Was the reborn Spock after ST III a clone or was it REALLY him?

[The Rock]

This has always confused me. I'll explain why.

In Star Trek II, when Spock imprints his Katra into McCoy's head, what was that exactly? Was that Spock's entire soul? Or was it just Spock's memories?

So in Star Trek III, when Spock's body is rejuvenated from the Genesis planet, and his Katra is put back into him, is he the exact same Spock he was before he died? Or is it just a new person (who just happens to have the same Spock body, thus a "clone" of sorts) who just has Spock's memories and a bit of his personality?

 

[Robert D. Robot]

This makes me think of the classic "Paradox of Theseus's Ship", where Plutarch asked whether a aging vessel which was restored by replacing all of its parts over time remained the same ship. Further, if you took all the old, removed parts and built a ship, would the ship built from the parts actually parts be the "original"?

I first head about this when learning about how parts on the old sailing vessels like U.S.S. Constitution and U.S.S. Constellation were being repaired/rebuilt over time. Also made me think of those old singing groups from the 1950s: when a band splits up and then 15 years later two of the guys start the group back up by adding two "new" replacements... and so do the other two founding members... who can call their group "The Original" group? (and this does happen!).

I don't know what reborn Spock actually is. There might not be a precise term for it, since his experience is so unique. I don't believe he is a clone, really. He is still Spock, but "re-packaged".

The soul thing has made me wonder, though. If there is a soul, how does it jump to the body in the new location after transport. Physicists also say that -in an issue perhaps similar to your original question- transportation would require the destruction of your original body and creation of a new body. SO each time you step you beam down, you get essentially a new body (Or so some say!)!

 

[Tom]

Well the body was not a clone since the sames cells just regenerated. I always wondered how complete is Katra was, did it have all his memories..etc?.

Also Genisis had proto-matter that we saw was indeed unstable with the planet, whould not Spock also have this and thus also be unstable somehow?

 

[Doug Otte]

The supernatural elements of STII and III really bug me today, but for some reason, back when they were released, I swallowed them whole.

I always thought a Spock body grew on Genesis, based upon the original cells remaining from his original body. That's why he grew from a child to adult. It's not technically the same body, but is genetically identical. So, is that a clone, or a child?

As far as the katra, that's really the hard part to accept. What is the "soul" and what is the "self"? These are questions humanity has been debating for centuries. In my opinion, there is no "soul", and there is no "self" that continues to exist after the body has died. The self is a unique combination of body, brain, and experiences that ends at death.

In the context of the movies, I guess Spock implanted a unique combination of electrical impulses in McCoy's brain, which comprise his memories and thought patterns. When those impulses were then moved into the new Spock's body, the combination of body and impulses more or less replicated the original Spock.

However, it was not the original Spock. It was a new Spock.

Doug

 

[Captrek]

The supernatural elements of STII and III really bug me today

TSFS isn’t the franchise’s first instance of body-hopping spirits. There are similar elements in TOS episodes like Return to Tomorrow and Wolf in the Fold. Star Trek was never intended to be hard SF, and believable science was sacrificed for the sake of storytelling.

 

[Christopher]

Well the body was not a clone since the sames cells just regenerated.

That can't be, since he started out from infancy, and thus would've started out with only a fraction of the total number of cells in an adult body. He must've regenerated from just some last few remaining viable cells, which would make him literally a clone, at least biologically. (Although, as with all rapid-aging characters in sci-fi/fantasy, that leaves the unanswered question of where he got the biomass to produce new cells if he wasn't constantly eating.)

I always thought a Spock body grew on Genesis, based upon the original cells remaining from his original body. That's why he grew from a child to adult. It's not technically the same body, but is genetically identical. So, is that a clone, or a child?

It's both. That's what a clone is, by the real definition of the word instead of the way it's constantly misused in sci-fi -- not some kind of full-grown 3D photocopy, but an offspring that has genetic material from only a single parent. Cloning is simply a form of asexual reproduction. The word originally referred to growing new plants from cuttings or buds of an original plant, rather than from fertilized seeds.


Whether his mind actually transferred or was simply copied is a different matter. Since he was still conscious and functional for some minutes after the meld with McCoy, it stands to reason that he just downloaded a copy of his memories and consciousness. Although I have read it suggested (in one of the old Best of Trek collections, I think) that the meld may simply have created an "open channel" between their minds so that the katra could make the transfer at the moment of death.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

So in Star Trek III, when Spock's body is rejuvenated from the Genesis planet, and his Katra is put back into him, is he the exact same Spock he was before he died? Or is it just a new person (who just happens to have the same Spock body, thus a "clone" of sorts) who just has Spock's memories and a bit of his personality?

I believe that the answer to the question is that the question is a false dichotomy. There's no difference between the old person and the a person with the exact memories of the old person, and should there be differences it is all the same if they came through imperfections in the process of cloning or through ageing and learning.

A person is equal to his memories and his consciousness which are equal to his soul. Those three are the same thing until we find any suggestion to suggest otherwise, and as for the Star Trek universe there were quite few episodes and even entire concepts based on that principle (although not all writers seem to agree, but meh inconsistencies).

Every person changes with every second. Each moment you learn something new, you change your opinion of something, your brain undergoes physical changes, and so on. With certain conditions the changes can be rather dramatic, ranging from severe memory loss to complete madness. We consider all those cases to still be the same person even though many of them go through a much greater change than the two Spocks did, and frankly some of them probably shouldn't qualify. Even in a normal life of a normal person the changes when measured in years and decades are quite significant, probably more than what changed in Spock.

So, yes, the new Spock is not the same person as the old Spock the same way I'm not the same person I was five years ago.

 

[Christopher]

I believe that the answer to the question is that the question is a false dichotomy. There's no difference between the old person and the a person with the exact memories of the old person...

But what if the duplicate is created while the original is still alive, as with William and "Thomas" Riker? There's clearly a difference in that case; the original doesn't perceive or experience what the duplicate does, or vice-versa. So isn't there equally a difference if the original dies when/before the duplicate is created? External observers may see no difference, but the original person will still have ceased to exist.

 

[Captrek]

Every person changes with every second. Each moment you learn something new, you change your opinion of something, your brain undergoes physical changes, and so on.

It is linear. Corporeal. Thank you, Emissary.

But what if the duplicate is created while the original is still alive, as with William and "Thomas" Riker?

I'm not sure we can properly categorize the two Rikers as an original and duplicate. It's just that there had been one, and now there are two, both with equal claims to being the real William T. Riker. The one who had been on the outside, publicly living Riker's life, got to go on just as he had been while the one who unbeknownst to the rest of the galaxy was trapped on the planet for 16 years had to become "Thomas" and was understandably not thrilled about it.

 

[Christopher]

But what if the duplicate is created while the original is still alive, as with William and "Thomas" Riker?

I'm not sure we can properly categorize the two Rikers as an original and duplicate. It's just that there had been one, and now there are two, both with equal claims to being the real William T. Riker.

Which is exactly my point. Both are identical, both are direct continuations of the original, but they have separate awareness and perceptions. Thus, if two equally identical copies existed at separate times, i.e. if one died and then another was created, then it follows that they would also have separate awareness and perceptions. Everyone else would perceive the later version as a direct continuation of the original, and he would perceive himself to be, but the original person's awareness would still have ceased at the moment of his death and would not have "jumped" to the new one -- not unless there's some kind of continuity of consciousness from one to the other, which the katra transfer may have provided in Spock's case, depending on how it actually worked. So it's not that simple to define whether it's the same person or not.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

But what if the duplicate is created while the original is still alive, as with William and "Thomas" Riker? There's clearly a difference in that case; the original doesn't perceive or experience what the duplicate does, or vice-versa. So isn't there equally a difference if the original dies when/before the duplicate is created? External observers may see no difference, but the original person will still have ceased to exist.

The two Rikers are different persons because their lifelines have diverged at a point in the past, and both have experienced events that the other hasn't. Me and me-from-two-years-ago both contain the same experience as the me-from-two-years-ago, I'm someone with added knowledge and some differences here and there, which can be considered mostly incremental.

The same is true for Spock to an extent. His last few moments were forgotten by the new Spock and that's enough to consider him a diverged and a different Spock. The new Spock shouldn't remember death (despite his conversation with McCoy on the subject in TVH), and from the POV of the old Spock who locked himself in, his life did not continue. Which is why I've long thought that erasing memory should be regarded as something very close to murder in principle. The more memory is erased, the closer to death it is.

 

[Captrek]

The same is true for Spock to an extent. His last few moments were forgotten by the new Spock and that's enough to consider him a diverged and a different Spock.

The new Spock repeated verbatim much of his dying conversation with Kirk. I'm inclined to believe there's continuity there, even if his memory is a little fuzzy.

I, on the other hand, got so wasted last night I don't remember anything at all. Fortunately, that means I'm not the same person, so anybody who tries to hold me accountable for the actions of that different person can pound sand.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

If you still remember deciding to start to drink, you're still responsible for getting that other person drunk, though.

 

[Christopher]

The two Rikers are different persons because their lifelines have diverged at a point in the past, and both have experienced events that the other hasn't....

The same is true for Spock to an extent. His last few moments were forgotten by the new Spock and that's enough to consider him a diverged and a different Spock.

That's not what I'm talking about. If you think I'm arguing that the two Spocks are the same individual, you've profoundly misread my comments, because my whole point is that they are not the same individual, not if the new Spock's mind is simply an exact copy and nothing more.

This same question often comes up with the idea of downloading the mind into a computer. If you download your mind into a computer or a clone body or whatever and still exist afterward, then your consciousness still resides in your own brain and you do not perceive or experience what your duplicate does, no matter how exact a duplicate it is. It may think it's you, but you wouldn't share its awareness, because you still exist within your own head and not its.

Therefore, if that exact duplicate consciousness only comes into being after you die, it follows that you won't "live on" in it, that your "soul" won't jump into that new form any more than it would have if you and the duplicate had coexisted. The duplicate would perceive itself to be a direct continuation of you, and so would every external observer, but you wouldn't. You'd simply have ceased to exist and would have no further awareness.

So if all Spock did was create a copy or map of his neurological state inside McCoy's mind, then yes, the Spock that emerged from the fal tor pan is simply a duplicate, essentially an offspring of the original. However, if you accept the hypothesis that his meld with McCoy simply opened a channel that allowed his consciousness to transfer out of him at the moment of his death, then you could say there was a continuity of awareness and mental activity, in which case New Spock could perhaps be the same continuous individual as the original Spock -- at least insofar as any of us remains a continuous individual.

As captrek says, the regenerated Spock did paraphrase a conversation he had with Kirk after his meld with McCoy, which could be taken as evidence for the latter possibility, that his mind didn't actually jump into McCoy's head until the moment of his death. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure McCoy was a spectator to that conversation, so if this was merely a copy of Spock's mind "uploaded" during the meld, it could've gotten the memory from McCoy.

 

[Captrek]

This same question often comes up with the idea of downloading the mind into a computer. If you download your mind into a computer or a clone body or whatever and still exist afterward, then your consciousness still resides in your own brain and you do not perceive or experience what your duplicate does, no matter how exact a duplicate it is. It may think it's you, but you wouldn't share its awareness, because you still exist within your own head and not its.

Therefore, if that exact duplicate consciousness only comes into being after you die, it follows that you won't "live on" in it, that your "soul" won't jump into that new form any more than it would have if you and the duplicate had coexisted. The duplicate would perceive itself to be a direct continuation of you, and so would every external observer, but you wouldn't. You'd simply have ceased to exist and would have no further awareness.

Alternatively, my soul jumps into the computer and the mind remaining in the biological brain is the oblivious duplicate. One is as valid as the other. It's a matter of perspective.

So we could say that Spock put his katra in McCoy while Zombie Spock went into the radiation chamber and restored power to the warp engines. Why not?


Another interesting issue arises when the copies are re-fused, like Primal Kirk and Pussy Kirk in The Enemy Within, or Multiple Man in Marvel Comics. Is there an "original" soul and a "duplicate" soul? Which one is destroyed by the re-fusion?

 

[Christopher]

Alternatively, my soul jumps into the computer and the mind remaining in the biological brain is the oblivious duplicate. One is as valid as the other. It's a matter of perspective.

Except that the concept of the "soul" is conjectural and not even clearly defined. The fact that I put it in quotes was meant to imply that I wasn't endorsing the idea of such a thing, because it's too subjective to be susceptible to analysis. What I'm talking about is the more measurable concept of the continuity of awareness or mental activity.

So we could say that Spock put his katra in McCoy while Zombie Spock went into the radiation chamber and restored power to the warp engines. Why not?

Because he obviously still had the sentience and awareness to perform that complicated procedure in the first place and to exchange a final, poignant dialogue with his best friend. By any measurable standard, Spock was still himself at that point. And unmeasurable ideas cannot be tested or evaluated, so positing them is pure sophistry.

Another interesting issue arises when the copies are re-fused, like Primal Kirk and Pussy Kirk in The Enemy Within, or Multiple Man in Marvel Comics. Is there an "original" soul and a "duplicate" soul? Which one is destroyed by the re-fusion?

Again, we can't meaningfully discuss "soul" when there's no objective or agreed-upon definition for the term. The question can only be addressed neurologically. Can a brain contain two separate sets of memories covering the same span of time? I would imagine so, since memories are imperfect to begin with; any recollection of an event is basically a reconstruction/extrapolation from the fragments of data that the brain stores, and can easily be overwritten by subsequent thoughts, perceptions, and assumptions, which is how false memories are created.

Quantum information theory says that a single quantum system can only contain one set of quantum data, so if there are two conflicting sets that are combined, one must be erased. But while there are hypotheses of quantum consciousness, they're fringe notions that don't have any real evidentiary or theoretical support. To the best of our knowledge, memory is a classical process.

 

[MarsWeeps]

But what if the duplicate is created while the original is still alive, as with William and "Thomas" Riker? There's clearly a difference in that case; the original doesn't perceive or experience what the duplicate does, or vice-versa.

I always thought that was a dumb episode. How were 2 Rikers created? Where did the extra matter come from to create the second physical body? Not to mention how were the souls split? (for those that believe there is a soul.)

If the transporter can "accidentally" create a duplicate, why not pursue this and create spares of everyone just in case one dies? Think of all the disposable red shirts each ship can have on hand!

 

[Captrek]

I always thought that was a dumb episode. How were 2 Rikers created?

Quite easily. Gene Roddenberry put pen to paper and created one Riker, then René Echevarria put pen to paper and created another, using a dramatic device previously employed by Richard Matheson and a number of other science fiction writers.

If you're looking for "hard" SF, you're looking in the wrong franchise. Star Trek has always been about freeing writers from the constraints of reality.

If the transporter can "accidentally" create a duplicate, why not pursue this and create spares of everyone just in case one dies?

It was outlawed after the Clone Wars, just like human genetic engineering after the Eugenics Wars.

People in the Trek universe have a serious bee in their bonnet about duplicate selves, or even clones. Look at Up the Long Ladder, in which a ship of over a thousand people can't find any volunteers to contribute genetic material for cloning. Or Shinzon's feeling that he's just "a shadow" as long as Picard exists. The Rikers certainly aren't thrilled when they discover each other's existence. Etc.

Mirror Kira likes it, but she's crazy. And the Vorta are fine with it, but they're programmed to be, as are Mudd's androids. I guess it's mostly a human hang up.

 

[RoJoHen]

nuSpock was a reboot that borrowed heavily from the original.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

This same question often comes up with the idea of downloading the mind into a computer. If you download your mind into a computer or a clone body or whatever and still exist afterward, then your consciousness still resides in your own brain and you do not perceive or experience what your duplicate does, no matter how exact a duplicate it is. It may think it's you, but you wouldn't share its awareness, because you still exist within your own head and not its.

Therefore, if that exact duplicate consciousness only comes into being after you die, it follows that you won't "live on" in it, that your "soul" won't jump into that new form any more than it would have if you and the duplicate had coexisted. The duplicate would perceive itself to be a direct continuation of you, and so would every external observer, but you wouldn't. You'd simply have ceased to exist and would have no further awareness.

Yes, however, there is no evidence to suggest that “you” exists beside the perceptions and thoughts that you have. Since the neurological process that perceives the world appears to be “you”, if you die at the instant your exact duplicate is created, you will “live on” and continue your experiences within the computer. To imply otherwise would mean that there is something more to “you” than what we know and suspect, not to mention troubling to explain.

You are you not because of the fact that occupy the same physical medium, but because the information in your brain is the same – it is what defines you, thus your exact copy is as much you as you are.

The thought experiment you present here is different (and indeed Spock's case would fit in it to some extent), because the personal timeline of the two copies diverges. The person who experienced your life after the copy was created won't live on. That's what makes the difference. In fact, if you leave the duplicate in a suspended state, you could claim that the person who is the copy lived on in you and then died.

I'm strongly inclined to believe that everything – the universe, the human consciousness – is made up of information and information only. So a change of the “physical” medium carrying the information doesn't matter as long as the information is the same.

Since, however, the information itself is mostly physical information (including many unknown bits to us), such a copy will be very difficult to create, much less continued. It might be either impossible (within our universe), or so difficult that pressing your fingers against someone's head is an unthinkable mechanism for doing it. This means that the copy won't be you because it wouldn't be exact enough, and only that.

In other words, you can't copy yourself in a computer and remain you, but only because you can't simulate the universe in the process. But if you did simulate the universe, you will live on in the simulation as much as you'd live on in the real universe. That's as far as the physical medium matters, imho.