed the concept of a soul, or it didn't.
Like the episode where Janeway is being coaxed to go to the "afterlife" with her "father". Obviously something that wasn't her body would have gone.
Yet another episode, like when Neelix dies for 16 hours and is resurrected feels a loss that he didn't end up under that great tree in his "afterlife". That episode heavily implies there is no soul.
And many other examples. Trek seems to pick and choose depending on the story they want to tell.
I would say that the series pedals around confirmations or disconfirmations of the soul.
Whenever there is a story that implies existence of the soul the writers are careful to give the viewers a scientific out.
If you believe all that 'space and time and thought' are all one stuff that Roddenberry obviously really wanted to do in first season TNG and make Wesley the emissary too, you could use that to explain telepathy and other apparently godlike powers.
Whenever there is a story that implies existence of the soul the writers are careful to give the viewers a scientific out.
If you believe all that 'space and time and thought' are all one stuff that Roddenberry obviously really wanted to do in first season TNG and make Wesley the emissary too, you could use that to explain telepathy and other apparently godlike powers.
Does Data have a soul? As many have touched upon, we can't even prove that of ourselves.
Does Data have soul? Absolutely not.
Does Data have soul? Absolutely not.
In the context of the show, I'd say it's suggested that he does. When Ira Graves possesses him, or the entity from Power Play or even the whatever it was in Masks, Data's personality is suppressed just as if he were any other individual in a similar situation, like O'Brien was, or Troi on a few occasions. What is that which is gone if not the spirit within him?
As far as really defining it.... I wouldn't even know where to begin. I can look at the dog & see something of a soul at work there........ I think
As far as really defining it.... I wouldn't even know where to begin. I can look at the dog & see something of a soul at work there........ I think
The question is not if we think Data has a soul but if he thinks he does.
--Sran
--Sran
Also I don't see the Bajorans as being portrayed as universally religious fanatics.
Kai Winn in In The Hands Of The Prophets wasn't insisting on religion in education because she believed it, it was because she thought it'd score political points. Which describes pretty much every red state politician there is in the US, they use religion to pander to the cash-shelling hyper-religious minority.
We have seen very religious Bajorans, but we've also met a Bajoran atheist (Ro), and although Bareil was a religious figure he was a secularist.
Kai Winn in In The Hands Of The Prophets wasn't insisting on religion in education because she believed it, it was because she thought it'd score political points. Which describes pretty much every red state politician there is in the US, they use religion to pander to the cash-shelling hyper-religious minority.
We have seen very religious Bajorans, but we've also met a Bajoran atheist (Ro), and although Bareil was a religious figure he was a secularist.
^Trek often depicts non-human races as being uniform in their behavior, attitudes, and beliefs. It's not due to bad writing so much as it is limited time to adequately present a species. I think most people know there are non-religious Bajorans just as they know there are dishonorable Klingons and trustworthy Romulans.
--Sran
--Sran
It's more than just limited time. Aliens in Trek often serve the same purpose as the different peoples that Gulliver encounters in Gulliver's travels. They explore a single socio-political idea that is extracted out of the diversity of humanity, concentrated, and taken to its logical extreme. It therefore acts as a lens where we can see various what-if scenarios, at least how the writer would like us to think of those what-ifs.
If every alien species were as diverse as humanity, it might be more realistic, in a way, but less useful as a storytelling device.
I suppose so. If nothing else, characters the audience finds harder to relate to are useful in terms of introducing conflict into the story. If every character were easy to understand and relate to, there wouldn't be as many chances for conflict.
--Sran
I am an atheist!
And though I don't agree with (most of) his ideas, so was the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. And HE believed in a SOUL. A soul is the innermost constitution of your being. Its existence does NOT require the existence of a god or other such fantastical entity. When you say, "That little rascal has SPIRIT" that "spirit" that you refer to... that is what I call a SOUL. So, yes, Data has a spirit, a soul. IMHO.
And though I don't agree with (most of) his ideas, so was the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. And HE believed in a SOUL. A soul is the innermost constitution of your being. Its existence does NOT require the existence of a god or other such fantastical entity. When you say, "That little rascal has SPIRIT" that "spirit" that you refer to... that is what I call a SOUL. So, yes, Data has a spirit, a soul. IMHO.
Though, to be fair, monoculturalism might be a result of instant travel and communication of ideas.
In a more serious contribution to the discussion, it's worth noting that even Picard, the poster boy for Roddenberry's latter-day vision of Trek, seemed to believe in a higher power, though one that didn't necessarily conform to a specific religion. He discussed this in "Where Silence Has Lease":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZocvTsi5Rg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZocvTsi5Rg
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