Thanks for the thread revival. Sorry, I completely overlooked this the last time around:
A blunt core dump would not call for the finesse of an information search, I guess...
Yup, this certainly assumes the katra is a set of neural connections. Yet since it can exist in a stone jar, I rather doubt it is.
However, that concept only emerged after the writing of ST3, so in theory those writers might have been thinking of shedding the mind vs. body duality idea and going with duplication of neural connections or whatnot. I just doubt they would actually have.
Indeed, conceptually, this should be no different from radio: how can that work at all, weak sound signals being picked up across hundreds of miles, faster than the speed of sound?
At some point of the process, mind/thought/katra ceases to be electric impulses across synaptic gaps, is all. Doesn't necessarily mean it would always be an aphysical entity loosely associated with us; might be there's a conversion process involved, helping the perfectly physical neural impulses squirt out as a "neurogenic field" or whatever, while not messing up the original impulses much.
FWIW, a separate telepathic organ is occasionally quoted for this role. But telepathic abilities can also be imposed on an individual, with alien machinery or weird spatiotemporal anomalies or godlike powers (which may be saying the same thing thrice). Does this involve imposing a telepathic organ on the individual, like a Borg nanotransceiver but with a bit more finesse? A pseudo-physical root nature for the phenomenon might still well be considered in Trek.
Timo Saloniemi
A blunt core dump would not call for the finesse of an information search, I guess...
Yup, this certainly assumes the katra is a set of neural connections. Yet since it can exist in a stone jar, I rather doubt it is.
However, that concept only emerged after the writing of ST3, so in theory those writers might have been thinking of shedding the mind vs. body duality idea and going with duplication of neural connections or whatnot. I just doubt they would actually have.
Indeed, conceptually, this should be no different from radio: how can that work at all, weak sound signals being picked up across hundreds of miles, faster than the speed of sound?
At some point of the process, mind/thought/katra ceases to be electric impulses across synaptic gaps, is all. Doesn't necessarily mean it would always be an aphysical entity loosely associated with us; might be there's a conversion process involved, helping the perfectly physical neural impulses squirt out as a "neurogenic field" or whatever, while not messing up the original impulses much.
FWIW, a separate telepathic organ is occasionally quoted for this role. But telepathic abilities can also be imposed on an individual, with alien machinery or weird spatiotemporal anomalies or godlike powers (which may be saying the same thing thrice). Does this involve imposing a telepathic organ on the individual, like a Borg nanotransceiver but with a bit more finesse? A pseudo-physical root nature for the phenomenon might still well be considered in Trek.
Timo Saloniemi
