What kind of metaphysical picture is the Star Trek universe actually positing about minds, souls, and how creatures communicate? Does it posit the existence of a nonphysical soul, a purely physical mind, or something else? Can I (please) learn how to perform a Vulcan mind meld? Is it really possible to fully share another creature’s conscious experience to “become one” with a Medusan?ĭoes Star Trek’s mind meld mean that you are totally sharing conscious experience? What does it mean for two minds to “merge” and become “one”? In this essay, I’d like to investigate a few questions that this mystifying process raises: Some philosophers argue that it is totally impossible to understand the conscious experience of a creature whose cognition is different from ours. He is even able to meld minds with a Medusan, a hyperintelligent gaseous creature with navigational understanding far more advanced than a human’s, and communicate the insights that the Medusan has about navigating a spaceship in the episode “Is There in Truth no Beauty?” We first see him mind meld with humans to get information for intelligence purposes, as when Kirk, Communications Officer Nyota Uhura, Chief Medical Officer Leonard “Bones” McCoy, and Chief Engineer Montgomery “Scotty” Scott are switched with their evil twins in from an alternate universe in Star Trek: The Original Series episode “Mirror, Mirror.” But in the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, we also see him communicate with a humpback whale, a creature we’d think incapable of language, and say that “she told” him that she was pregnant. In Star Trek, Spock is able to meld minds with a dazzling array of creatures. ![]() These questions included: What is happening during the melds? Is it a physical process? Are they merging souls? Is it possible? And, especially important for my younger self: could I do it? ![]() This practice raised a lot of questions for me as a kid. In this practice, a Vulcan or other creature who has achieved telepathy merges minds completely with a being of another species–feeling all of their subjective experiences–as if the two were one. They are my second favorite Star Trek alien, close behind the shapeshifting jellyfish that is the size of a planet from Star Trek: TNG’s “Encounter at Farpoint”). They are basically humans with pointy ears whose culture is based around logic and repressing your emotions. ![]() But one thing that stuck out to me particularly was the Vulcan mind meld: a practice, done largely but not exclusively by Vulcans (Vulcans are, if you’ve been living under a rock, are one of the most famous alien races from Star Trek. Kirk and his half-Vulcan first officer Spock the promise of scientific discovery in lands far beyond our own. The promise of a pluralist, space-faring utopia that had advanced beyond the need for money the homoerotic tension between its two leading men, Captain James T. As an 11-year-old watching Star Trek, I was entranced by many aspects of its universe.
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