Sometimes memories light the corners of the mind. Other times lights steal memories. This Mission Log finds the Enterprise running into another mad scientist wielding a “Dagger of the Mind.”
Mission Log #10: Episode 010- Dagger of the Mind
Sometimes memories light the corners of the mind. Other times lights steal memories. This Mission Log finds the Enterprise running into another mad scientist wielding a “Dagger of the Mind.”
Although I am not ruling out the gradual merging of man and machine as part of a natural organic process. Humans are the most prolific tool makers and users that we know and we will probably continue to merge with our tools. I see no harm in an artificial heart here or a brain coprocessor there or even “total body prosthesis” as long as they are not imposed by another’s will…especially OCP.
After listening to the commentary for this episode and also for What are Little Girl’s Made of? It strikes me that the message might be that the methods necessary to create a better humanity might just destroy what makes us human.
At the beginning of the 20th century many Americans believed in using eugenics, an idea as old as Greece, and forced sterilizations to breed a better human the same way humans bred dogs from wolves. The Nazis took this to it’s logical conclusion in their pursuit of the ubermensch by adding genocide. The communists believed they could create a better human, the new communist man, through class struggle, socialization, the gulag and mass murder based not on race but on class.
If humanity is to evolve, people should not be forced to conform to someone else’s idea of perfection but improve themselves as part of a natural organic process.
This episode reminds me a lot of Michel Foucoult’s criticisms of prisons as “rehabilitation,” as it is actually more dehumanizing than simply calling it punishment for punishment’s sake.