Current mood:	thoughtful
Current music:	Shania Twain - It Only Hurts When I Breathe

Holodecks.....and the Nature of Reality.
Hello again.

Lately, I've found myself in a rather philosophical mindset. I've stopped to question the nature of a great many things as of late.

Oddly, I find myself mulling over the nature of reality, sparked by Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I've paused to consider the impact of a particular bit of technology presented in that show. The holodeck. Through the use of photon emitters, tractor beams, replicators (not to be confused with the Stargate ones....), and force field technology, the computer can create people, objects, animals, and many, many other things. If one were industrious enough, they could program an entire world within it.

So I stopped to formulate a premise:

Say you were a crew member on the Enterprise. You went on a simple away mission, and were beamed back. A fairly standard procedure on that show.

You finish your mission, then go about your life (Like you do...),working your station shifts, playing in a weekly poker game, making communiques to your Grandma, asking out the cute ensign on Deck 26. You make new friends, and mourn the loss of old friends killed in the line of duty.You go to several more planets, several more away missions, and show courage in the face of danger, show novel ways to solve problems, all those things that will serve to make you a fine officer. You get promoted from Ensign to Lieutenant (JG) and on up, eventually landing at Lieutenant Commander. Your dates with that ensign blossom into a deeper relationship, you marry, and think of transferring to a starbase or nice planet to try and start a family of your very own. Everything's going along, following your plan (Though not exactly....it's certianly good enough), careerwise, in your love life, and amongst your friends, for the most part.

One day, as you are working on the bridge, you notice out of the corner of your eye, that the starboard wall "flickers" and you catch, just for a second, the black with orange borders, squares of a holodeck wall. You stand up to investigate, confused, and seconds later, the bridge fades away, leaving you in the black and orange land of the inside of the Holodeck. The arch is clearly visible. With the realization that you were indeed living in a holographic projection, numbly, you stumble out of the holodeck into the corridor.

(I'm sure this is confusing, but bear with me. There's still a point to all this. It's not just random rambling.)

As you stand out there, trying desperately to make sense of what happened to you, you start to wonder.

1. How long was I in there?
2. Did I really spend that much time in the Holodeck?
3. What was real there?

The last question is certianly the hardest one to answer.

What is the nature of reality? Is reality that which we see and feel, which we detect and interact with through our senses? Or is there a transcendent truth which defines reality in a concrete, definite manner outside of what we can perceive? What is the nature of truth?

In an attempt to answer these broader questions, questions narrower in scope started to form, and you had hoped that answers to these narrower questions would shed light, would bring perspective, and that the amalgamation of the answers to the narrower questions would start to form the basis of an answer to the broader questions posed.

Should you have mourned the loss of your crewmates and friends, even though they have been proven to be nothing more than complex algorithms in a program?

Was the love that you felt for the cute ensign you married real as well? Or was it simply a complex crush ( Considering that in the Star Trek universe that it is nigh on impossible for a computer to have true emotion, the feelings would have to be one-sided, and therefore a crush.) on an intricate weaving of force field, tractor beam, and photon emitter technology; a fancy facade, for lack of a better term?

Certianly, your life on the holodeck was not real, in a conventional sense. But does it follow that because that experience was not real, that your entire life there was a complex fantasy, that the memories and feelings were not real as well? Does the fact that your experience was untrue, unreal, necessarily negate the feelings and memories that you had there?

Should they be labeled as untrue and irrelevant to the "new" life you've begun now that you've walked out of the holodeck?

Or should your recognize that they were untrue, but treasure the essence of the feelings and experience you shared, in much the same way that a person might enjoy the performance and show of a great actor on stage?

Or should you remember that they took place in an "unreal" environment, and still accept the experiences and memories as they were, because they in and of themselves, are true, despite taking place in an "unreal" environment? Can an "untrue" experience create "true" memories and feelings?

The manner in which your life played out there, was it a "real, true experience" (for lack of better terminology)? Or was it simply an unconscious projection of your desires, taken in by the computer and made manifest for you? How did you influence your experience there, if at all? And can the desires, the wishes, the sheer willpower of someone who wants something enough make it real, or does it remain a facade?

Does there exist a point, where a facade, an untruth, an illusion, becomes so complex that it is indistinguishable from reality? And if that point exists, does truth break down there?

Just a few thoughts that are running about my brain at this early morning hour. It's odd the things that you consider sometimes.

For those of you in a more philosophical mindset, who might wish to reply, I'd love to hear your thoughts and perspectives.

For those of you who actually read through that entire, borderline nonsensical, rambling post, I thank you, and hope you find the time, energy and desire to share your thoughts.