The Q Who and Emergence episodes from Star Trek: Next Generation explore the value of a sentient life. In Emergence, the Enterprise begins to form a “self-determining intelligence”. At first the Enterprise officers attempt to get rid of this intelligence, whose creation is threatening the crew mates. After this approach doesn’t work, they try to understanding it. The officers realize that inhibiting this new-found life-form from being born would essentially kill a sentient being, which runs contrary to the Enterprise mission of learning to understand different life forms even if that inconveniences you. The officers decide to help the Enterprise achieve the birth of the sentience.
Q Who shows a scarier type of life form: the Borg. The Borg look like thousands of biological bodies with an artificial intelligence and some artificial upgrades. However, they function more like the parts in a human body than individual beings; they are able to communicate instantly, work together seamlessly and adapt from the experience of the whole. The Borg make up one sentience. And the only thing the Borg really do is adapt technology from alien civilizations and destroy the civilizations.
On one hand, the Enterprise is supposed to make contact with and learn about new life forms in a peaceful way. On the other hand, the Borg are insanely dangerous to get anywhere near to, especially if the collective feels threatened, and they killed some Enterprise crew mates. Whatever should Picard do?
In my opinion... try to destroy the Borg. Though quantifying the value of a life at all is sketchy, the rule that the life of each sentient (self-aware) being is equal seems fair to me. By that rule, the Borg collective is one sentient being. Considering that they have the potential to kill all humans, it is justifiable from a moral and evolutionary perspective to kill one sentient life to prevent that from happening.
This is a great way to lay out what's going on in ST: TNG. I like the idea of respecting life "even if that inconveniences you," and in a lot of cases RECOGNIZING life is more of a problem for the Enterprise crew than respecting it. But at what point does that inconvenience become a real threat? That's the question, right? They're willing to jettison the new life form in "Emergence" if it's going to destroy them--they're just going to give it a good try, first. The Borg are a lot more of a threat. So then we're stuck thinking about pacifism: Given that our understanding of the world is imperfect, and we might mess up and kill people who don't deserve it (have you seen "I, Borg," for instance?), do we ever have the right to destroy? You're coming down on the side of self-defense in a very interesting debate.
ReplyDeleteI had never thought about the fact that killing a hive mind would only technically end the life of one sentient being. In that regard it would be much easier to justify getting rid of the Borg once and for all. Very interesting viewpoint!
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate the fact that despite how nasty and evil the Borg are, you still went into the debate of if the Borg deserve to live as they are sentient. Star Fleet prides themselves a fair amount on resolving things as peacefully as possible, so completely destroying a species would kind of go against their regular morals.
ReplyDeleteThe borg mission and purpose is to assimilate everything. They will kill you, your friends, your pets and your pets pets too. Not killing them would be like the trolley problem, do you kill one to save five? But one of the five may grow up to kill even more people, so who knows
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion even if the Borg are more than one sentient being the Enterprise would be justified in attempting to kill any Borg that they come across. The Borg are just trying assimilate the Enterprise, which is in effect very similar to killing its crew, so it seems to me like trying to kill them is just being even.
ReplyDeleteI think this shows that our idea of respecting life is a bit simplistic. It's a great idea in theory, but it doesn't necessarily Account for if that life can possibly and will hurt you. It's a great motto to strive for, but in the end it's still kill or get killed in many situations. I think it's possible to respect life, but still defend your own.
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