Picard Existentialism

I am finding the compressed storyline and useless characters trying in this series.
And yet, this week, we got a real gem of nonsense from Picard in one of his speeches. He blithely tells us that death gives life meaning. As if we all agreed that it did. Hold on a sec. Most people believe in the immortal soul in some form or another. Just more preaching by writers.

 

You may be right about the time but it just feels like a thinner story to me.

 

Well I don't believe in an immortal soul. I think it's a comforting cultural holdover from before we understood neurons and disease. I think the point he was making is the same one at the end of GEN, that it's important how you've lived than wishing it didn't end.

That said, I think engagement gives life meaning. Death gives our limited time poignance.

 

If the butterfly was less fragile, it would not be as beautiful.

 

You might want to look up Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's beliefs.

This is Star Trek. Gods are aliens with powers who annoy humanity.

 

Well, it does seem kind of strange, after centuries of to striving, praying and research, just so when they find out a way to give a person an indefinite life span with no flaws, (the golem body) 24th century humans and especially the main characters will often reject it or downplay it.

It seems like every time a new discovery arrives that could cure or solve 24th century illnesses and other problems, it is eventually rejected. Like the transporter, time travel, faster than warp travel etc, there's probably a ton more.

 

...It's consistent if nothing else. Were immortality really desirable, our galaxy would be crowded beyond belief. Certain types of human conservatism and self-destructiveness are apparent survival traits, be it on an isolated valley, a single planet, or an entire galaxy.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Picard pretty much explained the same thing in TNG so it has nothing to do with the story being compressed.

 

Huh? The existence of an immortal soul doesn't contradict death giving life meaning. Those propositions have nothing much to do with each other.

FWIW, souls seem to be observable fact in Trek. Well, at least for Vulcans. Not sure about synths or humans. (Come to think of it, a supposedly psychic friend of a friend was very disturbed to observe that I apparently have no soul. Although I believe the term she used was "spirit.")

 

i wonder if we were immortal if we’d have offspring in the same numbers we have now. Maybe we’d only have one or two tops (with exceptions) and many more than today have none.

The problem with immortality is that maybe you’d have some people wanting to have 50k children and others wracking up higher numbers over more time — you might have had three kids as a mortal but even 1 a century adds up over time.

Maybe some would opt for “virtual” children? Where they’re indistinguishable from your real ones but only online.

Plus, space is incredibly vast. We could fill up this entire galaxy over the course of tens of thousands of years and still barely leave a mark on the universal and trans-dimensional landscape. ...Thanos can suck it.

 

Although Class M planets within reasonable travel distance would be a serious constraint at lower levels of technology. My impression is that civilizations which have advanced past caring about this end up going non-physical fairly quickly, which is why the galaxy isn't chock-full of Dyson spheres.

 

I actually would point out that most people who believe in the immortal soul, though Picard is an established atheist in "Who Watches the Watchers", would agree that you shouldn't live forever in this life.

I do find it interesting that Data's choice offended so many viewers, though. We've had episodes where characters choose to die before like the Q in Voyager.