Star Trek Philosophy: "Ship in a Bottle"

I'll be using a Star Trek: TNG episode to illustrate my philosophical position. 'Ship in a Bottle' is season 6 episode 12. I'm sure many of you have seen it. It's one of the better episodes from season 6, imho. And I'm sure many of you have noticed that 'simulation theory' is gaining momentum. So I'll get right to it.

For the purposes of illustrating my philosophical position, the 9 main crewmembers of the Enterprise will serve as metaphors for a pantheon of gods and goddesses. Or angels. Or aliens. Or the 'higher self'. Or tulpas. Or archetypes of the collective unconscious in symbolic form. Or any number of roughly equivalent terms. Mileage may vary.

Professor Moriarty represents 'the enlightened man' of our world. Our waking world is symbolized by the Holodeck on the Enterprise. His consciousness has been altered by a computer anomaly. He has seen beyond the Holodeck 'veil' to the ontologically 'real world,' which the Enterprise crew inhabit. He has been 'shamanized'.



He is now a shaman, that is to say a bridge between the two worlds - ours and 'the other world', whatever that is. Two worlds that collide in this episode. Two colliding worlds - a metaphorical image that ties the main plot of the episode and the sub-plot of the episode together.




As a shaman, Professor Moriarty embodies the trickster archetype. He tricks the Enterprise crew, and is in turn tricked. He crosses a boundary that other Holodeck characters can not cross and serves as psychopomp.

The main plot concludes with a new heaven "in a bottle"...



And the sub-plot concludes with a new star in the heavens.



Any questions or comments so far?

Maybe you should flesh it out a little more. I don't think I've seen this episode.

I saw this last week again. Interesting take on this. One question though. If the crew represent a higher power:

As a shaman, Professor Moriarty embodies the trickster archetype. He tricks the Enterprise crew, and is in turn tricked.

How does the mortal person trick them?

reply to post by Restricted


Here is the trailer and a brief review, hope it helps.

BlueMule

Any questions or comments so far?

edit on 15-12-2013 by BlueMule because: (no reason given)

The philosophy behind the 'simulation theory' predates the computer itself by over 2,000 years. Plato described the universe as a computer back in the days of ancient Greece. God's language is binary, your computer imitates god, not the other way around.

If that sounded condescending in any way, I apologize. It's just a pet-peeve of mine. Plato was one of the most brilliant men to ever live on this planet and it bothers me to see his philosophies regurgitated by people who don't understand them. That's not you.

If you'd like to study this line of thought in more depth, from the source, you may want to start with these:

Metaphor of the Sun

Analogy of the Divided Line

Allegory of the Cave

Form of the Good

I've been working on an extension of these philosophies, myself. If and when I finish that paper, it'll probably end up on this board.

intrepid
I saw this last week again. Interesting take on this. One question though. If the crew represent a higher power:

As a shaman, Professor Moriarty embodies the trickster archetype. He tricks the Enterprise crew, and is in turn tricked.

How does the mortal person trick them?

Great question. Presumably, the same way that Prometheus steals from them and Jacob wrestles with God.

A shaman or 'enlightened man' is not entirely mortal, for the purposes of this metaphor. He is between the mortal and immortal states, as a bridge between them and their 'worlds'. Kind of a demi-god.

CretumOrbis

If that sounded condescending in any way, I apologize. It's just a pet-peeve of mine.

Whoa slow down there partner. I'm using the entire episode, computer and all, as a metaphor. It's Moriarty's altered consciousness that bridges the gap not a computer subroutine. The Holodeck is a symbol.

reply to post by BlueMule


Great episode and analogy.

The one thing I noticed is that in the end, whether enlightened or not Moriarty is still tricked by the "gods" and ends up no better off than he started. Except maybe that he thought he was better of. Maybe some symbolism in that too.

reply to post by Bassago


Thanks.

I would have to say he is much better off, compared to the average Holodeck character. He is co-author of his own self-sustaining microcosmic heaven.

Excellent thread. Thanks for sharing.

I'd recommend the pilot episode of TOS.

reply to post by usernamehere


Glad you liked it.

"The Cage" will be a challenge. Coming right up.

Interesting read.

However I dislike the simulation theory from the point that it relies solely on our current technological ability. A thousand years ago there was no such concept of a computer.

Only now and so why not then? And what of 10,000 years from now when we've moved on from this technology. Do we simply move the goal posts? Bring the theory along with us, never testing it nor altering it, but just changing the rules to allow it?

If we had never developed computers we'd still wonder what it is all about, but it would not be then rendered down to our technological level and assumed a worthy idea.

"I say Barnaby, what if the entire universe was contained within a gourd?!"

hmmm.. no, when we move on from memory chips and data banks and processors, the idea will simply move with it. Unless god still runs a pentium 4.

winofiend
Interesting read.

However I dislike the simulation theory from the point that it relies solely on our current technological ability. A thousand years ago there was no such concept of a computer.

That's what makes the simulation theory a metaphor that people are taking too literally. The computer is a metaphor. Kind of like God. The dominant mythology of a culture always relies on current technological abilities and concepts. Our science-based culture is no exception.

Well, I tell ya, I love it when there's a case of Art Imitation if ever I saw one. Then again, is it the mind to interpret such a thing? I mean should so why should we believe that we're only capable of ONE set of Philosophies? Is there another "thing" out there that might combat our current belief system?

Of course, it's all rhetoric. Even the sum of every thought, what is the new golden, blue number?

Is there an end to our vision? Is it worth considering? To each question I have a resounding no. Then again, maybe I have no clue.

Wait, what was the question?

reply to post by BlueMule


Oh I got that, I had been waiting for someone to post about the simulated universe theory at some point, but you didn't quite do that and I got what you were doing, which I did find interesting!

I loved the episodes involving Moriarty and his 'enlightenment'. I'd never considered it as you put it.

winofiend
reply to post by BlueMule

 

Oh I got that, I had been waiting for someone to post about the simulated universe theory at some point, but you didn't quite do that and I got what you were doing, which I did find interesting!

I loved the episodes involving Moriarty and his 'enlightenment'. I'd never considered it as you put it.

Yeah I hadn't quite taken it that far but when the conclusions of the main plot and the sub plot are tied together they point to an Earth-bound shaman making an afterlife in the stars or heavens. The birth of the micro-heaven corresponded to the birth of a star.

For ages we have stretched out to the unknown and created heavens. As culture advances the unknown is pushed back, and new shamans stretch forth with altered consciousness into a new frontier with new symbolic imagery and a new narrative. In our case, the computer is the symbolic imagery of the Information Age.

The non-shamanic people of the Information Age are no more adept at reading myth than the people of any other age, and so we are taking our modern mythological metaphors too literally. Surprise, surprise.

I actually have given this a LOT of thought. Since that very episode and since things like The Matrix


If we are in a simulation and we wished our "Creator" to know we were here, and very aware, what things could we do to get their attention?

Wipe out all their creations?
Start a Global Thermal Nuclear war?
Deplete all resource?

Those undoubtably might, but would also kill most of us at the same time...


SO

How could we bump the walls of the real reality so to speak? Must we make enough noise to let the outside of our universe see us? How do we let Horton know WE ARE HERE?

reply to post by BlueMule


If we are in a simulation. evolution did not happen. You cannot believe both. Therefore if evolution did not happen, then some sort of creation happened. And once you get past the ridiculous notion of a simulation the answer is already there.

MadMax9
reply to post by BlueMule

 

If we are in a simulation. evolution did not happen. You cannot believe both. Therefore if evolution did not happen, then some sort of creation happened. And once you get past the ridiculous notion of a simulation the answer is already there.

Evolution could not be programed into the simulation? Why? If you ask me that makes both more plausible sort of like Simcity (The city changes and evolves within the confines of the programming)

abeverage

How could we bump the walls of the real reality so to speak? Must we make enough noise to let the outside of our universe see us? How do we let Horton know WE ARE HERE?

Since the Holodeck is a symbol of our waking state of awareness (not of a computer simulation), we must alter our consciousness in order to bump the walls.

It all boils down to consciousness not technology.

"Like the appearance of silver in mother of pearl, the world seems real until the Self, the underlying reality, is realized." -Shankara