Spoilers Star Trek: Picard General Discussion Thread

A spherical primary hull can be made to work. The Daedelus is not a good example.

 

Most of the debates are canon vs canon. For example the super fast warp speeds mentioned in TOS ("That Which Survives" mentions the 1701 can do 990 light years in 11.5 hours) and the suddenly slow speed of Voyager needing 70 years to make 70,000 light years, which by TOS speeds should've been reached in over a month.

 

Yep. And then you have the mid-22nd century NX-01 being just 80 hours from Qo'noS at high warp for a starship launched in 2151. At no point in previous Trek produced before 2001 was the heart of the Klingon Empire that close to Earth, but as we all know from Star Trek nothing's close until the script requires it.

 

Here's an article on transferring consciousness. Masataka Watanabe, a Scientist from the University of Tokyo, is working on a theory for how to do this, and it and it's interesting:
Rethinking our consciousness: An approach to a scientifically feasible seamless mind-uploading (researchfeatures.com)

Cutting-and-pasting because I'm not going to butcher what they're saying by putting it into my own words:

Seamless uploading of human consciousness
Previous ideas on mind uploading rely on scanning postmortem brains for a digital reconstruction of the brain’s circuitry. However, Watanabe argues that in these cases, ‘you’ are unfortunately not the one that lives on. In contrast, he presents a process where our own consciousness seamlessly continues in a digital arena. This process mimics that of a patient undergoing corpus callosotomy, where the neural fibres connecting the two cortical hemispheres are severed, resulting in the generation of two independent streams of consciousness. The point is, both streams of consciousness stem seamlessly from the original, and there is no point of death upon severance.

To recreate this procedure for seamless mind uploading, Watanabe suggests that a transition state must be provided where the left biological hemisphere is connected and consciously integrated to a device that plays the role of the right hemisphere, and vice versa. He puts forward a three-step procedure to realise this transition state. Firstly, a device with neutral consciousness is prepared, then this is connected to our own brain while we are alive, and gradually our memory is transferred over.

In the first step, a neutrally conscious device is constructed. Watanabe explains, ‘The idea is to prepare a spiking neural network (SNN) that replicates the full connectivity of the human brain.’ To do this, he suggests that we look to scanning electron microscopy – producing detailed images of thin brain slices with a focused beam of electrons. The obtained image slices are stacked together and used to reconstruct the 3D neuronal connectivity within the brain. In this way, the neuronal brain fibres (called axons and dendrites) are reconstructed to yield full neural connectivity. Watanabe continues, ‘From there, to determine the fine quantitative values of neuronal connectivity and develop the device into a visual system for instance, we can show it a life’s worth of video material. If we find that the network needs a body that interacts with its environment, we can supply it with a virtual body.’ This procedure of ‘training’ the device would be very much like training a modern deep learning neural network. By using advanced methods for training SNNs, the final result should mimic a human brain. Once this is achieved, neutral consciousness, or a ‘one-size-fits-all’ type of consciousness, would likely kick in.

Second, this neutrally conscious device must be linked with our brain hemisphere to allow the integration of consciousness. For this, Watanabe proposes a radical new type of brain–machine interface, explained in more detail below. In the final stage, memory is transferred to the device. This step includes natural and forced (microstimulation) memory retrieval in the biological hemisphere, leading to synchronised retrieval in the artificial hemisphere due to integrated consciousness between the two. Finally, memory consolidation is achieved in the device side with brain-like mechanisms.

Once the consciousness is fully integrated and a sufficient number of memories have been transferred, we would be ready to face the inevitable closure of the two biological hemispheres. This closure would be similar to the surgical procedure of corpus callosotomy, but in this case, the consciousness will seamlessly continue in the two mechanical hemispheres, to be integrated later.​

The article continues but that's the gist of it. It ends with saying all of this is still theoretical.

 

Agreed. As implemented, it is chunky and primative in a way other the early ships are not.

 

We only have this connectome data for a worm, just got one for a fly apparently (haven't read it yet), and are very far away from getting it for the mouse. Google Sebastian Seung, Winfried Denk, Jeff Lichtman for examples of SBFSEM connectomics work. And you'd have to do that for each individual person, not just a few examples, because everyone's connectome is different. Everything else (memory transfer, artificial consciousness) is not possible so far, we don't even know how memories and consciousness work exactly.

 

Oh I'm sure this will happen in a few decades.

The best kind of spaceship hull!

 

"It's a ball. It's capable of rolling, and maybe bouncing. "*




*with due credit to Red vs. BLUE.

 

As science-fiction, it works for me. If we have the beginnings of a theory in the 21st Century, I can imagine it happening in the 25th Century. The real 25th Century? Maybe, maybe not. But a fictional one? Definitely. And I'll never know a 25th Century that isn't fictional. So there we are.

 

Cool stuff. Obvious none of it practical at this time, probably a couple hundred years away from being able to create something that could fully mimic the entire human brain, but these types of explorations are what eventually lead to progress. And applying this kind of thinking to Picard, you can easily imagine Soong's process being similar.

You can even imagine that Picard in the "waiting room" with Digital Data was during the "memory retrieval" stage mentioned above, while the artificial brain was syncing up with the organic one. And then once it was fully integrated, he "walked through the door" to swap over to fully digital operation.

 

If anime is any indication, the Japanese are exceptionally focused on this concept.

 

I've said this before, but if digital uploading of consciousness is possible (that is to say, a digital "copy" of you could have continuity) and the universe is infinite, then you must find yourself "uploaded" somewhere after death, even if you didn't actively move towards making it happen.

I say this because across the infinite expanse of space/the multiverse, you would just happen to be created by sheer coincidence (in a simulation or whatever) repeatedly - hell, an infinite number of times.

 

This was interesting /s

 

Only watched the first thirty seconds of that. It seems that guy doesn't realize the Jurati Borg are separate from the Borg Collective.

 

Yep and I kept wondering why he didn't notice that or he didn't bother watching season 2.... But then makes that weird connection of "where did they go?" Perhaps interesting should have been marked as sarcasm on my part

 

It took less than 30 seconds to recognize him as one of those "real fans" and I regret giving him those seconds on his payment timer.

 

Oh one of those........ I know now to avoid his videos

 

200k views... maybe the explanation shouldn't have been cut from the season 2 finale after all?

 

What do you mean cut, the Borg stayed at the portal to guard it and that faction asked to join the Federation