Species no longer exist 31st century?

[Mr. Laser Beam]

What an utterly backward and disgusting viewpoint, that kind of world view is abhorrent in 2017, let alone in the late 24th Century.

Just to be clear, whose viewpoint are you talking about?

The Federation should not be a society ruled by irrational fear. The only reason it exists is because it overcame fear of the new and different. And a culture being paralyzed by the same unchanging fear for a thousand years? That's a dreadful notion.

I don't see it as irrational. If genetic engineering / augmentation becomes too widespread, there will be those who believe it will also become mandatory (re: Gattaca). Why should they not fear that?

 

[Voth commando1]

I wouldn't be a "baseline" human when everyone is getting enhanced.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Beta timeline?

Novels timeline,

Oh. Nevermind, then.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Ah, a fellow Charlie Jade fan!

 

[DimesDan]

Just to be clear, whose viewpoint are you talking about?

How is it exactly unclear? I quoted you, so I'm obviously giving my opinion on someone else's viewpoint, not yours.

 

[Christopher]

I wouldn't be a "baseline" human when everyone is getting enhanced.

We've already begun that process -- it's just become such an everyday part of life that we no longer think about it. It's routine now for people to get corrective dental work and eyeglasses -- to improve on what nature gave us. It used to be that only certain people were lucky enough to have optimal vision and great teeth, but now we've come to see it as a universal right for everyone to achieve that optimum with technological assistance.

That's why I don't buy the idea that genetic engineering or bionics or whatever will create an elite class above everyone else. I think it'll be phased in the same way as those other improvements, as something to allow everyone to achieve the same maximum capability, and as something that will eventually be seen as a universal right and even a routine expectation.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

It's routine now for people to get corrective dental work and eyeglasses

That's different. That's correcting existing damage.

When it starts to become "law" to, for example, replace our limbs with cybernetically enhanced ones, or augment our brains with computers, so as to improve the "optimal" (nice choice of words there) strength of the collective species, that's when you can count me out.

 

[Idran]

That's different. That's correcting existing damage.

How's it different? In both cases we're interrupting the natural state of our bodies with technological solutions to improve them. It's natural for our eyes to get worse and our teeth to wear out over time.

Edit: How about this? Water fluoridation. That's inarguably not correcting existing damage in any sense, it's improving the natural strength of teeth to allow them to better hold up over time. It's a technological solution to a biological flaw, literally meant to enhance our natural capabilities.

 

[Christopher]

How's it different? In both cases we're interrupting the natural state of our bodies with technological solutions to improve them. It's natural for our eyes to get worse and our teeth to wear out over time.

Exactly. A lot of the time, what we perceive as a fundamental difference is only a difference between what we take for granted and what we find unfamiliar. We need to have the imagination to step outside our own life experience and realize that there was a time when the things we take for granted were seen as unfamiliar and even feared as a threat to the natural order of things, and thus it stands to reason that the things we find unfamiliar and threatening today will be equally taken for granted by a later generation.

 

[Voth commando1]

Christopher, as a DTI author I guess this isn't directly related to the subject at hand but anyway here goes does humanity ever reach Q-Levels of power and understanding? Even millions of years in the future?

The reason I ask is you've done extrapolating on the progress of the federation and humanity really in the Trekverse?

So is that the ultimate endgame an evolved federation ascends joining the Organians/Prophets/Q?

If so is that a goal that you consider morally desirable? If not why not?

 

[Christopher]

Christopher, as a DTI author I guess this isn't directly related to the subject at hand but anyway here goes does humanity ever reach Q-Levels of power and understanding? Even millions of years in the future?

I believe it's clear enough, and I suggested in The Buried Age, that there's a hierarchy of levels of advancement beyond humanity. I mean, what's behind us includes everything from viruses to great apes, so it makes no sense to assume that there's only one level beyond ours. As I see it, the Q are at the most powerful known level, the Douwd maybe at the same level or a tier lower, the Organians a bit below that, and so on down the line. So I resist using "Q-level" as a generic label for all "higher" beings.

The idea that humans and humanoids have the potential to "ascend" to those levels of incorporeal or hyperdimensional existence is implicit in Wesley Crusher's story, in the evolution of "John Doe" in "Transfigurations," and the like. Q explicitly said in "Hide and Q" that the Continuum believed humanity had the potential to reach or even surpass the Q's level someday. I've hinted at one or two possible future branches of human evolution (because evolution is a branching process rather than a single "ladder") in both Watching the Clock and The Collectors. More generally, The Buried Age explores the future evolution of humanoid intelligences and the process of transition into incorporeal life.

 

[Extrocomp]

Going back to the original question, I don't think that any sentient species could hybridize itself into extinction. Most bison herds have some domestic cattle DNA, but only in small percentages. And those bison individuals that do have cattle DNA still look like bison. So, even in the 31st century, I'd expect there to be plenty of humans, Vulcans, Klingons, Cardassians, etc.

 

[Idran]

Going back to the original question, I don't think that any sentient species could hybridize itself into extinction. Most bison herds have some domestic cattle DNA, but only in small percentages. And those bison individuals that do have cattle DNA still look like bison. So, even in the 31st century, I'd expect there to be plenty of humans, Vulcans, Klingons, Cardassians, etc.

I don't follow the logic. Because bisons have cattle DNA without it changing their outward appearance, that means that no sapient species would hybridize into extinction? You're generalizing pretty broadly from a single, relatively inapplicable example, that's a big leap over a bunch of intermediary steps of logic.

 

[Extrocomp]

The point I was trying to get across was that even when there's a lot of hybrization, the vast majority of individuals in a species will not be hybrids. I guess I didn't express it very well.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Novels timeline,

We call it the novelverse.

Granted, it's not as catchy as something like "Kelvin Timeline" (Marco Timeline?) but still...

 

[Blamo]

Given what's been shown of Daniels, chances are humans (atleast temporal agents) have been augmented in ways in addition to genetic augmentation and cybernetics. So atleast Daniels seems to have moved up the ascension ladder.

 

[Christopher]

Given what's been shown of Daniels, chances are humans (atleast temporal agents) have been augmented in ways in addition to genetic augmentation and cybernetics. So atleast Daniels seems to have moved up the ascension ladder.

That's not necessarily the same thing. Evolution is not any sort of "ladder." Like I said, it's a set of branches splitting off from one another in various directions. A given species can develop a certain trait to a more powerful or complicated level, but that doesn't make it intrinsically "higher" than a species that develops a different trait to a similar level of sophistication. It's just specialized in a different direction. For instance, specializing in greater brain power doesn't lead to the ability to fly, and specializing in flight doesn't make a species better at swimming. If anything, specializing in one direction can diminish one's potential in other directions.

So there's no reason to assume that genetically augmenting one's physical abilities, senses, or whatever would take a species closer to evolving into Q-like or Traveler-like entities. Really, it's hard to say what could possibly produce evolution into an incorporeal state; after all, evolution is driven by reproductive success, and an incorporeal being can't reproduce biologically. So the idea that organic beings would "naturally" evolve into an incorporeal state is pretty much nonsense. I tried to offer some vaguely logical explanation for it in The Buried Age, but as I recall, I also established that it was just one possible evolutionary path for intelligent life. Because evolution is a tree, not a ladder.

 

[Voth commando1]

I think its not a much evolution as it is apotheosis. Once you've reached 31st tech or Voth level tech the environment no longer affects you. From there you reach a point where corporeal existence has been thoroughly explored and experienced.

After that through whatever means the flesh, blood, and bone(or other body parts say for insectoid or jellyfish sentients) seems more and more a hindrance and once you understand the universe as you see it is limited and finished you go "on"

 

[Christopher]

I think its not a much evolution as it is apotheosis. Once you've reached 31st tech or Voth level tech the environment no longer affects you. From there you reach a point where corporeal existence has been thoroughly explored and experienced.

I don't buy that. That sounds like the old saw that civilization brought the end of evolution because we now reshape our environment to fit ourselves instead of the other way around. We now know that's wrong -- civilization is itself a new environment that's been affecting our evolution. For instance, the domestication of milk-producing animals had led to the evolution of more widespread lactose tolerance. And the invention of cooking has led us to have smaller, weaker jaws because it's easier to chew cooked foods. Technology is itself part of our environment and we evolve in response to it.

Besides, evolution isn't magic. It's not something that just happens when "the time is right" or something. It's merely a stochastic process whereby randomly arising variations in a population are selected for or against by environmental factors. A new trait will emerge from a potential that already exists in the genome and is repurposed for a new use -- for instance, milk glands evolving from sweat glands, or flight feathers evolving from insulating feathers. By the same token, a trait doesn't magically go away when it's no longer used -- which is why we still have appendices.

 

[Jinn]

Besides, evolution isn't magic. It's not something that just happens when "the time is right" or something.

Wait, you're saying Pokémon lied to me? Nooooooo!