Which world has the best medicine and life expectancy

[Darth Wong]

Your explanation does not actually explain anything; it invokes no less magic than simply admitting that the writers obviously think humans have souls.

No, but it keeps the stupid confined to one episode, and that's good enough for me.

No, it doesn't. Slapping the label "energy being" on the concept does not make it any less similar to the common fantasy concept of a "soul", and that's all you've done: slap a label on it which incorporates a physics term to make you feel as if it's somehow more scientific. It's no better than Ghostbusters calling ghosts "ectoplasm"; it's still the same idea, even if you add jargon to it. Moreover, Star Trek is chock full of episodes where deceased people live on in some fashion or other, and can even possess other people. There was even an episode where part of the ship was haunted because of a murder that took place there, for fuck's sake. Oh, but it wasn't "haunted"; there was a "residual neural energy signature" or some other pseudoscientific bullshit.

Maybe I'm being sentimental here but I'd prefer not to write off the whole franchise as irretrievably unscientific, and declaring that beaming people into space always creates a 'soul' that can perceive things and possess people has far more damning implications than declaring it a one-episode anomaly.

Who said that it has to always create a ghost which works that way? It's pretty obvious that ghosts normally disappear to somewhere else; the only mystery is why this particular ghost stuck around. We can attribute that to the other ghost which helped Picard stick around somehow.

It is possible to rationalise energy creatures as relying on (major) extensions to real-world physics, which clearly exist in the ST universe for most of their technology to work. It isn't possible to rationalise people having 'souls', at least not ones that can possess people and generally interact with normal matter, if Trek humans are supposed to be identical to real humans, since we don't observe such things in real life.

So you can't rationalize people having "souls" which can possess people and interact with normal matter, but you can rationalize "energy creatures" which can possess people and interact with normal matter? And you can rationalize humans magically turning into these "energy creatures" under the right circumstances? Precisely what have you changed here, other than injecting an extra term?

In Babylon 5, they can trap your soul in a little marble (seriously, there's an episode where they show this).

Regrettably I do have to write off the whole B5 franchise as being irretrievably unscientific. But that's ok, it was supposed to be 'high fantasy in space', Trek wasn't.

Intent does not matter nearly as much as results.

[18-Till-I-Die]

I love how somehow an "energy being" is more realistic than just saying magic. Cause it's not like it's the EXACT SAME FUCKING THING.

What part of "energy being" even remotely has scientific or realistic standing? Show me an energy being, please? No better yet, explain the physics behind a HUMAN BEING turning into one and then back again, cause i'd love to see how that works.

And mind all this--inventing the concept of an unknown, unknowable form of sentient energy lifeform that exists in all humans and can be transposed into other things--is to try and explain away the existence of ghosts in Star Trek. Cause that doesn't describe a ghost at all.

So ok lets say this is the case, that living beings can somehow turn in part or in whole, into energy and back again...how does this somehow make the monster from Skin of Evil any less realistic? Indeed if people can turn back and forth into energy and remain self-away, then that only makes the creature's story MORE reasonable than less. It actually creates a quasi-consistant mechanism by which these people could have "left behind" their evil energy...because now we admit that they can actually do so, since we're going with the "people can turn into energy and remain self-aware" line of thought.

[Bounty]

I love how somehow an "energy being" is more realistic than just saying magic. Cause it's not like it's the EXACT SAME FUCKING THING.

Well... it isn't. "Energy being" doesn't claim the phenomenon shouldn't even try to be rationalized the way saying "magic" implies. Is the "energy being" shorthand a plot device with no basis in reality? Of course. Is it something the characters treat as magic in-universe? No. It's something they study and have apparently found ways to fit into their understanding of the universe.

"Magic" declares it supernatural and ununderstandable and this is just not the case in Trek. It's ludicrous by any standard of modern science but in-universe it is observed and at least partially understood as a physical phenomenon.

And mind all this--inventing the concept of an unknown, unknowable form of sentient energy lifeform that exists in all humans and can be transposed into other things--is to try and explain away the existence of ghosts in Star Trek. Cause that doesn't describe a ghost at all.

Good thing then that Starglider did no such thing. The opposite, in fact; what he's arguing for is that the instances of consciousnesses existing outside their bodies in Trek did not involve an "unknowable for of sentient lifeform (?)", but was simply that person's mind - the electrical impulses that would normally be running through their brains - emulated on some other platform. There is no "invented" concept at work here, apart from the not-exactly-new idea of brain uploads.

So ok lets say this is the case, that living beings can somehow turn in part or in whole, into energy and back again

Sorry, what? Are you referring to Lonely Among Us? Because that involved a transporter and an alien cloud, it wasn't just one person suddenly deciding they'd be happier as a sentient aerosol.

[Samuel]

Hey, magic can be rationally analyzed- it just blatantly violates the laws of nature.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Well... it isn't. "Energy being" doesn't claim the phenomenon shouldn't even try to be rationalized the way saying "magic" implies. Is the "energy being" shorthand a plot device with no basis in reality? Of course. Is it something the characters treat as magic in-universe? No. It's something they study and have apparently found ways to fit into their understanding of the universe.

"Magic" declares it supernatural and ununderstandable and this is just not the case in Trek. It's ludicrous by any standard of modern science but in-universe it is observed and at least partially understood as a physical phenomenon.

That doesn't change anything. It doesn't make it any less magical or supernatural it just means someone came up with a hair brained word for it. Look i can do that too, i call it a floople, and i think that there are 500,000 flooples for every one human. There that has all the substance of calling it something vaguely more dignified like "energy being". More so you have not even shown that an "energy being" is somehow different than a soul or a ghost, and in fact are just tip toeing around the fact that it's THE SAME FUCKING THING.

A ghost is a being made of some unknown kind of force or energy that is self-aware.

And energy being...is a being made of some unknown kind of force or energy that is self-aware.

Pretending that this is scientific is just as absurd as pretending the Omega Particle is scientific. It's not even a plot device, it's just an absurd fanon theory with no basis in science fact or in-universe continuity. How is that any more valid than the Floople Concordat?

Good thing then that Starglider did no such thing.

Did too!

The opposite, in fact; what he's arguing for is that the instances of consciousnesses existing outside their bodies in trek did not involve an "unknowable for of sentient lifeform (?)", but was simply that person's mind - the electrical impulses that would normally be running through their brains - emulated on some other platform. There is no "invented" concept at work here.

Oh really...cause the electrical impulses of a person's brain can run through a cloud now? No really how does this work, explain, rationalize. And while you're at it how about that time on Enterprise where the guy was reduced to energy during a transporter accident and haunted a space station in true, literally ghostly fashion. "Oh but that's a transporter..." yes, and he was self-aware. As energy. Without A BRAIN because a brain is made of MEAT not energy, so where was his brain then? Where was his lungs and heart and liver then? How did he exist as energy and function? And don't write it off cause it's Enterprise.

Sorry, what? Are you referring to Lonely Among Us? Because that involved a transporter and an alien cloud, it wasn't just one person suddenly deciding they'd be happier as a sentient aerosol.

Are you listening to yourself? That's precisely the same thing you just added "alien cloud" and "transporter" and made it sound fancier. And it doesn't change the fact that you're now saying someone can turn into ENERGY and remain self aware, because otherwise it wouldn't work, see.


Also the whole argument is couched purely in incredulity.

"I don't want to write off the series"

"I want to contain the stupid"

"I have to write off B5"

Who gives a fuck what YOU want? How does that affect what happened on the show AT ALL, or even what happens in the real world for that matter. Who gives a damn what rationalization we cook up...look at the fucking show...for Christ's sake look at it. Does it look like it's scientific?

This is a show where a guy's been possessed by a mask, another possessed a cloud, where a big metal ship turned into a squid made of energy, where cracks appear in Event Horizons, people can get innoculated against radiation, people can time travel usinga gravity assist maneuver, and then you always have Threshold--infinite speed, literal overnight evolution, mammals evolvinging into reptiles somehow, people being cured by antimatter, et al. And so you don't want to write this off as "unscientific"? Futurama is more scientific. Trekkies only like to call Star Trek "scientific" because it feels better than admiting that like all sci-fi the writers are just making it up as they go and creating quasi-scientific techno jargon to cover it up. Star Trek is actually significantly LESS scientific than some series out there, and almost infamous for it.

[Bounty]

That doesn't change anything. It doesn't make it any less magical or supernatural it just means someone came up with a hair brained word for it.

It means I would rather entertain the notion that the incidents of people transferring consciousness can be explained within the context of the show than throw up my hands and say "god did it" as you so haplessly advocate. I'm not sure what bug crawled up your ass here, or why this somehow warrants a half-cocked rant on (I think) the un-scientificness of Star Trek. Seems to me like there used to be a very interesting discussion on mind transfer and the existence of phenomena identifiable as "souls" until you and your complete inability to read barged in.

Who gives a fuck what YOU want? How does that affect what happened on the show AT ALL, or even what happens in the real world for that matter. Who gives a damn what rationalization we cook up...look at the fucking show...for Christ's sake look at it. Does it look like it's scientific?

What does this have to do with anything? Star Trek isn't hard sci-fi. Whoop-de-doo, what a revelation, full story at eleven?

[18-Till-I-Die]

The "bug up my ass" is this notion of exchanging one word for the other PURELY because YOU don't want to "entertain the notion".

That's retarded.

You've not shown any reason to do any such thing other than the argument that you don't want to "write the show off" because of some nonsense. You're basically making up terms or using buzzwords that have no scientific meaning and then claiming the one used on the show is somehow less scientific than yours, and even more arrogant you presume that somehow your idea is something more "concrete" than just calling it what it clearly is.

And don't say that's not what you mean because there are like...a billion quotes i could pull out of this thread where you say just that, but with more words and less point. You're just posting some nonsense pseudoscience and calling it "rational" and "scientific" when it is not even remotely close and worse you're doing it purely because YOU feel the need to. It's not even fanon it's just that it bothers you that they have magic in Star Trek, and somehow you need to create a completely hair brained non-term buzzword to explain it away...even though that depends on magic just as much or more to some degree. That's the "bug up my ass"...you're just tap dancing around the in-universe reality and splitting hairs because it bothers you, and it's childish. You're still doing it "I would rather entertain the notion" so what? Entertain the notion, you have no shred of proof to back it up, since the show is literally filled with ghosts, gods, magic, imps, changlings and...fuck even Mages. Traveler? Douwd? What about that guy from the TOS, Trelane?

Or prove me wrong and explain what makes an energy being different than a ghost, other than giving it a quasi-scientific sounding term that has no actual meaning?

[Darth Wong]

The Federation "studies" energy beings in the same sense that the Ghostbusters "study" ghosts. It doesn't make it any less magical. And I notice no one is even trying to address the other examples, like the fucking haunted section of the Enterprise-D where "residual neural energy" or some other bullshit was left over from a murder during the ship's construction.

Face it, there are ghosts in Star Trek.

[Junghalli]

If they had nanotech that sophisticated, they should be able to innoculate against the Borg too.

Maybe the Borg have dramatically superior nanotech, so their nanoprobes simply overwhelm any countermeasures the Federation can throw up against them?

For what it's worth, McCoy being able to cure kidney failure with a pill in a matter of minutes also suggests pretty advanced nanotech. On the other hand, it does seem to reconcile rather poorly with them being unable to regenerate Worf's spine, or having to give Picard an inferior artificial substitute heart.

[Samuel]

If they had nanotech that sophisticated, they should be able to innoculate against the Borg too.

Maybe the Borg have dramatically superior nanotech, so their nanoprobes simply overwhelm any countermeasures the Federation can throw up against them?

For what it's worth, McCoy being able to cure kidney failure with a pill in a matter of minutes also suggests pretty advanced nanotech. On the other hand, it does seem to reconcile rather poorly with them being unable to regenerate Worf's spine, or having to give Picard an inferior artificial substitute heart.

Why? Nanites aren't a magic "I win" button. You need something to actually pump blood, something cell sized robots can't do. I doubt they use generalized nanites because if they did, they would get more situations like where they took over the Enterprise.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Given the state of technology in Star Trek it could be some kind of biotech and not nanotech, though really this is something without a really good answer. I mean they also have machines they can wave over you to heal you, and some kind of jet injector that can heal people too in some cases. Nanotech is probably the most reasonable answer if only because it would cover most, though by no means all, of the plot holes. But no complete answer is really going to fit. One could also posit that nano-pills for radiation and fixing livers is simply 'cheaper' and thus easier to get one's hands on than a cyborg heart or a new spine.

[Junghalli]

Why? Nanites aren't a magic "I win" button. You need something to actually pump blood, something cell sized robots can't do.

You stop the damaged heart, hook the guy up to a machine that takes over its function (I believe they already do this in open heart surgery today), and pump nanotech into him which regenerates the damaged cardiac muscles. Alternately, you scape off some skin cells, turn them into stem cells, grow a new heart out of them, and transplant it. If you can regenerate a failed kidney in minutes with a pill or stop people from getting radiation poisoning you should be able to do stuff like that.

Edit: if they have advanced nanotech they should also have been able to easily solve the "replicative fading" problem with cloning they talked about in Up The Long Ladder, but I believe the colonists were using out of date tech. Though that doesn't answer why the Enterprise didn't simply give them better equipment - their antitranshumanist ideology might have something to do with it.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Well again the cloning problem could be an aspect of the soul delima: i.e., clones are fucked up because they're souls are either not there, or pale copies of a "real" one. And yes this would be just as "realistic" as magical nanotech that heals livers in seconds or an antiradiation pill.

But really it could be two different technologies here. The liver thing may be some kind of biotech like the Plasmids from BioShock, making things grow in or grow back or whatever (yes i know that's BS, but it would explain it) whereas the radiation pill may be a lower level of protective nanotech inferior to Borg nanotech.

As for "anti-transhumanism"...i think it may have to do with most people not WANTING to have "better equipment". Frankly i think that's a flaw in most transhumanist theories, the fact that a number of people, maybe even a majority, may not feel comfotable becoming some kind of Imperial Space Marine. That frankly requires a level of personal vanity i doubt many people have, to even want to end up some kind of quasi-human cyborg...thing. But that's just my two cents about that.

[Junghalli]

Well again the cloning problem could be an aspect of the soul delima: i.e., clones are fucked up because they're souls are either not there, or pale copies of a "real" one.

As I remember it was explicitly explained in the episode as errors creeping into the DNA with each cloning. Of course, it beats me why they didn't just stop the process by keeping a bunch of frozen cells from one generation of clones on ice and creating each subsequent generation out of that, instead creating endless clones of clones of clones adding a new layer of cloning with each generation. Sure, eventually you'd run out, but you could probably store billions of cells, which since their population didn't seem all that huge should last them for millenia.

As for "anti-transhumanism"...i think it may have to do with most people not WANTING to have "better equipment". Frankly i think that's a flaw in most transhumanist theories, the fact that a number of people, maybe even a majority, may not feel comfotable becoming some kind of Imperial Space Marine. That frankly requires a level of personal vanity i doubt many people have, to even want to end up some kind of quasi-human cyborg...thing. But that's just my two cents about that.

I think you misunderstood what I was saying. I meant if the replicative fading was a problem that could easily be solved with TNG-era Treknology Picard could have just given the Mariposans the technology to correct the replicative fading problem and avoided the whole Moral Dillemma Of The Week.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Well you have a point, and i'm stumped frankly. I think i'll fall back on my original theory that...i don't know, sometimes we just have to say "nanotech did it" cause that covers most of the problem. The other issue may be that Picard just didn't care i guess, but that would be extremely out of character. But really we've just hit what Tv Tropes calls a "Wall Banger", so there is no real reasonable answer i think.

[Swindle1984]

Didn't that exotic-technobabble-of-the-week energy alien that had been haunting Dr. Crusher's family for generations tell Beverly that it was a ghost? I'm fairly sure that it said something along those lines and that she basically accepted that explanation after some initial WTF reaction.

I don't even remember the name of the episode, so I can't look it up. I just remember that it creeped me out when I was a kid and I thought Beverly was being a moron to trust that thing, much less get romantically involved with it.

[Junghalli]

From the review on the Agony Booth, it was supposed to be an "anaphasic lifeform". Basically it's the standard we'll insert a blatant fantasy concept and put a fig leaf of nonsensical technobabble over it deal.

[Samuel]

From the review on the Agony Booth, it was supposed to be an "anaphasic lifeform". Basically it's the standard we'll insert a blatant fantasy concept and put a fig leaf of nonsensical technobabble over it deal.

Or maybe they deal with this so often they have a naming scheme in place, with "anaphasic lifefrom" being "ghost that is tied to an object and feeds off sex".

[Darth Hoth]

On the original topic, Wars has demonstrated anti-aging treatments (Han's friend Roa was an example, I think) and Leia expected Han to remain healthy and active well past his one-hundredth birthday in the Swarm War books. In the LotF series, Han is in his mid-eighties and apparently still spry . . .

[NecronLord]

Regrettably I do have to write off the whole B5 franchise as being irretrievably unscientific. But that's ok, it was supposed to be 'high fantasy in space', Trek wasn't.

...

B5 is irretrievably unscientific but Trek isn't? What the hell? In science abuse terms, they're basically identical, 'cept trek has transporters and event horizon cracks.

[montypython]

Regrettably I do have to write off the whole B5 franchise as being irretrievably unscientific. But that's ok, it was supposed to be 'high fantasy in space', Trek wasn't.

...

B5 is irretrievably unscientific but Trek isn't? What the hell? In science abuse terms, they're basically identical, 'cept trek has transporters and event horizon cracks.

Yeah, after reading various B5-ST crossovers it becomes pretty clear cut how much they intersect each other conceptually.

[NecronLord]

Actually, I'd say B5 tries harder to be plausible. But it still has shields and suchlike, they're merely the province of higher technology races (Vorlons had personal shields, and the thirdspace aliens had shields on their ships, for example). Same with energy beings that possess you, it has them, but they're much less everyday. But intent wise, the only thing it really lacks is the most egregiously unscientific things in Star Trek, it's got most of the rest, time travel and all.

[Starglider]

B5 is irretrievably unscientific but Trek isn't? What the hell? In science abuse terms, they're basically identical, 'cept trek has transporters and event horizon cracks.

Trek actually tries to be scientific, in the sense of having the characters apply the scientific method. This frequently fails, often miserably (especially later on as writing standards declined), but at least they try.

B5 makes no effort to be scientific. It is high fantasy in space and the characters are either militarist or political. It makes an effort to get technical details right, which is nice, but science isn't part of the plot.

I give Trek credit for merely trying simply because it's so rare for visual sci-fi to use science as a integral part of the stories rather than just filling the backdrop with futuristic techology. It's a lot more common in written sci-fi.

[Darth Wong]

Trek actually tries to be scientific, in the sense of having the characters apply the scientific method. This frequently fails, often miserably (especially later on as writing standards declined), but at least they try.

No. They don't.

I give Trek credit for merely trying simply because it's so rare for visual sci-fi to use science as a integral part of the stories rather than just filling the backdrop with futuristic techology. It's a lot more common in written sci-fi.

Jargon != science. Star Trek loves to insert jargon into its stories, but not science.

[Darth Hoth]

B5 is irretrievably unscientific but Trek isn't? What the hell? In science abuse terms, they're basically identical, 'cept trek has transporters and event horizon cracks.

Trek actually tries to be scientific, in the sense of having the characters apply the scientific method. This frequently fails, often miserably (especially later on as writing standards declined), but at least they try.

B5 makes no effort to be scientific. It is high fantasy in space and the characters are either militarist or political. It makes an effort to get technical details right, which is nice, but science isn't part of the plot.

I give Trek credit for merely trying simply because it's so rare for visual sci-fi to use science as a integral part of the stories rather than just filling the backdrop with futuristic techology. It's a lot more common in written sci-fi.

How is Trek any different from, say, Stargate in this respect? Both have some episodes where a non-standard problem (no antagonist that can be bashed to make things well) is fronted, which the heroes confront with "science" (translation: Ghostbusters-style jargon and special effects) and defeat by dreaming up a technobabble solution (preferably one that includes a little lightning effects). SG-1 is shock full of this crap, especially the early seasons. In every other respect, it is the same unscientific background, complete with pseudo-New Age "energy being evolution" and omnipotents who pull plot devices out of their backsides.