To me it seems like people who have made major commitments to faith in their lives don’t have much of an appetite for science fiction, and vice versa. Why? Is it that science fiction and religious faith are in competition? If the soul is indestructible that would seem to provide a great arena for science fiction. I’ve always wanted to understand how things work, to feel connected to cosmic issues, to experience mind-blowing awe at the scope of our world, to explore the boundaries of the known and the unknown or perhaps even the unknowable. I even try to come to grips with the strong fears and drives that I have, such as my preference not to die, or get old, or sick, or hurt.
If you are sufficiently unreflective about the mind-body problem, then you won’t care about what is written here concerning the Star Trek transporters and its ability to move living bodies through space. But if you still like Star Trek, then you are likely one to accept the transporter in unquestioning childish faith, as a piece of magic requiring no further analysis—much like the dark hole cartoon characters fall through when it’s drawn on the floor. Physics and metaphysic be damned.
You step on a circular plate on the starship, they punch in the coordinates, and you hear, “Beam me up, Scotty!” Is it actually possible to dematerialize a person with a special transportation beam and move them through space like they do in Star Trek? No. You are, in essence, sending digitalized data. That means that you die and would need new material on the other end to reconstruct you from scratch.
Maybe this would be a good time to think about your soul? It seem pretty obvious to me that you have one. In the science-fiction I write, you have one. It can't be uploaded because it is what drives the car so to speak. But it can be harnessed...in my fiction. The science fiction I write corresponds to the dualist view. In his book The Soul, J.P. Moreland lays out at least five mental properties not owned by physical properties and that your soul is what possesses your conscience and animates your body. That’s a simple explanation, but there are flavors.
Sci-fi is better when it’s not plainly goofy but corresponds to reality. to possible science. Metaphysical ideas about religion are sometimes goofy too, but it matters, right? In truth sci-fi is participating in a philosophical mind-body debate that been going on for a few millennia. However, it's the writers worldview on Star Trek.
If you are a body and a soul, then your independent central essence is immaterial. The transporter on Star Trek merely tears your body apart and supposedly digitizes it before it’s radiated across space. You're dead, so what kind of trauma has been done? You’ve basically been hacked into pieces by a digital buzz saw, so you couldn’t be living, could you?
I love watching Star Trek, but don’t believe for a second that dematerializing someone and sending them through the air and rematerializing them will ever be possible. Although, it’s wonderful fantasy.
My science fiction provides a realistic arena for thinking about the issue of mortality. Secretly, Star Trek fans do too, even though they make vague references and won’t name it.
Their secretly held view of dualism isn’t limited only to fictional situations. There are some futurists who are attempting to develop AI with the goal of escaping biological aging, accident, and death by digitally “uploading” consciousness into supercomputers. That’s a pretty cool idea, in a lot of movies, but clearly not possible within the traditional idea of an immortal soul. A materialist believes that all that is required for the maintenance of a consciousness is a pattern of the right sort and complexity on a platform: brain tissue, computer, and if they are arranged into the pattern of me, then they will be me. But how could it be you?
Think about this, what if an AI scanned and captured your personality in a computer program. You would like to escape death by programming it and running it prior to death.
But what if you ran it before you were dead? Would you have two sets of simultaneous experience? No. They would two personalities, but you would only be one of them. The program could be copied and played but would never be you—unless your soul could hop into the computer. That's an idea in an upcoming sequel novel I'm writing now.
All I ask from science-fiction fans is a decent respect for the soul, the seat of our health and spiritual wellbeing, the sine qua non of our consciousness.
If you want a real treat, then read my novel "PSYCHONIX: Mind Over Matter" found at https://www.amazon.com/PSYCHONIX-Mind-Matter-Mike-Burnette/dp/B086Y4S4VH/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1684782936&sr=8-1
