What Happened to Picard

[megariff]

So, we have the death of Picard. And, his consciousness was put into a synthetic.

The whole thing seemed to go a bit quickly. Here are my thoughts: Picard, the man we all know, is dead. His body remained. But, his remains seemed to just disappear. Wouldn't there be a burial, a ceremony, or something? And, wouldn't it have been a striking image to have the new Picard synth have to face his former self like that?

I do wonder if they are going to even take this on in Season 2. Picard is dead. He is gone. And, are they going to ask: Is the Picard synth really Picard? Does the Picard synth have a soul? I think that these are good questions. And, not only in the sense of this show. But, they are good science-fiction questions, since this is a good, and even unique, circumstance in mainstream science fiction. Plus, I think that it is good "Star Trek" material to talk about this and ask questions about it.

What do you folks think? Thanks!

 

[Bad Thoughts]

I do wonder if they are going to even take this on in Season 2. Picard is dead. He is gone. And, are they going to ask: Is the Picard synth really Picard? Does the Picard synth have a soul? I think that these are good questions. And, not only in the sense of this show. But, they are good science-fiction questions, since this is a good, and even unique, circumstance in mainstream science fiction. Plus, I think that it is good "Star Trek" material to talk about this and ask questions about it.

Why not look at what previous episodes from the numerous series have had to say about the transfer of consciousness? There might be a variety of answers, but I suspect that (1) the soul of a biological being is unique, so Picard's consciousness is not a copy and (2) the ability of a consciousness to inhabit a technological device will affect it in some way.

 

[Roboturner913]

I don't know why we should consider him dead. I don't know about you but I don't treasure my friends because of their arms or legs or even their face. I treasure them because of who they are. If we continue through the series and he remains the same person, then why quibble? The only part that really matters stayed the same (in theory).

I'd like to read up more on this, but I do believe there was a time when we considered a person's heart to be an inextricable part of that person's soul, essence, or whatever you want to call it. Now we understand it to be an organ that pumps blood, and we know a person can get a heart transplant or artificial heart without changing who they are. So to me it's not that farfetched that we may see the human brain in exactly the same way centuries from now, ie it's not the container that matters, it's what is contained within that makes the person.

 

[Sir Stewart Wallace]

Jean Luc Picard is dead. Long Live Jean Luc Picard!

 

[megariff]

I don't know why we should consider him dead. I don't know about you but I don't treasure my friends because of their arms or legs or even their face. I treasure them because of who they are. If we continue through the series and he remains the same person, then why quibble? The only part that really matters stayed the same (in theory).

I'd like to read up more on this, but I do believe there was a time when we considered a person's heart to be an inextricable part of that person's soul, essence, or whatever you want to call it. Now we understand it to be an organ that pumps blood, and we know a person can get a heart transplant or artificial heart without changing who they are. So to me it's not that farfetched that we may see the human brain in exactly the same way centuries from now, ie it's not the container that matters, it's what is contained within that makes the person.

I do get your point. But, I do think that this question would be very interesting to explore in Season 2.

 

[Sir Stewart Wallace]

JL's a dead man. Miss him, miss him, miss him!

Spoiler

Oh, whoops. Nvm.

 

[Roboturner913]

I do get your point. But, I do think that this question would be very interesting to explore in Season 2.

Yeah, it's definitely something that could and should be addressed.

 

[Sir Stewart Wallace]

I hope JL never looks up the Swampman thought experiment on Wikipedia. That will definitely keep him up at night.

 

[KennyB]

Did they spend much time sitting around talking about Spock's NEW BODY in STIII? Nope. They gave all of maybe 5 minutes on him relearning EVERYTHING he ever knew. So no I don't think they will spend too much time on the topic in season 2.

 

[megariff]

Did they spend much time sitting around talking about Spock's NEW BODY in STIII? Nope. They gave all of maybe 5 minutes on him relearning EVERYTHING he ever knew. So no I don't think they will spend too much time on the topic in season 2.

Well, that Spock was still the same organic lifeform, it wasn't new, just renewed. To me, it's about whether androids can be as "human" as humans. And, it's about whether transferring his brain patterns into a synth is the same as how he existed in an organic body and brain.

 

[Sir Stewart Wallace]

It's an interesting philosophical question, and I think Jean Luc Picard would be very invested in thinking about it. But while it might be a subplot in S2, I'm doubting it. There just isn't time to explore a theme like that in ten episodes (more or less, I'm not sure what S2 is getting for an order).

 

[Jayson1]

Picard died and was replaced with a robot. They programed him also to die after living out the number of years he would have had if he was the real human Picard. Which is weird because they could have just given him a on and off button like Data had so when he is done living just ask someone to switch him off and blast his body into space via photon torpedo casket.


Jason

 

[Imaus]

Like most things in scifi, the 'am I really who I am because I shifted forms/died/transported' question is really...well, boring and done.

I played a game, actually, where the players who died had their brains implanted beforehand with a nano-net, and it's 'scanned' at the moment of death and transmitted back to Earth via subspace, and put into cloned bodies.

Picard's resurrection really seems to be akin to that? Maddox (No, Soong?) has one neuron of Picard and with technological whimsy has basically reconstructed Picard from it, shoving him and Data into...Subspace? A quantum space? With full cognizance throughout. Then they get shoved into a new body - Android in Picard's case, sculpted from the 'Golem'.

Personally, as a Materialist, that's more than enough for me to say that the Picard we have now is the same Picard, even if packing all of him on one neuron and a quantum whatever is really a miracle of memory storage.

 

[SJGardner]

I haven't read much sci-fi, so my opinion on the subject is mainly shaped by what I saw in the Orion's Arm shared universe, but I love their interpretation of it: uploading your brain into a computer and then downloading it into a new body, be it a biological clone, a 3D-printed biological android or a completely mechanical one, is so ubiquitous that it's generally treated as a legitimate way of extending one's life. The only things able to tell the difference are hyper-advanced AIs that are unable to perceive the world on a mortal level of understanding to begin with.

As I understand it, Picard himself is unable to tell the difference by design, as he has all his memories and all the contents of his original brain, so he naturally perceives his experience as continuous. As for the others, I guess it's a bit like how they settled the question of Data's sapience in The Measure of a Man: we don't really know anything scientifically about souls and consciousness, so as long as it walks like Jean-Luc Picard, talks like Jean-Luc Picard and is the only instance of Jean-Luc Picard in existence, then he should be treated as Jean-Luc Picard. I think the only person in the Star Trek universe who'd legitimately be able to tell the difference and relay it to the audience would be Q, so if we eventually meet him in a later season and he considers Picard to be himself, then I'll treat the matter as definitely settled in a Star Trek context.

 

[Hythlodeus]

So, we have the death of Picard. And, his consciousness was put into a synthetic.

The whole thing seemed to go a bit quickly. Here are my thoughts: Picard, the man we all know, is dead. His body remained. But, his remains seemed to just disappear. Wouldn't there be a burial, a ceremony, or something? And, wouldn't it have been a striking image to have the new Picard synth have to face his former self like that?

I do wonder if they are going to even take this on in Season 2. Picard is dead. He is gone. And, are they going to ask: Is the Picard synth really Picard? Does the Picard synth have a soul? I think that these are good questions. And, not only in the sense of this show. But, they are good science-fiction questions, since this is a good, and even unique, circumstance in mainstream science fiction. Plus, I think that it is good "Star Trek" material to talk about this and ask questions about it.

What do you folks think? Thanks!

look, this whole season we were told that Soji is real, just because she is artificial, it doesn't mean she isn't a real person. the sum of her memories, her personality, everything that makes her her...is real. that's what Picard told her. That's what the Troi-Rikers told her and that's what we were told.

So is Picard in an artificial body real? Is he really himself? Or is that just an imposter android with the memories of a dead person?

The show already gave us the answer.

 

[ITDUDE]

Did they spend much time sitting around talking about Spock's NEW BODY in STIII? Nope. They gave all of maybe 5 minutes on him relearning EVERYTHING he ever knew. So no I don't think they will spend too much time on the topic in season 2.

This.
Patrick Stewart wanted a death scene. Every actor worth their salt wants to do a death scene for their most iconic character. Producers complied. So we get best of both worlds. We get a death scene, and we get to keep Picard.
Now that it’s done, it’s done. They don’t need to dwell on it.

 

[eschaton]

Well, that Spock was still the same organic lifeform, it wasn't new, just renewed. To me, it's about whether androids can be as "human" as humans. And, it's about whether transferring his brain patterns into a synth is the same as how he existed in an organic body and brain.

Spock's "second body" was basically a clone. Clones are not identical to the original - they're clearly separate organisms. Basically identical twins of a different age. And twins do not share the same consciousness. It's only the woo of Katras that got "Spock" into his clone body.

Arguably what they did with Picard here is more scientifically plausible than what they did with Spock.

 

[MrPointy]

Theseus owned a ship and the ship was entirely made of wood. Every time a piece of the ship needed replacing it was replaced with a metal part. This went on for a few years until eventually it was entirely made of metal.

Is the metal ship of Theseus the same ship as the wooden ship of Theseus?

Is this metal man of Picard the same man as the flesh man of Picard?

 

[Longinus]

Spock's "second body" was basically a clone. Clones are not identical to the original - they're clearly separate organisms. Basically identical twins of a different age. And twins do not share the same consciousness. It's only the woo of Katras that got "Spock" into his clone body.

It was merely his original body that had been rejuvenated. That's not a clone any more than people revived by borg nanoprobes are.

Arguably what they did with Picard here is more scientifically plausible than what they did with Spock.

Yes, perhaps. But it being a physically different and separate body, made in different manner and possibly of different material makes this seem like a bigger deal. Like if it was a mere vat-grown clone, it would be easier to gloss over, but this is really not the case. The bio synths are a wonky concept to begin with and it is unclear how they differ from Data-type androids and how they differ from normal humans. It is also unclear how the 'golem' differs from other synths. But in any case it seems to be radically different. It had to be 'programmed' to be mortal*, so it obviously is not just a normal clone body.

(* And doing so is insane and utterly destroys any pathos that having an ageing and very mortal main character would have.)

As for 'is it same the person,' I'll copypaste here what I said about transporters in another thread:

"Yeah, I always have maintained that transporters work via quantum data and thus the transported individual is indeed 'the same person.' If this consciousness transfer works similarly, then it would apply to that too. Transporters generally do not seem to be able to duplicate things, and this is consistent with it being quantum teleportation. My explanation with Thomas Riker is that there somewhere is a nearly identical parallel universe that in which Riker just altogether vanished in that transportation. We know from the mirror universe that transporters can accidentally pluck people from parallel universes, so that's what happened there too."

 

[arch101]

In addition to "The Measure of a Man", now "The Schizoid Man" also becomes required viewing. Interesting, that line "Everyone has their time, Graves..."