Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.PCS 1/10/84; site mtgzz.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!bellcore!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!mtuxo!mtgzz!leeper
From: leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper)
Newsgroups: net.startrek,net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Followup to 'His was the most human...'
Message-ID: <1687@mtgzz.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 24-Feb-86 13:05:08 EST
Article-I.D.: mtgzz.1687
Posted: Mon Feb 24 13:05:08 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Feb-86 06:48:00 EST
References: <1661@mtgzz.UUCP> <624@riccb.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Labs, Middletown NJ
Lines: 95
Xref: linus net.startrek:4118 net.sf-lovers:11372

>> In STAR TREK III McCoy even comments on all those arguments that Spock
>> lost.  Now since argument should be an exercise in logic . . . [Spock]
>> should not lose an argument.
>
>He never did.  That's McCoy's opinion, that Spock lost arguments.

I think it was also the opinion of the director.  Why else would Spock
have a puzzled expression on his face and Kirk and McCoy have smiles of
apparent victory?

>Regarding Spock's decisions at the end of "The Galileo Seven":
>
>> I would have thought that what Spock did was the only logical thing to
>> do, but the script has Spock accept it as an emotional action.
>
>Not at all.  Spock says it was logical to take an illogical action.

But it wasn't an illogical action.  It is a contradiction in terms to
be logical to take an illogical action.  In this case the logical
action is to take whatever action is possible.  The emotional response
would be to either do the same or to give in to pessimism and not try.
I would rather have the logical entity making the decisions, not an
emotional one.

>
>About Diane Duane and the screwed-up chess scene with McCoy and Spock:
>If Spock says he cannot find a way out of check, then any conclusion
>Duane writes which has McCoy winning the game is STUPID.  This only
>proves that Diane Duane is a particularly bad writer, especially when
>it comes to Star Trek.

Someone must have pointed this out to her.  I am told that by the time
the book came to print, it was Kirk who had given up on the game, not
Spock.  I have not seen the book but this is a much more satisfying way
of doing the scene.

>
>> STAR TREK says emotion is better than logic;
>
>On the contrary, Star Trek says they are different, neither is superior.
>Accept both as useful in their own circumstances.  IDIC.

Maybe that is what they are saying, since I think everyone involved
thinks Spock is pretty useful to have aboard.  I am not sure in what
situations the emotional mind is actually better than the logical one.
An unfeeling piece of logical machinery, assuming it is properly
programmed for the situations it will face, and assuming that
programming has the proper sets of priorities, should match or beat the
emotional approach every time.

>
>> Spock, as he is in the TV series is pretty close to an ideal . . .
>> It is McCoy and occasionally Kirk who seem to have problems . . .
>> Spock seems comfortable with his origins when there isn't someone else
>> trying to rub his nose in them.
>
>I agree 95 per cent.  Spock wasn't comfortable until the end of
>"Star Trek: The Motion Picture".

Yes, but that story was contrived to say that Spock saw something
better in the mixed approach.  It was making the false statement that
creativity and pure logic are mutually exclusive.  As a mathematician I
know that is balderdash.  There is nothing illogical about curiosity or
creativity.  In pure mathematics logic, creativity and curiosity come
together very well.

>
>The half-white, half-AmerIndian analogy only applies if the person had
>tried to suppress his white half for years and only recently came to
>terms with the fact that his white half is valuable; he is not a whole
>person as long as he suppresses half of himself.  That's what ALL of
>the first Star Trek movie is about.

I don't follow why you say the analogy isn't applying.  Spock's soul
wasn't human.  If anything it was better than human.

>
>> Spock denied being human (he does so in ST3).
>
>Context, please?

Sorry it was ST2.  I was listening to it as I was writing.  I haven't
had a chance to go back and find the line again.

>
>> [the eulogy] was a comment that . . . Spock, if he were alive, would
>> have denied . . .
>
>I disagree strongly.  He would have said, "Why, thank you, Captain."

He did point out that he wasn't human in ST2 so I disagree with you.


				Mark Leeper
				...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper