The fact that everyone treats Golem-Picard as True-Picard felt to me like confirmation that, in the ST universe, what makes you you is your mind. Memories, thought patterns, etc… I know it was tv-show hand wavery but the fact that no one mourned the death of their friend, or really ever once questioned the validity of the golem taking his place bothered me a little.
Sure, and maybe I could have phrased my comment above better. I just watched Second Chances recently, and they make a point of saying the Thomas and Will Riker have very similar brain patterns. So star trek has pretty consistently been a universe in which the self is brain patterns, and brain patterns are physical things that can copied, saved in worm aliens, and reformatted to robot bodies types.
The fact that everyone treats Golem-Picard as True-Picard felt to me like confirmation that, in the ST universe, what makes you you is your mind. Memories, thought patterns, etc… I know it was tv-show hand wavery but the fact that no one mourned the death of their friend, or really ever once questioned the validity of the golem taking his place bothered me a little.
Also, M’Benga’s daughter is still the same person, despite being an energy being now, without a physical body.
If my consciousness is continuing, especially into a physical form that looks exactly like myself, what practical difference does it make?
Sure, and maybe I could have phrased my comment above better. I just watched Second Chances recently, and they make a point of saying the Thomas and Will Riker have very similar brain patterns. So star trek has pretty consistently been a universe in which the self is brain patterns, and brain patterns are physical things that can copied, saved in worm aliens, and reformatted to robot bodies types.