Spoilers Yeah... I give up - Star Trek has abandoned philosophical naturalism - it's depressing/juvenile

[fireproof78]

How do you know? Have you studied intelligent species that have evolved for billions of years?

I wonder what the horseshoe crab thinks of this?

I'd answer, but I'm about to turn into a glowing ball of light so won't have time to go into det-

Wait, can I have your avatar? Rats...

 

[mos6507]

I wonder what the horseshoe crab thinks of this

Horseshoe crabs are intelligent tool-users? Learn something new every day I guess. I get it, though. Funny how all these threads sort of devolve into "I like the show so I'll reach for any possible rationalization, however absurd, and sling it with maximum snark."

Star Trek has 50+ years of history so you can always say but this Trek did it and that Trek did it. Well, yeah, but an entire show didn't revolve around a midnight monster-movie trope.

 

[Balok's Decoy]

The aspect of Q in particular revolves around a very old sci-fi concept, that evolution reaches a point in which life sort of ascends to a kind of godhood. That's a very conventional topic that we've seen in things like Contact, Interstellar, 2001, etc... Spore drive, though, just on a visceral level, feels.....goofy.

An intergalactic spore network is a lot more believable than a god, which is essentially what Q is.

 

[Ovation]

How do you know? Have you studied intelligent species that have evolved for billions of years?

Evolution has no specific direction. So the underlying assumption upon which this trope rests is unfounded.

 

[cultcross]

How do you know? Have you studied intelligent species that have evolved for billions of years?

I've studied evolution. It is the adaptation of an organism to its environment by selective breeding pressures. It isn't a transition from lower to higher, or from 'less' to 'more' evolved. You are no 'more evolved' than a T Rex, you're just adapted to a different niche.

 

[fireproof78]

Horseshoe crabs are intelligent tool-users? Learn something new every day I guess. I get it, though. Funny how all these threads sort of devolve into "I like the show so I'll reach for any possible rationalization, however absurd, and sling it with maximum snark."

Star Trek has 50+ years of history so you can always say but this Trek did it and that Trek did it. Well, yeah, but an entire show didn't revolve around a midnight monster-movie trope.

So, you don't like snark but I get snark back? It was an observation, not a criticism.

If you don't like the tardigrade, that's fine. I don't like Q. But, that doesn't make one less innately absurd than the other.

 

[Balok's Decoy]

If you don't like the tardigrade, that's fine. I don't like Q. But, that doesn't make one less innately absurd than the other.

Star Trek is innately absurd.

 

[zenophite]

It's part of Star Trek's legend. Probably, the best thing Star Trek ever did was sell its own hype as well as it did. "Utopia", "visionary", "progressive", "scientific", "realistic", "inspired real life technology"....
Fans genuinely believe it, and what's more, the general reputation of the show supports it. Articles trip over each other to talk about the special vision of the future......The downside is that new Trek is held to an impossible standard which its predecessors never actually achieved. The mycelium network is 'magic' but Q violating the basic laws of the universe is science. Vision Culber is absurd but interactive visions of dead Trill hosts is science. Tyler/Voq is ridiculous but minds in and out of android bodies is pure hard science.
As for the humanist philosophy of Star Trek, however you express it - "your enemy is the same as you", "be who you say you are going to be", etc - well, Discovery has that just as much as Trek ever did. Just last week we had a whole "unity and peace with your enemies" sequence in the mirror universe of all places. I anticipate that being the solution to the Klingon war.
All of that has been done one way or another in Trek before. That's what Trek has always done, dressing up fantasy concepts in a pseudoscience wrapper. Discovery is no different.

Very well put. I've had the same notion for years now after watching a seemingly endless parade of overly reverential treatments of Star Trek. I enjoy Trek for what it is but for many it has become a modern myth...a quasi-religion of sorts complete with a founding prophet (Roddenberry) and a sacred text (the episodes themselves). It is in full self-perpetuating mode at this point. When I hear people talk about Discovery "NOT BEING TRUE TO RODDENBERRY'S VISION" i can't help but picture it as the outrage of a religious fanatic who is "defending the faith" against heretics and unbelievers...

 

[fireproof78]

An intergalactic spore network is a lot more believable than a god, which is essentially what Q is.

And also goes against "Gene's vision"

When I hear people talk about Discovery "NOT BEING TRUE TO RODDENBERRY'S VISION" i can't help but picture it as the outrage of a religious fanatic who is "defending the faith" against heretics and unbelievers...

Funny, I was just talking about that

 

[Longinus]

I've studied evolution. It is the adaptation of an organism to its environment by selective breeding pressures. It isn't a transition from lower to higher, or from 'less' to 'more' evolved. You are no 'more evolved' than a T Rex, you're just adapted to a different niche.

I don't think the super energy being are necessarily as much results of sort of natural evolution as some sort of technological singularity.

 

[Balok's Decoy]

Very well put. I've had the same notion for years now after watching a seemingly endless parade of overly reverential treatments of Star Trek. I enjoy Trek for what it is but for many it has become a modern myth...a quasi-religion of sorts complete with a founding prophet (Roddenberry) and a sacred text (the episodes themselves). It is in full self-perpetuating mode at this point. When I hear people talk about Discovery "NOT BEING TRUE TO RODDENBERRY'S VISION" i can't help but picture it as the outrage of a religious fanatic who is "defending the faith" against heretics and unbelievers...

It is remeniscient of people defending the True Faith from the heretics. It's weird. It's like people who hate one incarnation of a varied franchise aren't content to just disregard or ignore this one version they don't like. They have to attempt to #NotMyStarTrek it into oblivion so that nobody can enjoy it. If I didn't like DSC, I'd just ignore it and watch DS9 again and let the DSC people have their moment.

 

[fireproof78]

I don't think the super energy being are necessarily as much results of sort of natural evolution as some sort of technological singularity.

Well, we did see one evolve on TNG. Not a Q, but another species.

It is remeniscient of people defending the True Faith from the heretics. It's weird. It's like people who hate one incarnation of a varied franchise aren't content to just disregard or ignore this one version they don't like. They have to attempt to #NotMyStarTrek it into oblivion so that nobody can enjoy it. If I didn't like DSC, I'd just ignore it and watch DS9 again and let the DSC people have their moment.

Isn't it all supposed to fit together?

 

[Longinus]

I really liked the tardigrade, I like this sort of space borne lifeforms, as unlikely as they might seem. The mushroom network is too much for me though. Multiverse spanning living organism is just such a ludicrous concept, especially as it is a literal fungus. And that no one else would have ever before noticed that his thing exists just strains credulity even further.

 

[cultcross]

Very well put. I've had the same notion for years now after watching a seemingly endless parade of overly reverential treatments of Star Trek. I enjoy Trek for what it is but for many it has become a modern myth...a quasi-religion of sorts complete with a founding prophet (Roddenberry) and a sacred text (the episodes themselves). It is in full self-perpetuating mode at this point. When I hear people talk about Discovery "NOT BEING TRUE TO RODDENBERRY'S VISION" i can't help but picture it as the outrage of a religious fanatic who is "defending the faith" against heretics and unbelievers...

 

[zenophite]

I really liked the tardigrade, I like this sort of space borne lifeforms, as unlikely as they might seem. The mushroom network is too much for me though. Multiverse spanning living organism is just such a ludicrous concept, especially as it is a literal fungus. And that no one else would have ever before noticed that his thing exists just strains credulity even further.

I haven't read anything about this specifically but I suspect that there are some aficionados of Terrence McKenna, Andrija Puharich and John Lilly among the writers. Some of the story points seem reminiscent of elements of their work.

 

[cultcross]

Well, we did see one evolve on TNG. Not a Q, but another species.

Indeed, Transfigurations is a whole episode dedicated to the trope, and highlights a lot of the scientific issues with the idea. While we may pretend that the Q are not living beings in our usual sense of the term but an entirely different phenomenon, that episode shows a humanoid literally becoming a ball of light.

Multiverse spanning living organism is just such a ludicrous concept,

So is a living organism outside of the spacetime continuum, but we let that go.

 

[fireproof78]

I really liked the tardigrade, I like this sort of space borne lifeforms, as unlikely as they might seem. The mushroom network is too much for me though. Multiverse spanning living organism is just such a ludicrous concept, especially as it is a literal fungus. And that no one else would have ever before noticed that his thing exists just strains credulity even further.

Can I ask if anything in Star Trek ever strained your credulity before?

 

[Longinus]

Can I ask if anything in Star Trek ever strained your credulity before?

Of course, numerous times. It is just that in more episodic format it is easier to just forget some bizarre episodes; here it is one of the central elements of the entire show (or at least an entire season.)

 

[Myko]

Can I ask if anything in Star Trek ever strained your credulity before?

That is not a good argument.

"New episode X was bad for reason A."
"Old episode Y was also bad for reason A."

We want new episodes to not be bad.

 

[fireproof78]

Of course, numerous times. It is just that in more episodic format it is easier to just forget some bizarre episodes; here it is one of the central elements of the entire show (or at least an entire season.)

Thank you. I appreciate the clarification

That is not a good argument.

"New episode X was bad for reason A."
"Old episode Y was also bad for reason A."

We want new episodes to not be bad.

I'm not making an argument. I'm asking a question.