Shouldn't Trek tech make aging obsolete?

[The Wormhole]

Time is the fire in which we burn.

It is a truth of our existence.

Time is the predator which stalks us all. You can try to outrun it with doctors, medicines and new technologies, but in the end time will hunt you down.

I don't care what anyone says, Dr. Soran had some fun quotes.

 

[Kevman7987]

Time is the predator which stalks us all. You can try to outrun it with doctors, medicines and new technologies, but in the end time will hunt you down.

I don't care what anyone says, Dr. Soran had some fun quotes.

I preferred Picard's time quotes from the end of the film;

"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. But I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey, and reminds us to cherish every moment because they'll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important how we lived...[,]...we're only mortal."

 

[The Wormhole]

we're only mortal

Speak for yourself, I plan to live forever.

 

[dswynne1]

Point of fact, extending one's lifespan does not mean "immortality", in the classic sense. Unnatural deaths will occur, cause by suicides, capital punishment, murders, terminal illnesses and diseases, and accidents. In the world of STAR TREK, these things could still be the case, though less of it. As to whether or not I would want to have immortality: it depends. While I would want to stay young, healthy and active, I don't want to be immune to death itself. Can imagine a scenario where you are buried alive, with no way out? That would be my nightmarish scenario.

As an aside, I think a balanced approach would be to have something like the movie IN TIME (starring Justin Timberlake and Olivia Wilde), in which you are always young and healthy, but you have a finite amount of time that can be extended via the purchase of "time credits". I would not have it that time would be throttled back in purpose, but you can choose to allow your time in life elapse, if you want. Food for thought.

 

[JRTStarlight]

That was an interesting movie.

I prefer to just call it "eternal youth" to avoid the confusion.

One might make a transporter record back up copy every day, so if you did die, you could be brought back (and only lose one day of experiences). Of course using transporters like that really is frowned upon and shouldn't even be possible.

But maybe, one day, there might be a computer backup like that which could go into an android body. If your android body is destroyed, a new one is made and the back up is downloaded. If you ever got bored, just shut down for a length of time and then arise to new circumstances, different people, and new challenges. Or sleep some more. There may never be a reason to deliberately kill oneself when sleeping for dozens, hundreds, or thousands of years or more is an option. I guess that would be pretty much like the humanoid cylons in the last iteration of Battlestar Galactica, except it would be real, organically grown and raised human beings who are transferred into an android body (upon their first death, though daily backups would still be required, lest one could lose many days of experiences). One could even selectively choose to erase real bad days, or significant trauma. Wow, what a way to live.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Point of fact, extending one's lifespan does not mean "immortality", in the classic sense. Unnatural deaths will occur, cause by suicides, capital punishment, murders, terminal illnesses and diseases, and accidents. In the world of STAR TREK, these things could still be the case, though less of it.

Yes, but since you can also use the transporter to duplicate yourself ("Second Chances" etc) or restore yourself to an earlier save state (if you put a freshly dead corspe through what Pulaski went through in "Unnatural Selection", would that reverse death? And there are also Seven's nanoprobes which resurrected Neelix after a week in "Mortal Coil"), would death still have the same meaning?

 

[JRTStarlight]

When they started using transporters, which essentially kill you and make a nigh perfect duplicate to go on in your place, death already hasn't had the same meaning, IMO.

 

[uniderth]

Even if you had live extension technology, eventually probabilities would catch up with you and one car crash, or shuttle accident would be your last.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

The thing about Trek is that if something happens in one episode that would break reality if it was generally available, you should just ignore it.

What if people took reasonable doses of the drug from Too Short A Season? Universe broken, doesn't exist.
What if the Ferengi who hijacked the ship in Rascals later got out of prison and started research into reproducing the transporter accident? Universe broken, doesn't exist.

Even if you had live extension technology, eventually probabilities would catch up with you and one car crash, or shuttle accident would be your last.

Not if they figured out how to consistently produce a transporter duplicate as in Second Chances, then stored the second version in a feedback loop as in Relics.

It's like a weekly backup for human beings.

Also they could store your brain pattern in a large computer system as in Our Man Bashir and keep clones of you in stasis.

 

[JRTStarlight]

Natural limits help. In Too Short A Season, the drug is rare, ridiculously expensive, hard to obtained, controlled by an alien species, and the process is said to be dangerous, too, so it's not a guarantee even when taken as instructed. I wouldn't worry too much about the fictional landscape there.

Some accidents, particularly with the transporter, may not be reliably reproducible, or safe. Even if you figured out what it did, would you still do it if the odds of success were 1 in 100 or worse, meaning death would happen 99+% of the time? We don't know enough about what happened in Rascals to know how reliable that process would be, or if they would have retained their adult memories much longer in a child's brain. Since it's fiction without sound scientific basis, one could contrived any number of reasons why this process wouldn't normally be attempted unless you had no choice.

Second Chances took a rarely occurring atmospheric phenomenon to occur, and Relics only worked by luck. Scotty survived but Franklin got the same treatment and died, IIRC.

It's weird they didn't use various ship transporters to reintegrate those guys in Our Man Bashir. Just because the station's transporters are down wouldn't mean every ship or runabout's transporters were offline, too. But like in Relics, there is only so long such a complex pattern might be maintained, and it degrades relatively quickly.

This is not to say these off the cuff explanations are the best – I'm working from memory – or better ones can't be devised. And it sure doesn't excuse what you're talking about – some solidly dim ideas that should have never been allowed to work just for one story because of the logical ramifications that would have on the fictional landscape. I'm sure there are plenty out there that are worse than those few examples. Khan's blood comes to mind.

But it also doesn't mean if you throw enough money (credits) and technology at a problem, they might not be able to do what you're saying safely. But it would have a natural limit - mostly cost. Unless everybody has infinite resources and access to rare or exotic things, it usually won't become a problem for the fictional landscape.

 

[F. King Daniel]

The thing about Trek is that if something happens in one episode that would break reality if it was generally available, you should just ignore it.

No, if they dont want status quo breaking technology in their universe, they shouldn't write BS magic tech solutions to episodes! It's cheap and lazy if you're going to immediately pretend it never happened.

 

[Timo]

What if people took reasonable doses of the drug from Too Short A Season? Universe broken, doesn't exist.

Actually, in addition to the things listed by JTRStarlight, we should note that this particular drug was not a generic fountain of youth at all. Rather, it was a specific cure to the iverson's Disease that had prematurely "aged" Jameson so that he looked about eighty when he was merely eighty...

The drug as designed doesn't cure old age. It cures a specific type of premature loss of abilities, and probably would have zero or ill effects on people who have lost those abilities "naturally", with age.

But it does turn the patient young again, as we saw. So perhaps people will start deliberately contracting the disease that had hurt Jameson, so that they could then enjoy the cure?

It's like a weekly backup for human beings.

Would there be any demand for such? People today don't consider their twins "backup" for themselves. Much like Riker, they may consider such duplicates rivals or threats instead.

Also they could store your brain pattern in a large computer system as in Our Man Bashir and keep clones of you in stasis.

Again, more like a frozen threat. And you still would lose your memories/consciousness/soul/whatever, past the point where you made the backup. Although this doesn't seem to bother our transporter-restored heroes much, it may well be a factor if this is to be a consumer product.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JRTStarlight]

And what if, like Lazarus, the very thought of your duplicate drives you insane? Is he me? Does he have my soul? Can I still be unique if he's around? Maybe he shouldn't be around anymore. And if I'm thinking that, what is he already thinking? Now I have to kill him just as a matter of self defense. Maaahhahahhahahahha.

Next thing you know it, two whole universes wink out of existence.

But hey, it's no big deal, since with an infinite number of them, there's at least one that is practically identical, so they'll still go on, so why worry about our own?

Bah. Duplicates in no way are the same as you.

 

[galad2003]

You just have to assume they haven't figured this stuff out yet. Even the freak transporter accidents etc. haven't been replicated for everyday use or later on long term side effects were found that prevent it from being an ongoing thing for everyone.

Interesting side note there is a book series called the commonwealth sage by Peter F. Hamilton that goes into a lot of this stuff. Humans in this universe can rejuvenate themselves. Instead of a retirement fund, they put money into a rejuvenation fund and when they have never they do it. The rich people usually stay in their 20's. Poor people still die if they can't afford it.

Some people decide to hold off on rejuvenation because they prefer to look older and more mature. People also have memory back up crystals so if you accidentally killed you can be cloned.

Anyway, the tech in his series is a lot more advanced then Trek and he really explores the social ramifications in a back drop of the main story. Worth reading if this kind of thing interests you.