star trek and the posthuman

7/31/2019 Star Trek and the Posthuman

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Star Trek and the Posthuman

Dr. Dennis M. WeissProfessor of Philosophy

English and Humanities DepartmentYork College of Pennsylvania

York, PA [email protected]

This essay examines a central preoccupation of late twentieth-century, early twenty-first-

century Western life, the human-machine interface, from the perspective of a close

reading of the Star Trekfranchise. Following a brief account of the current cultural

context of this issue, I will defend the appropriation ofStar Trekfor the purposes of

examining this theme. I will then consider how the issue of the human-machine interface

has evolved through three of the Star Trekshows, Star Trek(the original series, hereafter

TOS), Star Trek: The Next Generation (hereafter TNG), and Voyager(hereafter V). This

examination ofStar Trekreveals an evolving concern with questions about human and

machine interaction and a nuanced and, I will argue, philosophically respectable

alternative to some of the current end-of-man theories predominating in what might be

called posthuman studies.

I

This section briefly considers the context of current debates over the posthuman and the

human-machine interface and argues that a central preoccupation of the second half of

the twentieth century and a continuing issue for the twenty-first is the human-machine

interface. From the impact of artificial intelligence on our understanding of the mind to

the current interest in cyborgs, virtual reality, the flight to cyberspace, and artificial life,

we are witnessing an extended struggle over the significance of what it means to be

human in the digital age. There are signs all about us of this struggle, skirmishes over the


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definition of the human. These signs can be seen in both the popular press and in

academic circles. Consider, for instance, two recent issues ofWiredmagazine. The

February, 2000 issue featured a cover story called I, Robot. Behind the subheading,

Cybernetics pioneer Kevin Warwick is upgrading the human bodystarting with

himself, is an image of Warwick with the sleeve of his left arm rolled up. Superimposed

on that image is the image of an x-ray revealing the microchip he has inserted into his

arm as the first step in his transformation into a cyborg. Wiredfollowed this up in the

April issue with the musings of Sun Microsystems cofounder Bill Joy arguing that the

very kind of experiments promoted by Warwick will eventually lead to the extinction of

the human race. Based on his reading of authors such as Hans Moravec and Ray

Kurzweil, Joy argues that computers will soon outstrip human intelligence and we will

become like ants to our technological descendants. Joy is sounding a clarion call to

human beings to wake up and smell the Terminator. Wiredbrings together these two

polarizing articles on the future of what it means to be human and what the impact of

technology will be on that definition. In The Age of Spiritual Machines, Ray Kurzweil

argues, the primary political and philosophical issue of the next century will be the

definition of who we are (2). Ed Regis explores our transhuman, postbiological future

in Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition, suggesting that perhaps the

human condition is a condition to be gotten out of (175). O. B. Hardison too suggests

that the human being is flawed and that the relation between carbon man and our silicon

devices is like the relation between the caterpillar and the iridescent, winged creature

that the caterpillar unconsciously prepares to become (335). Similar accounts of the

changing nature of the human-machine interface and its implications for future human

life can be found in Hans MoravecsMind Children andRobot, Grant Fjermedals The

Tomorrow Makers, and Bruce Mazlishs The Fourth Discontinuity: The Co-evolution of

Humans and Machines.

That the popularity of these ideas extends beyond a small handful of trade books is

indicated not only by the success of magazines such as Wiredbut as well by the attention

generated by the chess matches pitting Gary Kasparov against IBMs computer chess

player Deep Blue. News accounts of the match made much of this battle between human


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and machine. InNewsweek, for instance, Steven Levy wrote that Kasparov was fighting

for all of us: all of us, that is, with spit in our mouths and DNA in our cells. To chess

enthusiasts the first-game loss was more than a shock: it was the apocalypse. The feeling

was that supremacy in chess represented an important foothold in the battle against the

computers relentless incursion in the human domain. USA Today ran a cover story on

the chess match the headline of which read: Can this Man Save the Human Race? It

was, according to the newspaper, the ultimate man versus machine showdown, brain cells

versus microchips. TheNew York Times weighed in with the suggestion that the historic

match was a symbolically, if not actually, profound event in the history of brains, human

and otherwise.

Further evidence of this preoccupation with the human-machine interface is found in

contemporary science fiction cinema and film. The recent popularity of the film The

Matrixclearly indicates a sense of concern over the computers relentless incursion in

the human domain. The Matrix imagines a future in which human beings become little

more than battery packs for computers who hold us hostage by generating a virtual reality

twentieth century to preoccupy us and keep us busy while they feed off of our bodies

electromagnetic energy. The movies hero, Neo, is the one who will lead the human

beings in their revolution against the dominance of machines. Similar themes of the

struggle between human and machine are played out repeatedly in the last forty years of

science fiction cinema. Highlights of this struggle would include Colossus: The Forbin

Project,Demon Seed,Bladerunner, and The Terminator. J. P. Telotte, inReplications: A

Robotic History of the Science fiction Film, argues that the image of human replication in

recent science fiction indicates our qualms about our own nature. In these images of

human replication are bound up all our qualms about artificescience, technology,

mechanismand, what is more important, about our nature as artificers, constructors of

the real, and of the selfhomo faber (4). A similar preoccupation runs through much

contemporary science fiction literature, most clearly evident in the cyberpunk writings of

Bruce Sterling, William Gibson, Rudy Rucker, and Tom Maddox, among others.


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This issue of the human-machine interface has also preoccupied academic scholars as

well. Sherry Turkle has produced a body of work over the past twenty years that details

the impact of the computer revolution on our sense of ourselves as human beings. Turkle

argues that the computer and its attendant technologies, the Internet, MUDs, artificial life,

offer a series of objects with which to think about human nature. These technologies

provoke questions about our nature and uniqueness as human beings. As she suggests,

The computer raises questions about where we stand in nature and where we stand in the

world of artifact. We search for a link between who we are and what we have made,

between who we are and what we might create, between who we are and what, through

our intimacy with our own creations, we might become (The Second Self, 12). While

philosophers and social theorists such as Hubert Dreyfus, John Searle, Alan Woolfe, and

Sven Birkerts have decried the growing influence and impact of technological models on

our understanding of human nature, others have not been so alarmed, suggesting that the

very meaning of the human is being transformed in the digital age. In The War of Desire

and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical Age AllucquereRosanne Stone suggests

that we are in the midst of a paradigm shift from the mechanical age to the virtual age and

we now inhabit the cyborg habitat of the technosocial, in which technology is viewed as

natural and human nature becomes a cultural construct. The ubiquity of technology,

Stone suggests, rearranges our thinking apparatus and calls into question the structure of

meaning production by which we recognize each other as human (173). Similarly, Mark

Poster argues that in the mode of information a symbiotic merger between human and

machine is taking place, one, he writes, that threatens the stability of our sense of the

boundary of the human body in the world. What may be happening is that human beings

create computers and then computers create a new species ofhumans (4). InHow We

Became Posthuman, Katherine Hayles argues that the model of the human since the

Enlightenment, the liberal, humanist subject, is being changed through the mediation of

information technologies into the posthuman: embodiment is secondary to pattern and

information, consciousness is decentered and rendered a mere epiphenomenon, the body

is a prosthesis to be radically redesigned as necessary, and the boundaries between human

and machine have been imploded. In the posthuman, there are no essential differences or


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absolute demarcations between bodily existence and computer simulation, cybernetic

mechanism and biological organism, robot teleology and human goals (3).

This brief sketch of our current cultural context does indeed suggest that there is a series

of interrelated issues which make up the problem of the human-machine interface. What,

if anything, serves to distinguish human beings from machines? How is human nature

changing as a result of technological advances? Is the boundary between human and

machine disappearing, as machines become more life-like and human beings more

mechanical? Is the cyborg a model for the future evolution of humanity? Ought we to

fear further technological development? Does technological development mean the

extinction of humanity? These issues, which I group under the heading of the human-

machine interface, receive extended discussion in Star Trek, thus warranting a closer look

at this cultural phenomenon.

II

This section briefly defends the selection ofStar Trekas a lens through which to examine

the issues set out in the previous section. There are a number of reasons warranting the

examination ofStar Trekin this context. In one incarnation or another Star Trekhas been

part of the popular imagination for more than thirty years, beginning with the debut of the

original series in 1966 and including TNG, V,Deep Space Nine, the movie franchise

(now more than 8 movies), the cartoon series, and a large number ofStar Treknovels.

Given its almost unprecedented run and continuing popularity, Star Trekprovides us with

an historical text that represents back to us in the form of a futuristic narrative our present

concerns and preoccupations in regard to technology. It has often been noted that science

fiction is as much about our present time as it is about future time and given this

widespread presumption, Star Trekcan be read both as an account of our current thinking

about the issues discussed here and as an account of how this thinking has evolved over

the past thirty years. Furthermore, it seems reasonable to assume that the lengthy

popularity ofStar Trekover these past thirty years might itself have had some influence

on how people think about the human-machine interface and indicate that people are


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generally accepting ofStar Treks perspective on this issue. Star Trekmay represent for

many people their first contact with these themes. Additionally, its popularity may

suggest that the manner in which Star Trekdeals with these issues has some holding

power. Perhaps the audience likes what it sees in the way in which Star Trekdeals with

the issue of the place of human beings in an advanced technological society. Star Treks

continued popularity, then, is perhaps a sign of how people want to think about the future

and a sign of peoples attitudes toward the changes taking place as we mutate from a

modern, print-based, mechanical culture, to a postmodern, digital and virtual culture. This

suggests too that Star Trekis deserving of some critical attention.

Another reason for investigating Star Trekin regard to this theme is the shows own pro-

technological spin. A number of cinematic portrayals of this theme, such as The Matrix

and the Terminator series, approach the human-machine interface from an anti-

technology stance. In Technophobia, Michael Ryan and Douglas Kellner note that in

many contemporary science fiction films, technology functions as a crucial ideological

figure. Our fears of machines or of technology are mobilized on behalf of a largely

conservative agenda that affirms such social values as freedom, individualism, and the

family (58). In the generally more liberal ideology ofStar Trek, technology is not usually

portrayed as something evil or something to be feared; the technophobia noted by Ryan

and Kellner in much mainstream science fiction cinema is absent. Thus, Star Trekavoids

what might be thought of as poisoning the well in its approach to the theme of the

human-machine interface.

Finally, an analysis of these themes from the perspective of a close reading ofStar Trek

is warranted because it has received too little critical attention over the years. There is

already in place a vast oeuvre devoted to the academic study ofStar Trekand many of

the best of these essays have been collected in the volumeEnterprise Zones. There are

some noticeable lacunae in this body of work, though. There have been relatively few

attempts to chart some of the historical shifts that have taken place in the representation

of themes through the Star Trekoeuvre. Furthermore, while the issue of the human-

machine interface has been a significant theme in Star Trek, this issue has been unjustly


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ignored. Finally, this theme may have received so little attention because many scholars

who have addressed these issues do so from a perspective influenced by postmodernism,

cultural studies, and multiculturalism, a perspective which may fit poorly with Star

Treks perceived Enlightenment, liberal, and modernist ideology. While there is much

truth to the claim that Star Trekcelebrates an Enlightenment view of human nature, its

approach to technology and the issue of the human-machine interface is not easily

dismissed as simply outmoded. An examination of this theme in Star Trekmight reveal a

more nuanced view than is sometimes attributed to the show.

One final preliminary point. Some might object that it is illegitimate to treat Star Trekas

a single text, given that we must perforce deal with numerous television shows and

movies written by many individuals, unfolding over thirty years. Such a body of work

does not offer a single, unified reading in support of any simple thesis on the human-

machine interface. There is much truth to this claim. This essay does not insist on the

unity ofStar Trekas a text. Like any complex text, it is multiply signifying and supports

many readings. The sheer number of shows to be considered makes it likely that

alternative readings could be constructed. Indeed, there is some ambivalence in Star

Treks treatment of these issues. At the same time, the notions of author and text have

been sufficiently problematized that these points are equally applicable to even a single

text or single author. Additionally, there is already a long history in literary theory and

cultural studies of pulling together disparate texts that exhibit a common theme or

concern. Furthermore, the various histories and compendiums ofStar Treksuggest that

Gene Roddenberry insisted on tight and consistent controls over his franchise and that the

various writers and directors worked within a set of principles that while seemingly

dynamic, maintain a consistent voice.

III

Turning now to an examination ofStar Trek, this section first discusses the manner in

which Star Trekhas dealt with the human-machine interface and then considers the

implications of this. The following chart documents the various marginal beings that


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straddle and so problematize the boundary between human and machine in TOS, TNG,

and V.

Star Trek

1966-1969

Star Trek: The Next Generation

1987-1994

Voyager

1995 -I. Computers and Artificial

Intelligence

Nomad: The Changeling

Landrau: Return of the

Archons

Vaal: The Apple

M-5: The Ultimate

Computer

Vger: Star Trek: The

Motion Picture

I. Computers and Artificial

Intelligence

I. Computers and Artificial

Intelligence

Warhead: Warhead

II. Androids

Norman: I, Mudd

Brown, Roc, Andrea: Whatare Little Girls Made Of?

Rayna: Requiem forMethuselah

II. Androids

Data: The Measure of the

Man; passimLore: Datalore; Brothers;

Descent

Lal: The Offspring

II. Androids

Automated Personnel Unit:

Prototype

III. Downloading the Human

Mind

Korby: What are Little

Girls Made Of?


Mind

Graves: The Schizoid Man

Tainer: Inheritance


Mind

IV. Cyborgs IV. Cyborgs

La Forge: passim

Picard: Samaritan Snare;

Tapestry

Locutus: The Best of Both

Worlds

The Borg: Q Who; TheBest of Both Worlds; FirstContact

Hugh: I, Borg, Descent

IV. Cyborgs

The Borg Cooperative:

Unity

The Borg: Scorpion; Dark

Frontier

Seven of Nine: Scorpion;

passim

Superborg: Drone

V. Virtual Beings V. Virtual Beings

Moriarty: Elementary, Dear

Data; Ship in a Bottle

V. Virtual Beings

The Doctor: passim

VI. Emergent Beings and

Assorted Others


Assorted Others

Nanites: Evolution

Exocomps: The Quality of

Life

Ships Computer:

Emergence


Assorted Others

There are a number of things to note about this chart. As the focus of this essay is on the

human-machine interface, I have included neither examples of technology that are

portrayed as non-problematic in these terms (the holodeck, the transporter) nor biological


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aliens who might be relevant to an examination of human nature but dont contribute to

an analysis of the stated theme of this essay (i.e. Spock, Whorf, Kess, etc.). The chart

identifies six broad categories of these marginal or liminal beings: artificial intelligences,

androids, human minds downloaded into a machine, cyborgs, virtual beings, and

emergent beings. TOS was preoccupied most with the first two classes of marginal

beings, as would be expected given the interest in artificial intelligence in the late sixties

and early seventies. A similar focus can be seen in cinematic releases from the same time

period: 2001, Colossus, The Stepford Wives,Demon Seed. In both TOS and these

cinematic releases, these marginal beings are to be feared. Both TNG and V devote

relatively little time to exploring these marginal beings, suggesting perhaps that interest

in artificial minds has diminished and the audience is more comfortable exploring other

issues. TNG devotes considerable attention to the issue of androids, especially in the

character of Data. But while the android perhaps becomes normalized in the context of

TNG, the cyborg becomes the villain audience members love to hate. The Borg occupy a

role in the TNG universe similar to that occupied by artificial intelligence in TOS. TNG

also introduces the character of the virtual being, in the form of the holodeck character

Moriarty, though it doesnt develop this type of marginal being. V in turn normalizes the

image of the cyborg, introducing the character of Seven of Nine, and as well presents a

positive spin on virtual beings such as the ships doctor. A very brief analysis of this

chart, then, suggests that indeed Star Trekdid evolve in its consideration of marginal

human-machine beings and did seem, at least on the surface, to move considerably in the

direction toward an acceptance of beings that in earlier generations of the show had been

demonized. I would now like to examine some of these issues in greater detail,

concentrating on a number of closely related themes.

These marginal beings ultimately serve to remind us of the superiority and uniqueness of

human beings.

TOS presents a number of marginal beings who judge human beings to be inferior. The

robot Nomad, for instance, kills billions, we are told, in his search for perfection. The

android Roc has destroyed the old ones, his makers, because they were irrational, too


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emotional. They represent evil to the perfection of the android. Similarly, Norman and his

android culture judge that human beings are imperfect and must be controlled for their

own good. Similar messages come through in TNG and V. In Descent, Lore allies

himself with the Borg, promising a future in which the reign of biological life forms is

coming to an end. Lore in fact promises the Borg release from their organic parts, helping

them to become a superior race by becoming fully artificial. The Borg of course are on a

search for perfection and regularly remind us how small and insignificant are human

beings. In First Contactthe Borg Queen judges human beings to be flawed, weak,

organic. Similarly, in the V episode Dark Frontier the Borg Queen argues that human

compassion, sentiment, guilt, empathy are all failings and irrelevant, and chides Seven of

Nine for becoming too human.

But while judging the human race to be inferior, the role these marginal beings play is to

remind the viewer of the inherent superiority of humanity. The most common response to

these marginal beings in TOS, for instance, underscores human ingenuity and superiority

to rigid, rule-following mechanisms. In The Changeling, Return of the Archons,

The Apple and other shows, Kirk uses his own command of logic to confuse and

ultimately destroy or disarm artificial intelligences, especially those that threaten to

enslave human beings, as Vaal and Landrau had. Norman and his android companions

are disabled by the Enterprise crew through their irrational antics. Kirk and his crew are

able to use both logic and emotion and higher-level thinking that ultimately confound the

more limited machine mind. And it is precisely the characteristics of compassion and

empathy, those characteristics rejected by the Borg Queen, that motivate Picard and

Janeway to self-sacrifice, perhaps a distinctively human virtue. It is Picards loyalty to

Data that impels him to offer himself up to the Borg Queen, prompting her to respond:

Such a noble creature. A quality we sometimes lack. Janeway risks her entire crew in

order to save Seven of Nine when she is captured by the Borg.

Repeatedly, Star Trekuses these marginal figures to remind us of the unique and mostly

virtuous characteristics of humanity. Kirk is able to demonstrate the value of human

ingenuity, flexibility, and emotion as he regularly draws on these distinctive human traits


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to disarm and destroy mechanical pretenders to the throne. It is the contrast between us

and the Borg that permits Star Trekto emphasize the characteristics of human

individuality, autonomy, and self-determination. Even the less threatening characters of

Data, the Doctor, and Seven of Nine play a similar role. It is through Datas long process

of trying to understanding and attain humanity that the unique characteristics of what it is

to be human are regularly kept in front of the Star Trekaudience. As we watch Data try

to understand poker, humor, music, painting, dreaming, we learn what it is that separates

human beings from machines and reaffirms the essential difference between the two. In

fact, I would suggest that this represents one ofStar Treks extended arguments against

the claim that the boundary between human and machine has become increasingly

permeable. As we regularly watch especially Data and the Doctor attempt to understand

what it is to be human, we are given an object lesson in why it is that they themselves

cannot be human. In these object lessons, Star Trekaffirms the importance of human

embodiment, feelings and emotions, love, spontaneity, the unconscious, family, and

culture.

Star Trekalso reminds us that even as we embrace technology and even as technology

threatens to erase our distinctive humanity, some element of the human will remain and

can be recovered from the overlay of technology. We see this in regard to Picards

humanity fighting his Borg implants after he has been transformed into the Borg Locutus.

Similarly, Seven of Nine, despite being assimilated as a young child, is able to make the

transition back to humanity, to recover her sense of self and individuality. In the V

episode Unity we are presented with an entire planet of Borg who have been separated

from the collective and are able to remember their names, where they came from. As one

character suggests, We were free! We could think for ourselves again.It was like

waking up from a long nightmare. A similar theme is developed in the V episode

Survival Instinct, where a number of Borg drones, separated from the collective, begin

to revert to their pre-Borg states, allowing them to recover their sense of individuality and

identity. Star Trekreassures us that in embracing technology we are not losing what is

unique and distinctive about our humanity.


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Attempting to achieve perfection through technological means alone inevitably fails.

A common theme throughout all the incarnations ofStar Trekis that the technological is

not an apt model for a human life and the attempt to flee ones humanity by embracing

the technological will end is disaster. This message serves as a counterpoint to current

technoenthusiasts such as Hans Moravec, Danny Hillis, O. B. Hardison and others who

argue that we must leave our flawed bodies behind, download our consciousnesses into

machines, and take up life in cyberspace. We cannot, Star Trekargues, achieve perfection

through technology. Both Korby, from TOS episode What are Little Girls Made of?,

and Graves, from TNG episode The Schizoid Man, attempt to liberate themselves from

their flawed and sick bodies and achieve immortality by downloading their minds into

android bodies. But both are shown to have lost their humanity in the process, becoming

repulsive to the women they love, and ultimately electing to die rather than live on in

their android bodies. We regularly see the Borg argue that they are pursuing perfection

through the assimilation of other species while, simultaneously, that goal is thwarted

through the intervention of fully organic human beings.

Perhaps the most interesting and extended example of this theme comes in TNG film

Insurrection, at the center of which is the conflict between the Sona and the Baku. The

Baku, who reside on a planet whose unique properties preserve their youth, have

evolved an agrarian society that deliberately shuns technology. When some of their

youth, driven by the allure of technology, rebel they are banished from the planet. They

return many years later as the Sona, who have indeed developed advanced technology

but who in the process of using that technology to artificially extend their lives have

become disfigured, hideous exemplars of plastic surgery gone awry. The consequences of

their embrace of technology as the path toward perfection is literally represented on the

surface of their bodies, suggesting again the empty promise of technology as a means to

perfection. Repeatedly, then, Star Trekreminds us that human perfectibility can not be

found in technology alone. It should be noted, however, that Insurrection is not an anti-

technology film. It is only through the intervention of the crew of the Enterprise that the

Baku are saved. Their commitment to an agrarian lifestyle can be guaranteed only


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through the promise of the advanced technology of a Starfleet starship. It is equally

interesting to note that when given the opportunity to stay behind with the Baku and

pursue a relationship with Anij, Picard declines, suggesting that he would not be

comfortable accepting the Baku lifestyle.

Technology that threatens to breach the boundary between human and machine must be

tightly controlled or destroyed.

This theme is portrayed most explicitly and very visually in the interesting climax to First

Contact. In the climactic scene, Picard and Data attempt to destroy the Borg that have

captured theEnterprise by venting a gas through engineering that destroys flesh. As

Picard attempts to save himself by climbing above the cloud of deadly gas, the Borg

Queen latches onto his leg and tries to pull herself up. Simultaneou sly, we see Datas

hand extend up out of the gas and pull the Borg Queen down into the deadly gas. It is at

this moment that we see arrayed before us the fully human (Picard), the cyborg

occupying a middle ground (the Borg Queen), and the fully mechanical android (Data).

But it is a moment that cannot last. The Queen dies by having all of her organic parts

destroyed. And Data too, who was promised humanity through the introduction of

organic skin to his android body, has lost his tenuous contact with the human, his flesh

too being burnt away. This scene from First Contactvisually serves to remind us that the

middle ground between human and machine is inherently unstable.

This was perhaps the most common theme in the original series, especially when

technology threatened to rob human beings of their autonomy and put in place a

controlled (perhaps cybernetic) society. On several occasions we watch as Kirk uses his

command of logic to confuse and ultimately disarm or destroy various computers,including Vaal and Landrau, M-5, the artificial mind that was designed to replace star

ship captains, and Nomad, the artificially intelligent space probe. The advanced android

Roc is so well designed he exceeds his programming and kills his makers and when he

threatens Kirk and his crew, must himself be destroyed. Norman and his android

companions are neutralized by the Enterprise crew through their irrational behavior. In


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each case, technology threatens to disrupt the otherwise firm boundaries between human

and machine, putting human beings at risk and under the control of technology. And in

each case, the technology is destroyed.

While TNG and V appear more lenient in this regard, permitting marginal beings such as

Data, Seven of Nine, and the Doctor to become crew members, the theme does not

entirely disappear. Lore occupies a very similar position in TNG as M5, Nomad, and Roc

do in TOS. He is an android judged to be too perfect, the cause of the destruction of the

colony at Omicron Theta, and he ultimately meets the same fate as his brethren, twice

being disabled. The Borg become the villains we love to hate in both TNG and V and

must regularly be neutralized for threatening to set up a model of the perfect cyborg

society. The virtual Moriarty is neutralized twice and at the end of Ship in a Bottle is

literally captured or contained within a microchip embedded in crystal.

There are few marginal beings who successfully challenge the boundary between human

and machine and those that do, often die as a result. In TOS, both Rayna and Andrea are

androids who come to experience feelings, acceding to human sentience. But the

confusion they experience leads both to die. Andrea seemingly sacrifices herself rather

than living without the love of Korby, and Rayna, confused over the struggle between her

love for Kirk and her creator, she simply collapses. Similarly, when Data builds a

daughter for himself, Lal, she too comes to experience emotion but, when Starfleet and

Data disagree over her future, the conflict leads to a failure in her neural net and she too

dies.

While it might seem that Data stands as an exception to the claim that the middle ground

between human and machine is problematic in Star Trek, in fact TNG does problematize

Datas position. While it is true that Data is accorded legal rights, those rights are

questioned in several subsequent episodes and in the manner in which Star Fleet regularly

deals with Data. Additionally, the existence of Lore, Datas evil twin brother, further

complicates Datas standing in themiddle ground. Lore serves to remind us of Datas

nature as an android, and the fact that he is Datas twin underscores this role. Lore is


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Datas twin both literally and metaphorically, the mirror of Data, who, in both the

episodes Datalore and Brothers, disables Data and literally assumes his identity,

tricking both their creator, Noonien Soong, and the Enterprise crew.

Furthermore, Star Trekoften portrays these middle-ground characters as more susceptible

to corruption and problems. An interesting example of this theme occurs in the V episode

Equinox, in which the Doctors ethical subroutines are turned off, transforming the

once mild-mannered Doctor into a virtual Mengele, ready to experiment on Seven of

Nine, even if it means her death. His behavior is starkly contrasted with the crews own

debate over ethical issues and their determination to act on moral principles that

ultimately preserves the life of a newly encountered species. This serves to remind us of

the essential difference between these marginal beings and ourselves and also points out

how their attempt to achieve humanity is inherently unstable.

Finally, when such marginal beings as Data, the Doctor, and Seven of Nine are permitted

in the Star Trekuniverse, it is only under very stringent conditions. First, in the case of

many of these marginal beings, we regularly see that they are still subject to some control

by human beings. Generally there exists a built-in capacity to control these beings or shut

them down. This is significant in the case of Data, for instance, as we learn that he has an

on/off switch, allowing us to infer that if the technology ever gets out of control, we can

simply shut it down. In fact, it is Rikers discovery of Datas switch, in the episode The

Measure of the Man, that leads him to argue that Data is a mere machine, significantly

unlike us, and not deserving of rights. Similarly, the crew of Voyager can exercise some

control over the Doctor by changing his programming and by shutting him down or

turning him off. Even Seven of Nine must regularly regenerate, and we often see the

Doctor or Janeway ordering her to her regeneration station, especially in moments of

conflict between these characters. In The Second Self, Sherry Turkle observes that

children, playing with electronic and battery-driven toys that seem almost alive, enjoy

exercising their sense of control over the toys by pulling the plug. The children allow

the toy its autonomous behavior, and then, when it is most like a living thing, they kill it

(37). Turkle suggests that through this act the children reassert their control over the


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technology. Similarly, while Star Trekmay permit marginal beings, they too come with

the means to be controlled.

Second, these marginal beings generally occupy the less threatening feminine position,

in contrast to the typically hypermasculine android common in much science fiction

cinema (the Terminatorseries,Robocop, Universal Soldier). Even the few virtual beings

that have been presented in science fiction film are strong masculine characters: the

Russell Crowe character from Virtuosity, Jobe inLawnmower Man, the computer

programs occupying the mainframe computer in Disneys Tron. In contrast to this, the

Doctor and Data seem more feminized. Both are presented as somewhat soft and fleshy,

not the armored bodies typical of villains, as in for instance the Borg. The Doctor is often

portrayed as wracked with self-doubt, worried about danger and risk. Data too is often

portrayed as helpless in the face of complex human interactions. This position is further

underscored by the connection suggested between these figures, especially Data, and

children. Data is explicitly counseled to be more childlike inInsurrection and we

regularly observe these characters being socialized much in the way children are

socialized. Furthermore, many of the androids who seemingly successfully make the

transition from android to sentient being are female: Andrea and Rayna from TOS, and

Datas daughter Lal, and these androids are either involved with men as lovers (Andrea,

Rayna) or are fathered exclusively by ostensibly male figures (Datas fathering Lal). The

stereotypically masculine scientists Graves and Korby, both of whom want to beat death,

achieve immortality, and take their respective girl friends with them, are not permitted to

survive and ultimately take their own lives. In the case of Juliana Tainer, on the other

hand, her mind too has been downloaded into an android body but she doesnt suffer the

same fate as Graves and Korby. What marks her as distinctive is her femininity. We learn

that she thinks of herself as Datas mother, was once married to Noonien Soong, and isnt

in fact aware of being an android, as Soong transferred her consciousness without her

awareness. Finally we should note that the majority of Borg who are reintroduced into the

Star Trekfamily are hyperfeminized (as is Seven of Nine) or childlike (as is Hugh, from

TNG, and the child Borg rescued by Seven of Nine).


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A third condition placed on these marginal beings is that that they be humanized or

socialized as part of the process of existing as marginal beings. The first marginal being

to perhaps threaten the boundary between human and machine is Rayna, from TOS, who

comes to experience emotions in the struggle between her love for Kirk and her loyalty to

her creator. It is the introduction of Kirk and the introduction of love that permits Rayna

to grow beyond her limited programming. Similarly, Lal is socialized into emotions

through witnessing human struggle. More significantly, Data, Seven, and the Doctor each

go through an extensive process of socialization where they learn to become more

human. The Doctor is taught to be more human by Kes, and he in turns takes on the

project of humanizing Seven, who also interacts regularly with the one child aboard

Voyager, Naomi Wildman. For a being to successfully occupy the middle ground, then, it

must be socialized into the human community.

Rather than modeling human beings after technology, technology should be modeled

after human beings.

Rather than presenting the human as ever more artificial, more technological, Star Trek

suggests that it is technology that must be humanized and in doing so implies an account

of human nature that goes beyond the stereotypical Enlightenment model of human

nature often associated with the show. While the Enlightenment model of human nature

typically emphasizes independence, autonomy, rationality, and rights, the account

implied in Star Treks musings on humanized technology suggests the importance of

relationships, interdependence, parenting, responsibility, emotion, and embodiment, in

short, what might be thought of as a more feminist model of technology and human

nature.

In support of this claim, permit me to reiterate the above point concerning the

humanizing process ofStar Treks marginal beings. Each of the stable and recurring

figures ofStar Trekthat threaten to disrupt the boundary between human and machine is

socialized into the crew and the crew is itself often portrayed as the adoptive family of

these marginal beings. It is through his regular interaction with the Enterprise crew, both


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officially and in his off-duty hours, that Data comes to understand something of what it

means to be human. Data performs for his friends (as a standup comic, a violinist, an

actor), he attends a regular poker match, he cares for his pet cat Spot. Data has a father

(Soong), mother (Tainer), a brother with whom to act out a sibling rivalry (Lore), and

eventually even a daughter (Lal). Datas process of socialization is highlighted in the film

Insurrection in his interactions with the child Artim. Data explains to Artim that he has

often tried to imagine what it is like to be a child, that he would gladly accept the

requirement of a bedtime in exchange for knowing what it is like to be a child. Artim

counsels Data that if he is to know what it is to be a child, he needs to learn to play.

Similar themes are explored in V. Seven of Nine, who has lost her biological family to

the Borg, comes to view, if somewhat warily, Janeway and the crew of Voyageras her

surrogate family. She regularly discusses the process of her humanization with

Janeway, who serves as a model of what a human being is and regularly reminds her that

the crew is her new family. It is significant in this respect that Seven of Nine often

interacts with Naomi Wildman, the young daughter of a crewmate, for while Naomi often

emulates the Borg, she also insists that Seven of Nine adopt a more human and humane

attitude, playing games with the child, taking her to dinner, etc. In Survival Instinct,

Seven is troubled over her former relationship to the Borg and ultimately turns to Naomi

for reassurance, asking her whether she considers Seven family. When Naomi responds

yes and asks Seven whether she thinks of her as family, Seven responds yes. After a

difficult confrontation with several former Borg, Seven, alone in the Astrometrics Lab, is

joined by Naomi. I thought maybe you might want to spend some time withfamily,

she says, taking her place next to Seven. V makes clear that the process of becoming

human is a process that must take place among humans, as an interdependent being

responsible for others but who is in turn the responsibility of others.

The Doctor too is socialized by the intuitive and feminine Kes, who encourages him to

develop and evolve his own identity. The Doctor even constructs his own holodeck

family so that he might learn how to interact better with the crew, who have lost their

own families. In the aptly titled Real Life, the Doctor initially programs the perfect


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family: a loving wife who keeps perfect house, two adoring, smart, and perfect children.

After introducing this holo-family to Kes and Torres, however, they object that it is too

perfect and he will never learn anything about having a family from this perfectly

simulated version. Torres adjusts the holodeck program, making the characters somewhat

less predictable, and the Doctor then has to learn how to adjust himself to the new

scenario. His initial approach, though, is to try to rationally engineer the familys time

together, and this results first in a discontented family and then, ultimately, in the death of

his holo-program daughter. But as his daughter lies dying, the Doctor terminates the

program rather than dealing with his family tragedy. Later, though, he is encouraged to

return and play out the drama. As Tom Paris remarks to him, You wanted a family. That

means taking the good along with the bad. You can't have one without the other. Paris

points out that the crew ofVoyagerhas been brought closer through their shared

experience of suffering and that if the Doctor doesnt finish the program, he will not only

fail to comfort his wife and son but will fail to realize the comfort they can bring him:

Youll miss the whole point of what it means to have a family. Consequently, the

Doctor returns to his holodeck program and learns something of what it means to be part

of a family. Real Life portrays another step in the Doctors humanization, his coming

to understand what it means to be part of a family, having obligations to other family

members, learning to put up with their inadequacies, comforting them in times of tragedy,

and learning to be comforted by their presence.

The success of these marginal beings breaching the boundary between human and

machine is in direct contrast to those beings who fail to make the grade, so to speak.

Lore was deemed to be imperfect by Soongs wife Juliana Tainer, who encouraged Soong

to dismantle him. Lore, then, in contrast to Data, was unwanted, metaphorically unloved

as a child, with the consequence being his eventual alignment with the Borg and his war

on humanity in Descent. M5, the artificial intelligence created by Richard Daystrom,

malfunctions while in control of theEnterprise and kills the crew of theExcalibur.

Daystrom had impressed his own unstable mental engrams on the machine, and it is

only by treating it as an errant child that Kirk is able to shut it down. M5 was

insufficiently socialized, had a poor parent as a model, and so could not make the


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successful transition to marginal being. The most damaging technology, such as M5 and

Lore, are also the most damaged, set free with insufficient socialization. Equally

noteworthy is the absence of mothers in regard to these seemingly wayward children.

Most of the marginal beings that Star Trekpresents are created solely by men: M5 is built

by Richard Daystrom, Nomad was built by Jackson Roykirk, Rayna was created by Flint,

Brown and Andrea by Korby, with the assistance of Roc. It is also worth noting that

while Data is generally portrayed as the creation of Noonien Soong, Juliana Tainer was

married to Soong and thinks of herself as Datas mother. Relatedly, there are no mothers

among the Borg. The problem with the Borg Collective is that one requires neither

socialization nor mothers, only assimilation. In Dark Frontier Seven of Nine is forced

to choose between her Borg Queen and Janeway, her substitute mother. While the Borg

Queen promises Seven the perfection of the Collective, she has used and manipulated

Seven, including presenting to her the Borg drone that was once her father. Janeway, on

the other hand, is portrayed as motivated by care and compassion for her crew and Seven

ultimately opts for this model of humanity.

The process of socialization that Data and the Doctor and Seven of Nine undergo is

reminiscent of what Annette Baier has characterized as learning the arts of personhood.

In a series of insightful articles, Baier has argued that persons are the creation of persons.

All persons start out as children, born to earlier persons from whom they learn the arts of

personhood. A person, perhaps, is best seen as one who was long enough dependent

upon other persons to acquire the essential arts of personhood. Persons essentially are

secondpersons, who grow up with other persons (1985, 84). As Lorraine Code points

out in her discussion of Baier, uniqueness, creativity, and moral accountability, Baier

argues, grow out of interdependence and continually turn back to it for affirmation and

continuation (82). Persons require, according to Baier, successive periods of infancy,

childhood and youth, during which they develop as persons. In virtue of our long and

helpless infancy, persons, who all begin as small persons, are necessarily social beings,

who first learn from older persons, by play, by imitation, by correction (1991, 10). Gods,

Baier observes, if denied childhood, cannot be persons because [p]ersons are essentially

successors, heirs to other persons who formed and cared for them, and their personality is


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revealed both in their relations to others and in their response to their own recognized

genesis (1985 85). It is our social nature, the fact of mutual recognition and

answerability, our responsiveness to other persons, that shapes and makes possible our

personhood. The more refined arts of personhood are learned as the personal pronouns

are learned, from the men and women, girls and boys, who are the learners companions

and play-mates. We come to recognize ourselves and others in mirrors, to refer to

ourselves and to other (1991 13). Persons are self-conscious, know themselves to be

persons among persons. Second person is also meant to refer to the fact that our self-

consciousness is connected to being addressed as you. As Baier explains, If never

addressed, if excluded from the circle of speakers, a child becomes autistic, incapable of

using any pronouns or indeed any words at all. The second person, the pronoun of mutual

address and recognition, introduces us to the first and third (1985 90). It is in fact in

the learning from others that we acquire a sense of our place in a series of persons, to

some of whom we have special responsibilities. We acquire a sense of ourselves as

occupying a place in an historical and social order of persons, each of whom has a

personal history interwoven with the history of a community (1985 90).

Baiers approach to personhood bears strong affinities with feminist discussions of

personhood, mothering, and gender. Her emphasis on interdependence, on the embodied

nature of human beings, the long dependence of infants on, typically, mothers for their

care, the primacy given to intersubjectivity and responsibility is mirrored in Nancy

Chodorows appropriation of object relations theory to account for the development of

gender roles, Nancy Hartsocks discussion of abstract masculinity in the context of

feminist standpoint theory, Carol Gilligans account of womens development of selfand

morality, Evelyn Fox Kellers discussions of women and science, and many others.

Central to each of these approaches is a recognition of the mutually interdependent

relation between parent and child, the role of this relationship in constituting the self, and

the centrality of womens caring labor to both. As Hilary Rose observes, the production

of people is qualitatively different from the production of things (83). Rose argues in

Hand, Brain, and Heart for a feminist reconceptualization of science and technology

which makes room for womens workreproduction. Womens work involves, Rose


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argues, caring laborthe labor of love. For without love, without close interpersonal

relationships, human beings, and it would seem especially small human beings, cannot

survive (83).

These same themes, too, are suggested by Star Treks portrayal of the characters Data,

the Doctor, and Seven of Nine. Rather than holding the android, the virtual being, or the

cyborg up as a model for how human beings might evolve in the 23rd

century, Star Trek

implicitly suggests an alternative model in terms of which human socialization, the

process of becoming second persons, becomes the model for how technology ought to

evolve. Rather than proposing that human beings emulate the technological, Star Trek

implicitly suggests that the technological emulate the human and that we approach

marginal, technological artifacts from a human point of view. What are the implications

of this for the human-machine interface? I take up this issue provisionally and

speculatively in the next, concluding section.

IV

Earlier in this essay I suggested that one of the central preoccupations of the late

twentieth century, a preoccupation sure to continue into the twenty-first century, concerns

the human-machine interface. Is the boundary between human and machine blurring? Are

human beings soon to be superceded by their mechanical creations? Is the human

morphing into the posthuman, a networked, perhaps virtual, cyborg? I have also argued

that this issue has been a central preoccupation ofStar Trekthroughout its three decades

and many incarnations. Star Trek, though, avoids the simplistic dichotomies present in

many of the contemporary analyses of this issue. Star Trekneither opts for the kind of

techno-enthusiasm associated with Moravecs or Kurzweils giddy accounts of the

coming of the posthuman or the techno-phobia associated with films such as the

Terminatorseries or the philosophical analyses of the Dreyfus brothers or Alan Wolfe.

Rather, Star Trekis perhaps suggesting that there is a way to negotiate the complex

boundary issues caught up in the human-machine interface. Star Trek, at least on this

reading, seems to be suggesting that if we adopt a different approach to technology


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perhaps we can successfully negotiate the difficult terrain that exists between humans and

machines.

Accounts of the human-machine interface that either argue for an essential difference and

inseparable gap between human beings and technology or collapse the human into the

technological, never sufficiently question either what it means to be human or the nature

of technology. They too quickly either pose the difference or collapse one into the other,

usually, in the case of the celebration of the cyborg or the posthuman, the human into the

technological. In some respects, Star Trekavoids this dichotomy and suggests that were

we to rethink both categories, we might be able to better navigate the boundary between

them. While Star Trekhas been criticized for its adherence to an Enlightenment model of

human nature (see, for instance, many of the essays collected in Harrison, et al.), implicit

in the shows dealings with marginal, technological beings is an understanding of the

nature of second personhood which suggests that human beings are interdependent,

ineluctably social, embodied beings. Star Treks portrayal of the socialization process of

Data, the Doctor, and Seven of Nine recapitulates the process each of us went through in

developing what Baier has called the arts of personhood. Importantly, Star Trek

regularly complicates these arts by showing us different cultures and civilizations with

their different understandings of the arts of personhood. From this perspective, Star Trek

avoids locating our essence in some fixed, ahistorical, universal nature and suggests a

more developmental, dynamic view of our humanity. Such a view of human nature is

more open to the ever shifting, dialectical relationship between nature and culture, human

and machine, and so would not draw the boundaries between the two so sharply. Over the

course of its more than 25 years, Star Trekindicates the manner in which the human-

machine interface is a shifting one, a gap which must continually be examined and

probed as technology and culture evolves.

Beyond rethinking a traditional notion of human nature, equally if not more importantly,

Star Trekalso rethinks the nature of technology, insisting, perhaps, on what might be a

more feminist understanding of technology. The antagonism between human and

machine at the core of many accounts of the human-machine interface is perhaps driven


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by the otherness of technology, its seeming foreignness to the naturalness of the human

being. But perhaps that foreignness is due to an overly mechanical and overly masculine

view of the nature of technology as mere product and tool. From this perspective, the

radical otherness of technology is located in its utter lack of socialization, the fact that it

is a mere product or tool of human ingenuity. It cannot serve as a model for us, as it

clearly demands that we leave behind our humanity. In TOS this is clearly seen in its

many portrayals of artificial intelligence. Technology which is overly rational, rigid,

autonomous, instrumental, must be resisted as a model for humanity. Perhaps, though, if

technology is approached from the perspective of the arts of personhood we wouldnt

find the boundaries between us and them, human and machine, to be so problematic.

Perhaps the real question that Star Trek raises is the question of how the boundary

between human being and machine is to be negotiated. When the boundary is negotiated

in a more humane way, through the development of a socialized, interdependent

relationship with marginal beings such as Data, Seven of Nine, and the Doctor, it is not

so much feared as approached with curiosity.

This approach to technology, which I have suggested Star Trekimplicitly avows, has its

analogues in several recent examples of feminist reconceptualizations of technology. In

Feminism Confronts Technology, Judy Wajcman argues that it is a mistake to approach

technology merely as a tool. Technology is a culture, and we must critically analyze the

traditional patriarchal culture of which it is a part and recognize that [t]he evolution ofa

technology is thus the function of a complex set of technical, social, economic, and

political factors (23). Wacjman contends that we need to rethink the culture in which

technology is both produced and functions, a culture in which technology comes to

embody patriarchal values. We need to reconceive technology based on womens values.

Wajcman argues that technological change is starved of the so-called female values such

as intuition, subjectivity, tenacity, and compassion (18). Alison Adams, in Artificial

Knowing: Gender and the Thinking Machine, is critical of work in artificial life, artificial

intelligence, and robotics for presupposing masculine, competitive, rationalist,

individualist models of human life and ignoring that human beings function as members

of a social group, have a shared culture, and forms of embodiment that generally require


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looking after and caring for other bodies. Adams asks of Rodney Brooks project COG,

the attempt to build an artificial person: Who will take Cog shopping or to the park? Is

Cog to be brought up as a boy or a girl? Will he or she see that mommies do all the

nurturing work and hold the household together while daddies are absent, at work or

elsewhere? Will Cog get a Barbie or an Action Man for Christmas? (133). Adams cites

the work of Harry Collins as an important corrective to the standard approach. Drawing

on his critique of expert systems, Adams maintains that the interpretive asymmetry and

the associated brittleness of expert systems can only be overcome by computers sharing

our forms-of-life and he cannot imagine their achieving this as things now stand. They

would have to do it in some different and perhaps currently unimaginable way (83).

Collins has stressed the importance of growing up and learning to be part of a culture and

to be intelligent, to understand and to have knowledge within that cultural setting. Adams

suggests that these technologies must emerge from a position of situatedness within a

culture. As a final example of this alternative approach to technology, we might briefly

consider Marge Piercys feminist appropriation of cyberpunk themes inHe, She and It,

which tells the story of Shira Shipmans socialization of the cyborg Yod. Shira has been

hired by the brilliant roboticist Avram to help with the programming of his latest cyborg

creation Yod. Avram has created a series of cyborgs, but all of them have failed. It is not

until Avram brings in Shira and her grandmother, Malkah, who is also a programmer,

that they are successful in creating an artificial being. Shira and Malkahs contribution to

Yods programming takes the form of socialization, and it is only through this process of

socialization that Yod is able to survive where the previous robots and cyborgs were not.

It is by learning how to love and care for others, address and be addressed by others, that

Yod comes to understand what it means to be human. And in the process of socializing

Yod and ultimately coming to love him, Shira too learns something of what it means to

be human. The process Yod moves through, modeled on an explicitly feminist model by

Piercy, is strikingly similar to the process of socialization through which Data, the

Doctor, and Seven of Nine move. It is the process of becoming a second person.

Wajcman, Adams, and Piercy support the contention that a technology born of a different

culture, a feminist rather than patriarchal culture, will be a technology that is socialized

and situated, embodied and embedded.


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Star Trekshares with these more explicitly feminist models, an understanding that

embracing technology need not lead to the end of man or the posthuman. Both the fear

and the hope that it will are premised upon mistaken views of both the human and the

machine. Rather, Star Trekimplicitly suggests that it is possible to re-negotiate the

human-machine interface in such a way as to both preserve the arts of personhood and

understand and appreciate our relationship to our technological artifacts.

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Code, Lorraine. What Can She Know?. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1991.

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star trek and the posthuman

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