Resurrection vs Clone

[NCC-73515]

That's not how brains work. If we're talking very specifically about human to android, his living consciousness would have been scanned and recreated in the golem. If Picard had died slowly, he would have seen himself reborn before having died.

We don't know how brains work. In Trek, such things can move, float around, change bodies, even exist in the ship's computer

 

[Lord Garth]

"Brain and brain! What is brain?!"

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

We don't know how brains work. In Trek, such things can move, float around, change bodies, even exist in the ship's computer

i would argue that sometimes, it's the original consciousness, other times a copy. In the case of Picard's resurrection specifically, why can't he simply be a biodroid copy of Picard?

 

[fireproof78]

"Brain and brain! What is brain?!"

Indeed.

I submit if Sargon and his ilk can go in and out of bodies, and Ira Graves can do similar Picard is just Picard.

 

[NCC-73515]

Picard himself once resided in the ship's circuits

 

[Makarov]

I just watched an ep of Voyager where Harry and Chakotay get turned into energy beings on the holodeck and then back to themselves again

 

[Sci]

That's not how brains work.

In real life? Probably. In Star Trek? Sorry, but Star Trek has always bought into the mind/body dualism thing. It may not be realistic, but it is an established fact of canon that subjective consciousnesses can be transferred rather than destroyed and copied.

If we're talking very specifically about human to android, his living consciousness would have been scanned and recreated in the golem.

Says who?

i would argue that sometimes, it's the original consciousness, other times a copy. In the case of Picard's resurrection specifically, why can't he simply be a biodroid copy of Picard?

Because there is no such indication in the episode, and because such a sequence of events would defy the clear thematic intent of the creator of Jean-Luc experiencing resurrection and new life.

 

[Timo]

In real life? Probably. In Star Trek? Sorry, but Star Trek has always bought into the mind/body dualism thing. It may not be realistic, but it is an established fact of canon that subjective consciousnesses can be transferred rather than destroyed and copied.

But mind being something simply hardwired into the brain organ (or, as is currently fashionable to think, to the entire body and indeed to the social network around it, if not to every single tree and pebble ever encountered to boot) would not preclude copying.; if anything, mind being fundamentally physical would best facilitate that. The exact mechanism of the copying would then have to be considered to establish whether destruction also happens - and it's quite easy to see the copier being destructive for all sorts of practical reasons even if in theory the original could survive.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Charles Phipps]

At the end of the season finale, how do you interpret Picard's resurrection? We are rold his consciousness was transferred, but wouldn't that amount to having been copied? Wouldn't that make android or biodroid Picard effectively a clone? If we call him a clone, is he any less real than human Picard?

I'm inclined to think that consciousness is non-material in Star Trek or at the very least transferable given what we've seen with Vulcans, psychics, and the transporters. Besides, mind-body dualism is something that has been making a comeback even if not in the traditional religious sense.