Defining Life

What is life?

In the Star Trek The Next Generation Episode “Home Soil,” the Enterprise crew is assisting a terraforming project on a lifeless world when they encounter a strange flickering crystal. Eventually they discover that not only can this strange crystal reproduce itself, but it can actually communicate with them. Referring to the humans as “ugly giant bags of mostly water,” the crystal explains how the terraformers were unknowingly damaging its home world and causing it suffering. In the end they agree to abandon their project and leave the entity and its planet alone.

Join the Syracuse Philosophy Club as we ponder this episode and dig into the nature of life and consciousness. We’ll attempt to answer the following difficult questions:

• Was the crystal a life form?
• What properties does a being need to have to count as life?
• Was the crystal conscious?
• Is the ability to feel pain necessary to count as alive?
• Are the notions of life and consciousness even connected at all?
• What are the ethical implications of these questions?

The episode in question, Home Soil, is from Star Trek The Next Generation Season 1 Episode 18. A synopsis can be read here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Soil, and the script can be found here: http://www.chakoteya.net/NextGen/117.htm

(Unfortunately I don’t have any link to watch the episode but I believe it is available on Paramount Plus).

Here are some youtube links of clips:
Discovery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdyJbXix-lw
Reproduction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UarzRb_LoZA

See you then!