Star Trek and the Posthuman

Dr. Dennis M. Weiss Professor of Philosophy English and Humanities Department York College of Pennsylvania York, PA 17405 dweiss@ycp.edu

This essay examines a central preoccupation of late twentieth-century, early twenty-firstcentury Western life, the human-machine interface, from the perspective of a close reading of the Star Trek franchise. Following a brief account of the current cultural context of this issue, I will defend the appropriation of Star Trek for 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 Trek shows, Star Trek (the original series, hereafter TOS), Star Trek: The Next Generation (hereafter TNG), and Voyager (hereafter V). This examination of Star Trek reveals 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.

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

definition of the human. These signs can be seen in both the popular press and in academic circles. Consider, for instance, two recent issues of Wired magazine. 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. Wired followed 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. Wired brings 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 Moravecs Mind Children and Robot, 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 Wired but 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

and machine. In Newsweek, 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. The New 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 Matrix clearly 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, in Replications: 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.

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 Allucquere Rosanne 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 of humans (4). In How 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

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 humanmachine interface, receive extended discussion in Star Trek, thus warranting a closer look at this cultural phenomenon.

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This section briefly defends the selection of Star Trek as a lens through which to examine the issues set out in the previous section. There are a number of reasons warranting the examination of Star Trek in this context. In one incarnation or another Star Trek has 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 of Star Trek novels. Given its almost unprecedented run and continuing popularity, Star Trek provides 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 Trek can 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 of Star Trek over these past thirty years might itself have had some influence on how people think about the human-machine interface and indicate that people are

generally accepting of Star Treks perspective on this issue. Star Trek may represent for many people their first contact with these themes. Additionally, its popularity may suggest that the manner in which Star Trek deals with these issues has some holding power. Perhaps the audience likes what it sees in the way in which Star Trek deals 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 Trek is deserving of some critical attention. Another reason for investigating Star Trek in regard to this theme is the shows own protechnological spin. A number of cinematic portrayals of this theme, such as The Matrix and the Terminator series, approach the human-machine interface from an antitechnology 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 of Star 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 Trek avoids 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 of Star 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 of Star Trek and many of the best of these essays have been collected in the volume Enterprise 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 Trek oeuvre. Furthermore, while the issue of the humanmachine interface has been a significant theme in Star Trek, this issue has been unjustly

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 Trek celebrates 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 Trek might 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 Trek as 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 humanmachine interface. There is much truth to this claim. This essay does not insist on the unity of Star Trek as 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 of Star Trek suggest 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.

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Turning now to an examination of Star Trek, this section first discusses the manner in which Star Trek has dealt with the human-machine interface and then considers the implications of this. The following chart documents the various marginal beings that

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

Star Trek 1966-1969 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 II. Androids Norman: I, Mudd Brown, Roc, Andrea: What are Little Girls Made Of? Rayna: Requiem for Methuselah III. Downloading the Human Mind Korby: What are Little Girls Made Of? IV. Cyborgs

Star Trek: The Next Generation 1987-1994 I. Computers and Artificial Intelligence

Voyager 1995 I. Computers and Artificial Intelligence Warhead: Warhead

V. Virtual Beings

VI. Emergent Beings and Assorted Others

II. Androids Data: The Measure of the Man; passim Lore: Datalore; Brothers; Descent Lal: The Offspring III. Downloading the Human Mind Graves: The Schizoid Man Tainer: Inheritance IV. Cyborgs La Forge: passim Picard: Samaritan Snare; Tapestry Locutus: The Best of Both Worlds The Borg: Q Who; The Best of Both Worlds; First Contact Hugh: I, Borg, Descent V. Virtual Beings Moriarty: Elementary, Dear Data; Ship in a Bottle VI. Emergent Beings and Assorted Others Nanites: Evolution Exocomps: The Quality of Life Ships Computer: Emergence

II. Androids Automated Personnel Unit: Prototype

III. Downloading the Human Mind

IV. Cyborgs The Borg Cooperative: Unity The Borg: Scorpion; Dark Frontier Seven of Nine: Scorpion; passim Superborg: Drone

V. Virtual Beings The Doctor: passim VI. Emergent Beings and 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 8

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 Trek did 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

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 Contact the 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 Trek uses 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 Trek to 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 Trek audience. 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 of Star 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 Trek affirms the importance of human embodiment, feelings and emotions, love, spontaneity, the unconscious, family, and culture.

Star Trek also 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 Trek reassures 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 of Star Trek is 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 Trek argues, 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 Trek reminds us that human perfectibility can not be found in technology alone. It should be noted, however, that Insurrection is not an antitechnology 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 the Enterprise 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. Simultaneously, 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 Contact visually 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 13

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 the middle 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 Trek often 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 Trek universe, 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 Trek may 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 Terminator series, 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 in Lawnmower 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 in Insurrection 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 Trek family 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 of Star Treks marginal beings. Each of the stable and recurring figures of Star Trek that 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 Voyager as 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 of Voyager has 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 the Enterprise and kills the crew of the Excalibur. 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 Trek presents 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 second persons, 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 selfconsciousness 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 self and 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 of Star Trek throughout its three decades and many incarnations. Star Trek, though, avoids the simplistic dichotomies present in many of the contemporary analyses of this issue. Star Trek neither 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 Terminator series or the philosophical analyses of the Dreyfus brothers or Alan Wolfe. Rather, Star Trek is 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 Trek avoids this dichotomy and suggests that were we to rethink both categories, we might be able to better navigate the boundary between them. While Star Trek has 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 Trek indicates the manner in which the humanmachine 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 Trek also 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 Trek implicitly 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 of a 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 in He, 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 Trek shares 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 Trek implicitly 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.

Works Cited

Adams, Alison. Artificial Knowing. New York: Routledge, 1997. Baier, Annette. A Naturalist View of Persons. Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association. Nov. 1991 (65.3) 5-17. ---. Postures of the Mind. Minneapolis: The U of Minnesota P, 1985. Birkerts, Sven. The Gutenberg Elegies. New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1994. Chodorow, Nancy. The Reproduction of Mothering. Berkeley: The U of California P, 1978. Code, Lorraine. What Can She Know?. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1991. Dreyfus, Hubert. What Computers Still Cant Do. Cambridge: The MIT P, 1992. Dreyfus, Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus. Mind Over Machine. New York: Free P, 1986. First Contact. J. Frakes (Director). Paramount, 1997. Fjermedal, Grant. The Tomorrow Makers. Redmond, Washington: Tempus Books, 1986. Gilligan, Carol. In a Different Voice. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard UP 1982. Hardison, O. B. Disappearing Through the Skylight. New York: Viking, 1989. Harrison, Taylor, et al. Editors. Enterprise Zones. Boulder, CO: Westview P, 1996. Hartsock, Nancy. The Feminist Standpoint. Discovering Reality. Sandra Harding and Merrill Hinticka, eds. Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel, 1983. 283-310. Hayles, N. Katherine. How We Became Posthuman. Chicago: The U of Chicago P, 1999. Insurrection. J. Frakes (Director). Paramount, 1998. Joy, Bill. Why the Future Doesnt Need Us. Wired April 2000 (8.04) 238-262.

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Keller, Evelyn Fox. Reflections on Gender and Science. New Haven: Yale UP, 1985. Kellner, Douglas and Michael Ryan. Technophobia. Alien Zone. Annette Kuhn, ed. London: Verso, 1990. 58-65. Kurzweil, Ray. The Age of Spiritual Machines. New York: Viking, 1999. Levy, Steven. Man vs. Machine. Newsweek. May 5, 1997. 51-56. The Matrix. The Wachowski Brothers (Directors). Warner Brothers, 1999. Mazlish, Bruce. The Fourth Discontinuity. New Haven: Yale UP, 1993. Moravec, Hans. Robot. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998. ---. Mind Children. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard UP, 1988. Piercy, Marge. He, She and It. New York: Fawcett Crest, 1991. Poster, Mark. The Mode of Information. Chicago: The U of Chicago P, 1990. Regis, Ed. Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition. Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley, 1990. Rose, Hilary. Hand, Brain and Heart. Signs 1983 (9.01) 73-90. Searle, John. Is the Brains Mind a Computer Program? Scientific American. Jan., 1990. Sterling, Bruce. Schismatrix Plus. New Yorks: Ace Books, 1996. Stone, Allucquere Rosanne. The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical Age. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT P, 1995. Telotte, J. P. Replications. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1995. Turkle, Sherry. The Second Self. New York: Touchstone, 1984. Wajcman, Judy. Feminism Confronts Technology. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State U P, 1991. Warwick, Kevin. Cyborg 1.0. Wired February 2000 (8.02) 145-151. Wolfe, Alan. The Human Difference. Berkeley: U of California P, 1993.

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