Brain and dualism in Star Trek

Abstract

IN THE PHILOSOPHIES that deal with the mind, dualism is the precept that mental phenomena are, to some degree, non-physical and not completely dependent on the physical body, which includes the organic brain. René Descartes (1596-1650) popularised this concept, maintaining that the mind is an immaterial and nonphysical essence that gives rise to self-awareness and consciousness. Dualism can be extended to include the notion that more broadly asserts that the universe contains two types of substances, on the one hand, the impalpable mind and consciousness and, on the other hand, common matter. This is in contrast with other world-views, such as monism, which asserts that all objects contained in the universe are reducible to one reality, and pluralism which asserts that the number of truly fundamental realities exceed two. Star Trek (ST) is a fictional possible future history of how humanity might advance and develop up to the 24th century. The series and movies comprise a metanarrative that encompasses 735 hours of viewing time, and thereby provides a fertile ground for the analysis of various areas of critical study. This paper will review the philosophy of the mind as depicted in ST, and will show that ST accedes to mind-body dualism, with a cognitive proviso that in turn complies with the tropes and conventions that are recognised not only by ST, but also within the broader scope of the SF genre itself. An inevitable tension will be shown to have arisen between the notion of what is, to all intents and purposes, a soul, with the spiritual and possibly even deist accoutrements that this brings along, versus science, which, even within SF, acknowledges exclusively rational tropes and explanations, an acknowledgment which would automatically exclude these motifs. This paper will also demonstrate the interesting permutations and combinations of mind-body and mind-mind interaction that is only possible within this genre, with narratives that include the crossing of consciousness not only across organic bodily boundaries, but also across and between machine consciousnesses. It is crucial to note that these narratives ignore the warnings of posthumanist researchers who believe “that the mind-body duality is a social construction that obscures the holistic nature of human experience” (Hayles 245) and ignores “the importance of embodiment” (20). Moreover, this essay will show that in the vast majority of cases, these interactions constitute one of two events: a dybbuk, which, in Jewish mythology, is defined as the possession of the body by a malevolent spirit, usually that of a dead person, or outright possession by beings with superhuman powers. The narratives then focus on countermeasures that need to be undertaken in order to restore the original personality into its former body, thereby emulating a morality play, with good mastering evil