The Deep Flaw in Star Trek

[EdGoble]

This isn't so much related to Mormonism as it is a general sort of transhumanist/philosophical argument.

I just realized the major flaw in Star Trek, and for this flaw in the Star Trek universe, I think that the writers ought to be fired. That when people beam/transport themselves somewhere, that a computer system does not maintain their last pattern, and if they later die, reconstruct them from the last point they were when they were transported somewhere. If they have technology like this, then they have the obligation to bring the dead back to life.

Furthermore, another major flaw is that the transporter does not reconstruct people who are old to their prime, but that it reconstructs them as old people.

So, to me, Star Trek has fundamental flaws in the storyline. Because if we truly had the technology in the future to tear someone apart and reconstruct them somewhere else, you would think that we would have the moral obligation to not only bring the dead back to life, but to restore everyone to their prime like a fountain of youth.

I'm grateful for the Atonement and the Resurrection which will do both of these things in real life.

[Robin Hood]

This isn't so much related to Mormonism as it is a general sort of transhumanist/philosophical argument.

I just realized the major flaw in Star Trek, and for this flaw in the Star Trek universe, I think that the writers ought to be fired. That when people beam/transport themselves somewhere, that a computer system does not maintain their last pattern, and if they later die, reconstruct them from the last point they were when they were transported somewhere. If they have technology like this, then they have the obligation to bring the dead back to life.

Furthermore, another major flaw is that the transporter does not reconstruct people who are old to their prime, but that it reconstructs them as old people.

So, to me, Star Trek has fundamental flaws in the storyline. Because if we truly had the technology in the future to tear someone apart and reconstruct them somewhere else, you would think that we would have the moral obligation to not only bring the dead back to life, but to restore everyone to their prime like a fountain of youth.

I'm grateful for the Atonement and the Resurrection which will do both of these things in real life.

Ed, newsflash!
Star Trek is not real and therefore the writers can do whatever they like.

[Todd]

This isn't so much related to Mormonism as it is a general sort of transhumanist/philosophical argument.

I just realized the major flaw in Star Trek, and for this flaw in the Star Trek universe, I think that the writers ought to be fired. That when people beam/transport themselves somewhere, that a computer system does not maintain their last pattern, and if they later die, reconstruct them from the last point they were when they were transported somewhere. If they have technology like this, then they have the obligation to bring the dead back to life.

Furthermore, another major flaw is that the transporter does not reconstruct people who are old to their prime, but that it reconstructs them as old people.

So, to me, Star Trek has fundamental flaws in the storyline. Because if we truly had the technology in the future to tear someone apart and reconstruct them somewhere else, you would think that we would have the moral obligation to not only bring the dead back to life, but to restore everyone to their prime like a fountain of youth.

I'm grateful for the Atonement and the Resurrection which will do both of these things in real life.

Ed, newsflash!
Star Trek is not real...

What?! Someone better tell Hector then.

[Sirocco]

I think the bigger flaw is who does the menial jobs when you can go into space and have food replicators.
In First Contact they said they didn't really have money in the future.
If I wasn't getting paid I wouldn't go near my job. :))

[Ezra]

This isn't so much related to Mormonism as it is a general sort of transhumanist/philosophical argument.

I just realized the major flaw in Star Trek, and for this flaw in the Star Trek universe, I think that the writers ought to be fired. That when people beam/transport themselves somewhere, that a computer system does not maintain their last pattern, and if they later die, reconstruct them from the last point they were when they were transported somewhere. If they have technology like this, then they have the obligation to bring the dead back to life.

Furthermore, another major flaw is that the transporter does not reconstruct people who are old to their prime, but that it reconstructs them as old people.

So, to me, Star Trek has fundamental flaws in the storyline. Because if we truly had the technology in the future to tear someone apart and reconstruct them somewhere else, you would think that we would have the moral obligation to not only bring the dead back to life, but to restore everyone to their prime like a fountain of youth.

I'm grateful for the Atonement and the Resurrection which will do both of these things in real life.

Ed, newsflash!
Star Trek is not real and therefore the writers can do whatever they like.

I'm actually not surprised by ed comment. If something doesn't fit inside his way of thinking it should be destroyed.

It's his social justice to protect the world from everything that doesn't fit in his worlds view.

[Benjamin_LK]

This isn't so much related to Mormonism as it is a general sort of transhumanist/philosophical argument.

I just realized the major flaw in Star Trek, and for this flaw in the Star Trek universe, I think that the writers ought to be fired. That when people beam/transport themselves somewhere, that a computer system does not maintain their last pattern, and if they later die, reconstruct them from the last point they were when they were transported somewhere. If they have technology like this, then they have the obligation to bring the dead back to life.

Furthermore, another major flaw is that the transporter does not reconstruct people who are old to their prime, but that it reconstructs them as old people.

So, to me, Star Trek has fundamental flaws in the storyline. Because if we truly had the technology in the future to tear someone apart and reconstruct them somewhere else, you would think that we would have the moral obligation to not only bring the dead back to life, but to restore everyone to their prime like a fountain of youth.

I'm grateful for the Atonement and the Resurrection which will do both of these things in real life.

The whole "Federation uses no money" deal pretty much seals it that it is a communist setup. Sorry, but there's some sort of medium of value involved in motivating people to do work.

[Ezra]

If food and water was no issue. And instant entertainment limited. Boredom would motivate people to invent some really cool things

[brianj]

I think the bigger flaw is who does the menial jobs when you can go into space and have food replicators.
In First Contact they said they didn't really have money in the future.
If I wasn't getting paid I wouldn't go near my job. :))

Star Trek was Roddenberry's communist fantasy. Talk to liberals who think everybody should have the same income no matter what they do or don't do and nobody will just sit around living off the dole. Everybody will strive to be the best they can be and accomplish as much as they can because humans are all such good and moral people. The fact that this has never worked in recorded history doesn't dissuade them from that belief.


Regarding the original question about using transporters to heal people or make them young again, it's time for me to lay my geek credentials on the table.
Human transporter patterns are an incredibly large amount of data, too large for long-term storage. In Our Man Bashir (DS9 S4E10), it took all the computing power of Deep Space 9 to maintain only five patterns. And those patterns degrade over time. In Counterpoint (Voyager S5E10) the crew uses transporter buffers to store patterns of Vulcans and telepaths when being inspected by a regional government that has outlawed telepathy, but pattern degradation cumulatively damages the people when they are remateriaized. And in Relics (TNG S6E4) when Montgomery Scott is rematerialized after years in the transporter buffer of the Jenolan we learn that Ens. Franklin was also beamed into the buffer, but his pattern degraded too much to rematerialize. And in that episode LaForge was extremely impressed with Scott's ingenuity in configuring the transporter to try storing patterns indefinitely. Even in the 24th century the technology for long-term pattern storage just wasn't there.

Regarding healing somebody from a transporter pattern, they go into how difficult that is and how unlikely success is when in Unnatural Selection (TNG S2E7). Chief O'Brien warns that if the attempted use of the transporter to heal Doctor Pulaski fails, her pattern will be lost forever. In The Lorelai Signal (Animated Series S1E4) they attempted to heal somebody using a transporter and Spock observed the odds of success were 99.7 to one against.

One thing I appreciate about Star Trek is that the writers went to great pains to avoid contradictions. When they came across an unavoidable contradiction they would explain why it wasn't a contradiction. In TOS S3E17, That Which Survives, the Enterprise hits warp 14.1 due to a sabotaged warp drive and nearly breaks apart because of the stresses. But in TNG they said warp 10 was a theoretical maximum speed, equivalent to reaching the speed of light in special relativity. They explained that the warp scale had been rewritten to put that maximum limit at warp 10.

[Sirocco]

Humans are inherently lazy, millennials being exceptionally so.
I said to a friend, and he agreed, that one is liberal when one doesn't work.
Certainly the case for me, as much I complain about my job it pays my bills, doesn't intrude in my life and causes me no pain.
I consider it a success, despite it not being glamorous enough to attract a millennial woman (until they get in their 30s which... well, where women it seemed in previous generations weren't crazy).
It serves its purpose, I do the job to live and I have enough to buy pointless junk, it's a win win.
If there was no money I wouldn't do it.
Society or not, I would have to get something to do that job, most work isn't fun in the slightest, in older societies we still got things for working, or simply worked for our own benefit and cut out the middleman (eg farming).

[EdGoble]

Ed, newsflash!
Star Trek is not real and therefore the writers can do whatever they like.

LOL. As an armchair movie/TV critic, I demand more from my scifi.

[passionflower]

Ed, newsflash!
Star Trek is not real and therefore the writers can do whatever they like.

LOL. As an armchair movie/TV critic, I demand more from my scifi.

Try this author : Diann Thornley Read
She has published a series through Tor already, but has just come out with a new 7-book Shaman based series that is destined to out do "Hunger Games" ( not that I liked Hunger Games or anything). She has gotten seriously good reviews and very important people in publishing and film are backing her right now. I read the first book called "Running from the Gods" and I honestly could hardly believe how well written it was from start to finish, and I could see why it was touted as very exceptional. I am lucky to have a hard copy that she has personally autographed. I am a writer, too, and hope to give her glowing reviews soon myself.

This series is directed to teenaged boys ( but then so is all sci fi. Star Trek's biggest fan base consisted of 12 year old boys up to college age ) but my husband, who is a grandfather and has a couple of college degrees, couldn't put it down "Running with the Gods".

So I know I am shamelessly plugging Diann, who happens to be my friend, but chances are you might really like her work.

[FTC]

Communist conspiracy?? Please. Occam's razor, people! The replicators. Which can turn atomic particles into anything. Say, ohhhhhh, I don't know..... turn particles into money? Any amount of money. As much money (gold, silver, platinum, fiat, Vibranium, etc.) as the replicator can replicate. In other words, once there are replicators, everyone has all the money all the time. Thus, making money worthless. In fact, the replicator can turn every other civilizations' money worthless universe wide. Effectively, it makes the value of everything completely down to 0. A replicator can even replicate more replicators! Once every possible phyiscal possessin is the same value of 0, and one no longer has the need to accumulate them, because everyone has all of them, the only thing left to do is Boldly go where no man has gone before...... queue sweet 70's openning theme!

[EmmaLee]

Red shirts = communists (just look at the communist flag - RED; Red Square - RED buildings everywhere, etc.) - so why, if Gene was a commie, would he kill off all his red-shirted buddies?

1dead.jpg (31.52 KiB) Viewed 1488 times

[EdGoble]

I'm actually not surprised by ed comment. If something doesn't fit inside his way of thinking it should be destroyed.

It's his social justice to protect the world from everything that doesn't fit in his worlds view.

Leave it to Ezra to manufacture a personal attack out of it, no matter what stupid topic it happens to be.

[Sunain]

This isn't so much related to Mormonism as it is a general sort of transhumanist/philosophical argument.

I just realized the major flaw in Star Trek, and for this flaw in the Star Trek universe, I think that the writers ought to be fired. That when people beam/transport themselves somewhere, that a computer system does not maintain their last pattern, and if they later die, reconstruct them from the last point they were when they were transported somewhere. If they have technology like this, then they have the obligation to bring the dead back to life.

Furthermore, another major flaw is that the transporter does not reconstruct people who are old to their prime, but that it reconstructs them as old people.

So, to me, Star Trek has fundamental flaws in the storyline. Because if we truly had the technology in the future to tear someone apart and reconstruct them somewhere else, you would think that we would have the moral obligation to not only bring the dead back to life, but to restore everyone to their prime like a fountain of youth.

I'm grateful for the Atonement and the Resurrection which will do both of these things in real life.

The Next Generation episode Rascals from the 6th season actually covers this issue, kind of. Picard and crew get transformed back into their younger selves. They use the transporter pattern from the last time they used it to help bring them back to their current age. Good episode.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Rascals_(episode" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)

A couple of Second Season episodes of TNG also cover the issue.

The Schizoid Man: Has a dying man attempts to cheat death by transferring his memories and personality into Data, an android.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Schiz ... Generation" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)

Dr. Pulaski contracts aging virus and rapidly gets old. The crew of the Enterprise determine that the transporters can remove the antibodies and re-code an infected individual's DNA to normal, but only with a previous bio-pattern of that individual, and they do not have one for Dr. Pulaski due to her avoidance of transporter technology. The crew finds samples of Pulaski's hair in her quarters and using it as a template is able to restore her to full health.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unnatural ... Generation" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)

[EdGoble]

Try this author : Diann Thornley Read
She has published a series through Tor already, but has just come out with a new 7-book Shaman based series that is destined to out do "Hunger Games" ( not that I liked Hunger Games or anything). She has gotten seriously good reviews and very important people in publishing and film are backing her right now. I read the first book called "Running from the Gods" and I honestly could hardly believe how well written it was from start to finish, and I could see why it was touted as very exceptional. I am lucky to have a hard copy that she has personally autographed. I am a writer, too, and hope to give her glowing reviews soon myself.

This series is directed to teenaged boys ( but then so is all sci fi. Star Trek's biggest fan base consisted of 12 year old boys up to college age ) but my husband, who is a grandfather and has a couple of college degrees, couldn't put it down "Running with the Gods".

So I know I am shamelessly plugging Diann, who happens to be my friend, but chances are you might really like her work.

I'll keep that in mind for sure.

While my books are not fiction, I'm not the only author in my family. My brother's books are fiction.
I'll also give my brother's books some shameless plugs here while I'm at it. My brother Robert Goble won the 2010 Marylyn Brown award for his book "Across A Harvested Field." http://parablespub.com/acrossaharvestedfield.html

The older edition of it is still on Amazon that has a different cover: https://www.amazon.com/Across-Harvested ... 1427646856

His current scifi series is "In Older Worlds", a series of installments:

https://www.amazon.com/Older-Worlds-Nan ... 009PUG3GQ/

[EdGoble]

The Next Generation episode Rascals from the 6th season actually covers this issue, kind of. Picard and crew get transformed back into their younger selves. They use the transporter pattern from the last time they used it to help bring them back to their current age. Good episode.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Rascals_(episode" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)

A couple of Second Season episodes of TNG also cover the issue.

The Schizoid Man: Has a dying man attempts to cheat death by transferring his memories and personality into Data, an android.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Schiz ... Generation" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)

Dr. Pulaski contracts aging virus and rapidly gets old. The crew of the Enterprise determine that the transporters can remove the antibodies and re-code an infected individual's DNA to normal, but only with a previous bio-pattern of that individual, and they do not have one for Dr. Pulaski due to her avoidance of transporter technology. The crew finds samples of Pulaski's hair in her quarters and using it as a template is able to restore her to full health.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unnatural ... Generation" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)

Ah, so the writers ARE aware of the issue, but choose not to resurrect or heal people on a more consistent basis!

[Sunain]

Ah, so the writers ARE aware of the issue, but choose not to resurrect or heal people on a more consistent basis!

Yeah, there is also the episode Tapestry where Picard dies and he goes to the 'afterlife' to find out that Q is God. :)) Gotta love John de Lancie!

[EdGoble]

I think the bigger flaw is who does the menial jobs when you can go into space and have food replicators.
In First Contact they said they didn't really have money in the future.
If I wasn't getting paid I wouldn't go near my job. :))

Star Trek was Roddenberry's communist fantasy. Talk to liberals who think everybody should have the same income no matter what they do or don't do and nobody will just sit around living off the dole. Everybody will strive to be the best they can be and accomplish as much as they can because humans are all such good and moral people. The fact that this has never worked in recorded history doesn't dissuade them from that belief.


Regarding the original question about using transporters to heal people or make them young again, it's time for me to lay my geek credentials on the table.
Human transporter patterns are an incredibly large amount of data, too large for long-term storage. In Our Man Bashir (DS9 S4E10), it took all the computing power of Deep Space 9 to maintain only five patterns. And those patterns degrade over time. In Counterpoint (Voyager S5E10) the crew uses transporter buffers to store patterns of Vulcans and telepaths when being inspected by a regional government that has outlawed telepathy, but pattern degradation cumulatively damages the people when they are remateriaized. And in Relics (TNG S6E4) when Montgomery Scott is rematerialized after years in the transporter buffer of the Jenolan we learn that Ens. Franklin was also beamed into the buffer, but his pattern degraded too much to rematerialize. And in that episode LaForge was extremely impressed with Scott's ingenuity in configuring the transporter to try storing patterns indefinitely. Even in the 24th century the technology for long-term pattern storage just wasn't there.

Regarding healing somebody from a transporter pattern, they go into how difficult that is and how unlikely success is when in Unnatural Selection (TNG S2E7). Chief O'Brien warns that if the attempted use of the transporter to heal Doctor Pulaski fails, her pattern will be lost forever. In The Lorelai Signal (Animated Series S1E4) they attempted to heal somebody using a transporter and Spock observed the odds of success were 99.7 to one against.

One thing I appreciate about Star Trek is that the writers went to great pains to avoid contradictions. When they came across an unavoidable contradiction they would explain why it wasn't a contradiction. In TOS S3E17, That Which Survives, the Enterprise hits warp 14.1 due to a sabotaged warp drive and nearly breaks apart because of the stresses. But in TNG they said warp 10 was a theoretical maximum speed, equivalent to reaching the speed of light in special relativity. They explained that the warp scale had been rewritten to put that maximum limit at warp 10.

Wow thanks for that. Yes, you all have certainly put your Geekness on display. There is no way I would remember details from the Next Generation from so long ago. I still think that by the 23rd century we will have limitless memory capacity, and so, I think that the concept that they wouldn't have that kind of capacity is flawed.

[Lexew1899]

[brianj]

Wow thanks for that. Yes, you all have certainly put your Geekness on display. There is no way I would remember details from the Next Generation from so long ago. I still think that by the 23rd century we will have limitless memory capacity, and so, I think that the concept that they wouldn't have that kind of capacity is flawed.

If I recall correctly, in a single human DNA strand there are about 440 million nitrogenous bases. Adenine, thymine, guanine, cytosine each have different numbers of atoms but all combined a pair of strands making up the chromosome contain about 1.5 GB of data. With 23 chromosome pairs, 46 chromosomes, there is around 69 GB of data. But those strands also contain over 200 billion atoms. Just using one adenine base for example you would have five hydrogen, five carbon, and five nitrogen atoms. That's 14 protons, 14 neutrons, and 14 electrons plus other subatomic particles to account for. And each proton and neutron is made up of five quarks. For each one of those particles you would need to store its state, location, energy, and motion. The amount of data required just to account for the chromosomes in one cell is mind numbing. With estimates of 100 trillion cells in the human body, and an estimated 100 trillion atoms per cell, I wouldn't want to try to estimate the amount of information required to make a computer model of a human body.

[Ezra]

I'm actually not surprised by ed comment. If something doesn't fit inside his way of thinking it should be destroyed.

It's his social justice to protect the world from everything that doesn't fit in his worlds view.

Leave it to Ezra to manufacture a personal attack out of it, no matter what stupid topic it happens to be.

Truth hurts doesn't it.

[skmo]

Speaking of Star Trek, they do get creative at times. Here's a great Audi commercial, in case you haven't seen it.

[ripliancum]

That was a pointless post :-B

[EdGoble]

I'm actually not surprised by ed comment. If something doesn't fit inside his way of thinking it should be destroyed.

It's his social justice to protect the world from everything that doesn't fit in his worlds view.

Leave it to Ezra to manufacture a personal attack out of it, no matter what stupid topic it happens to be.

Truth hurts doesn't it.

No, actually it just manifests how you have nothing better to do than be adversarial when there was no call for it.