Tuvix

[Guy Gardener]

Prove to me that Tuvok and Neelix would -not- want Tuvix to exist.

DonIago:

Uhhh... the fact that they didn't want to go back into the transporter and become a mutant hybrid freak of nature again is reason enough.

Murder, as defined in common law countries, is the unlawful killing of another human being with intent (or malice aforethought), and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide (such as manslaughter).

Saquist:

Janeway was the law. She was her own country in the Delta Quadrant. And Starfleet obviously must have supported her decision because they made her an admiral. Plus, that other line says malice. There is no malice in Janeway's intent. She is simply protecting her family.

Plus, just because it is the written law of the land doesn't always mean they are right either. I mean, our courts systems are seriously flawed, man. If you have enough money you can get away with just about any crime these days. If your poor... Your screwed.

Tuvix did not commit a crime according to the definition of murder. He didn't take any action, he had no intent, he had no malic or forethought. The lack of action rules out homicide and manslaughter.

Although, he was illegally detaining them.

that's a crime.

So is holding someones head in a bucket of water.

Under the threat of being some bastards medical experiment, bit Picard (Where silence has no lease?)and Janeway (Scientific theory), and Kirk too if you count being Charlie X's plaything (What about Sisko?) chose mass suiside over being a toy or a guinea pig, taking their crews along with them straight to Hell...

Vulcan's believe in suicide (Deathwish), and Neelix came close in that mortal coil episode, if they were not going to let him chose how to live, then damn it, he had the ability to chose how he was going to die, but considering he wasn't kicking and screaming being dragged into sickbay, the furry little hedgepodge submitted to the legal authorities edict like most convicts on death row marched toward the chair.

Tuvix chose to be executed unfairly with dignity.

I wonder if the quicksilver Neelix and Tuvok even just momentarily like linking changeling's jumped in and out of one another for a laugh?

 

[Luther Sloan]

Tuvix did not commit a crime according to the definition of murder. He didn't take any action, he had no intent, he had no malic or forethought. The lack of action rules out homicide and manslaughter.

Saquist:

So if I seen someone tied to the train tracks and there was plenty of time for me to untie him before the train would come and I did nothing to help him. It would not be murder on my part if I decided to walk away and not help him? Especially seeing there was no danger to myself in doing so?

Essentially Neelix and Tuvok are the ones being killed by Tuvix's inability to take action and do the right thing himself. He is a cowardly and selfish melded being that shouldn't live at the expense of two other lives.

Now, if there was no way to reverse the process for Tuvix, then he obviously has the right to live and move on. Because the choice of going back and saving two lives is not an option anymore.

I wonder whether others who believe Tuvix shouldn't be considered "natural" share your beliefs in other regards as well. Academic curiosity really, as I don't have any interest in debating with anyone who feels that one's right to survival should be defined in terms of their value to others or how "natural" they are.

DonIago:

If you were to read my post fully you would see that is a miniscule part of the points I was trying to make. Tuvix is essentially murdering two rich and full lives by his own inaction to do the right thing. Also, he is not technically going to die either. He is simply being reverted back into the two separate halves as he was originally meant to be.

However, speaking of lives and things that you would like to say are not so "natural" as being important. Here is a clip you might enjoy...

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/62106

And here is another clip. Just insert Tuvix into the topic of this conversation, instead...

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/62104

The technological malfunction was the murderer... It was corrected by restoring two lives that didn't want to be merged in the first place. The transporter forfeited Tuvix's rights.

Xortex:

Well said.

Although, he was illegally detaining them.
that's a crime.

Guy Gardener:

Yep. That's what I was driving at. Except what's worse is that he was leaving Tuvok and Neelix to stay dead when he knew he could have done something about it.

As I'm sure you know by now.

 

[DonIago]

It is rather convenient to assume that Tuvix is no more than the sum of his parts, isn't it? That way there's no need to contemplate the possibility that by reverting him to Tuvok & Neelix you are in fact destroying a unique life form.

My apologies for being less willing than some to make such a comfortable assumption.

 

[Luther Sloan]

It is rather convenient to assume that Tuvix is no more than the sum of his parts, isn't it? That way there's no need to contemplate the possibility that by reverting him to Tuvok & Neelix you are in fact destroying a unique life form.
My apologies for being less willing than some to make such a comfortable assumption.

DonIago:

What does a transporter do?

Does it create life?

No. It transports life.

This was an accidental fusion of two lives. The transporter didn't create life. It simply melded two lives together that should have been corrected (if it was possible).

So if the transporter doesn't create life. How can it create a new life form? The answer is simple. It didn't. It simply melded two beings together when it shouldn't have happened. Undo the melding and you have the same two minds and bodies that make up Tuvix.

I mean, I hardly doubt that the Starfleet charter to explore new life qualified as combing people in a transporter. I mean, if that was the case then Voyager would be creating more half breed combos thru out the ship after Tuvok & Neelix's little incident.

Plus, you are side stepping the issue that Tuvix was existing at the expense of two other lives, too.

Are not the lives of Neelix and Tuvok important anymore?
Should one being exist at the expense of two others?
Does that sound morally right to you?


Side Note:

By the way, what did you think of the videos?

 

[DonIago]

Since you never answered the question of how long Tuvix could exist before he could be construed as having a -right- to exist, I don't think either one of us is in a position to be challenging the other for declining to address points the other raises.

Might I ask how you became an expert on the transporter's capabilities? Because I'm pretty sure that while we all know what it -normally- does we've seen it perform in abnormal or at least unexpected fashions before. Just ask Tom Riker about that. I don't think any of us is in a position to assume that it -can't- create a new lifeform...in fact, as evidenced, I think Tuvix establishes that it can.

Beings exist at the expense of other beings all the time. Don't use my belief that Tuvix shouldn't have been murdered to accuse me of not caring about Tuvok and Neelix. Did The Doctor not care about them? Bullshit. He swore an oath to not harm a being even in the interests of saving other beings, and he abided by that oath regardless of his emotional investment in the situation, and I respect him for it. It's certainly a lot better than Kathryn 'Tuvix has a right to live...until everyone starts whining about missing Tuvok and Neelix' Janeway. Of course I'm exaggerating and oversimplifying there.

You want to talk about morals? I don't believe in murder. I don't believe Tuvix should have been murdered. I believe what Janeway did to Tuvix was murder. Spin it any way you want, but you're failing to convince me that Tuvix wasn't a unique lifeform, and until you can do so, what Janeway did was murder...there we are.

The videos appeared to be footage from RotS. Frankly I failed to see the point....but I damn well know something about being called "unnatural" and being told I don't have a right to exist because I shouldn't exist in the first place, and I have some choice words for people who use "natural" as a criteria for existence. BTW, I'd recommend not going to anyone who was born with any sort of defect or even delivered via Caesarian and going off about "natural".

Being brought into existence via "normal" means doesn't make you better than anyone else, it just makes you, arguably, luckier. If you would use that as a standard to determine one's right to exist, then I'll argue your sheer arrogance constitutes a reason for you not to exist.

Now I'm starting to feel like I should go off on a tangent about genetic engineering and the assumptions that certain traits are more desirable than others, but...pass.

 

[Luther Sloan]

This has gotten waaaay too personal.
Anyways, I deleted this post in order to make peace.... not war.

 

[Luther Sloan]

So let's call a truce on this one, my friends. It doesn't seem like we are getting anywhere on this topic, no matter what the other person says.

Let's grab a beer and forget this whole thing.



It's all hypothetical, anyways.

 

[Miss Chicken]

I think that Tuvix right to life was as strong as any other sentient lifeform. It doesn't matter how that life came to be, whether it was accidental or not. A sentient's live to right should be totally independant on what happened to others before he came to be.

Either Tuvix had the same right to life as everyone else or he had no rights at all because he wasn't a person.

Janeway actually recognised Tuvix as a person from the moment he was created. She called him by a new name. She treated him as a living sentient being. She gave him a position in the crew.If a crew member had pulled out a phaser and killed Tuvix during an argument a week after Tuvix was created Janeway would have considered that murder and it would have been.

You can't give someone equal rights and then take them away when it is inconvenient to treat them as equals.

 

[Saquist]

Saquist:

So if I seen someone tied to the train tracks and there was plenty of time for me to untie him before the train would come and I did nothing to help him. It would not be murder on my part if I decided to walk away and not help him? Especially seeing there was no danger to myself in doing so?

But there was a danger in Tuvix helping them. He would most certainly die. So I don't know how it's alike.

 

[DonIago]

Indeed. A better analogy would be that you could untie them, but (depending on how you view the situation) you either might get hit by the train yourself (i.e. the procedure could have failed) or -would- get hit by the train yourself.

 

[Luther Sloan]

Saquist:

So if I seen someone tied to the train tracks and there was plenty of time for me to untie him before the train would come and I did nothing to help him. It would not be murder on my part if I decided to walk away and not help him? Especially seeing there was no danger to myself in doing so?

But there was a danger in Tuvix helping them. He would most certainly die. So I don't know how it's alike.

Saquist:

There was going to be a danger (as you call it) to Tuvix whether it was safe or whether it was unsafe for Neelix and Tuvok to come back, anyways. So I really don't think this would have affected Tuvix's decision (if he knew for a certainty he could help them). But in all truth, there was no danger to Tuvix. He was simply being split back in half as the two individuals he was meant to be. Tuvix is Neelix and Tuvok. And Neelix and Tuvok will live on. So Tuvix is not really gone because the same two halves will continue to exist as they were supposed to.

And he wasn't a new unique life. The transporter doesn't create new life. It just transports life. The transporter simply combined two lives. I mean, seriously. If you believe he was a new and unique life than why doesn't the rest of the crew start discovering new life by beaming themselves together? Why? Because it wouldn't be new life. It is simply two people smashing themselves together with the help of the transporter. Sure it might seem like a new life. But it is simply two halves abnormally put together.

Let me put it to you another way. If I beamed two different halves of a whole apple pie onto the transporter and it ended up combining into one whole apple pie. I am just getting a whole apple pie instead of two halves of that whole. The apple pie doesn't become some new thing that is more than the sum of it's parts.

If I beamed an orange and an apple together it isn't a new species of an orange or an apple. It is simply an orange and apple beamed together.

See where I am going with this?




Side Note:

Oh, and just because I give that apple / orange a new name doesn't make it a new and unique species of an apple or a new and unique species of an orange. It is simply an apple and an orange smashed together. I can essentially get the same result in cooking if I use a blender on the apple and the orange.

I get it though. Two combined personalities can look like a new life. But they wouldn't exist without the two other personalities. And the two combined personalities would not die because they would live on as the two separate personalities as it was supposed to be.

 

[DonIago]

You're making a number of assumptions which I, and I suspect Saquist, don't consider to be valid. If your intention is to convince us of your perspective, you need to substantiate these assumptions rather than continuing to repeat them. If that isn't your intention...I'm not sure what the point of this debate is.

 

[xortex]

'We have to stop all these unnatural acts like rock and roll and homosexuality and communism from stopping us from living the lives God meant us to live'
Seriously, all the lawyers would have been killed in Roddenberry's universe anyway.
Also it wasn't killing, it was seperating. Nothing died. Two lives were restored. This reminds me of the argument if Data is a living being.

 

[DonIago]

...and we're back to making unsubstantiated assumptions...

 

[xortex]

...and we're back to making unsubstantiated assumptions...

If this makes you feel any better, I do agree with you that it was murder.

 

[Luther Sloan]

You're making a number of assumptions which I, and I suspect Saquist, don't consider to be valid. If your intention is to convince us of your perspective, you need to substantiate these assumptions rather than continuing to repeat them. If that isn't your intention...I'm not sure what the point of this debate is.

DonIago:

So if my opinion differs from yours it is not valid. That's nice. I never knew you were an authority of everything right in the universe.

I have been substantiating my points with examples. And essentially you have been repeating the same mantra within your arguments as well.

In other words, I am simply repeating or stressing the point that your obviously not getting (while using different examples).

But I don't think no matter what I say or do or how compelling the argument is. You would rather ignore it and cling to your narrow view of the situation.

Which is totally cool. I am clinging to what I believe in this case.

So let's just leave it be, like I was trying to do in my post above.
Cause clearly I am not going to convince you because your taking this way too personally.

 

[Saquist]

Saquist:

So if I seen someone tied to the train tracks and there was plenty of time for me to untie him before the train would come and I did nothing to help him. It would not be murder on my part if I decided to walk away and not help him? Especially seeing there was no danger to myself in doing so?

But there was a danger in Tuvix helping them. He would most certainly die. So I don't know how it's alike.

Saquist:

There was going to be a danger (as you call it) to Tuvix whether it was safe or whether it was unsafe for Neelix and Tuvok to come back, anyways. So I really don't think this would have affected Tuvix's decision (if he knew for a certainty he could help them). But in all truth, there was no danger to Tuvix. He was simply being split back in half as the two individuals he was meant to be. Tuvix is Neelix and Tuvok. And Neelix and Tuvok will live on. So Tuvix is not really gone because the same two halves will continue to exist as they were supposed to.

And he wasn't a new unique life. The transporter doesn't create new life. It just transports life. The transporter simply combined two lives. I mean, seriously. If you believe he was a new and unique life than why doesn't the rest of the crew start discovering new life by beaming themselves together? Why? Because it wouldn't be new life. It is simply two people smashing themselves together with the help of the transporter. Sure it might seem like a new life. But it is simply two halves abnormally put together.

Let me put it to you another way. If I beamed two different halves of a whole apple pie onto the transporter and it ended up combining into one whole apple pie. I am just getting a whole apple pie instead of two halves of that whole. The apple pie doesn't become some new thing that is more than the sum of it's parts.

If I beamed an orange and an apple together it isn't a new species of an orange or an apple. It is simply an orange and apple beamed together.

See where I am going with this?




Side Note:

Oh, and just because I give that apple / orange a new name doesn't make it a new and unique species of an apple or a new and unique species of an orange. It is simply an apple and an orange smashed together. I can essentially get the same result in cooking if I use a blender on the apple and the orange.

I get it though. Two combined personalities can look like a new life. But they wouldn't exist without the two other personalities. And the two combined personalities would not die because they would live on as the two separate personalities as it was supposed to be.

Could you the say the same for a child could you not?
Like Tuvix a child is a product of two lives through sexual reproduction. The only difference is that the child has it's own personality.

Yet...I recently discovered that somehow even children receive traits of their parents personalities even when they are no around too relate them....(very curious)

What is your perspective on Borg drone created from Seven's DNA the 29 century tech and nanoprobes? Was that a unique life? Did he have a right to live?

 

[DonIago]

You're making a number of assumptions which I, and I suspect Saquist, don't consider to be valid. If your intention is to convince us of your perspective, you need to substantiate these assumptions rather than continuing to repeat them. If that isn't your intention...I'm not sure what the point of this debate is.

DonIago:

So if my opinion differs from yours it is not valid. That's nice. I never knew you were an authority of everything right in the universe.

I have been substantiating my points with examples. And essentially you have been repeating the same mantra within your arguments as well.

In other words, I am simply repeating or stressing the point that your obviously not getting (while using different examples).

But I don't think no matter what I say or do or how compelling the argument is. You would rather ignore it and cling to your narrow view of the situation.

Which is totally cool. I am clinging to what I believe in this case.

So let's just leave it be, like I was trying to do in my post above.
Cause clearly I am not going to convince you because your taking this way too personally.

I resent the accusation that I'm taking this too personally, but if that's what you want to think, I suspect nothing I could possibly say will stop you, so go right ahead.

Either Tuvix is a unique lifeform, and killing him is murder, or he isn't a unique lifeform and breaking him up into Tuvok and Neelix is harmless.

To my mind, it is far preferable to assume you may cause harm than to assume you will not.

If it was established that Tuvok and Neelix did not retain Tuvix's memories, would that in any way lend credence to the notion that something unique was lost, as far as you're concerned?

 

[xortex]

Something that takes life does not have a right to life.

 

[xortex]

Tuvix is guilty by proxy. Sometimes you don't have to do anything to be guilty.