Info

Meta Treks: A Star Trek Philosophy Podcast

Meta Treks is a Trek.fm podcast dedicated to a deep examination of the philosophical ideas found in Star Trek. In each episode, Zachary Fruhling and Mike Morrison take you on a fascinating journey into the inner workings of Star Trek storytelling, deeper into subspace than you've ever traveled before.
RSS Feed Subscribe in Apple Podcasts
Meta Treks: A Star Trek Philosophy Podcast
2020
August
April


2019
November
October
June
May
January


2018
October
September
July
May
April
March


2017
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2016
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2015
December
November
October


Categories

All Episodes
Archives
Categories
Now displaying: February, 2017
Feb 27, 2017

Disobeying Orders.  

Starfleet officers generally respect the chain of command. When an order comes down the pipe from a superior officer or from the Federation council, that order is usually obeyed out of duty, honor, loyalty, and respect. But when is it appropriate for a Starfleet officer to disobey orders or defy the chain of command? When an unjust order comes from one of the many "badmirals" in the Star Trek universe? When the lives of your shipmates are in imminent danger? Out of friendship or conflicting loyalties? In this episode of Meta Treks, hosts Zachary Fruhling and Mike Morrison discuss the ethics of rule-breaking and disobeying orders in the Star Trek universe and beyond!  

Chapters 
Welcome to Episode 59 (00:01:07) 
Initial Thoughts and Examples (00:01:48) 
Motivations for Disobeying Orders (00:06:42) 
The Chain of Command - Intrinsic Value vs. Pragmatic Value (00:16:40) 
Philosophical Justification for Following Orders (00:45:50) 
Inquiries and Courts-Martial (01:00:54)  

Hosts 
Zachary Fruhling and Mike Morrison  

Production 
Mike Morrison (Editor) Zachary Fruhling (Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Patrick Devlin (Associate Producer) Kay Shaw (Associate Producer) Norman Lao (Associate Producer) Kit Loffstadt (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)  

Send us your feedback! 
Twitter: @trekfm 
Facebook: http://facebook.com/trekfm 
Voicemail: http://www.speakpipe.com/trekfm 
Contact Form: http://www.trek.fm/contact 
Visit the Trek.fm website at http://www.trek.fm/ 
Subscribe in iTunes: http://itunes.com/trekfm  

Support the Network! 
Become a Trek.fm Patron on Patreon and help us keep Star Trek talk coming every week. We have great perks for you at http://patreon.com/trekfm

Feb 13, 2017

Dimensions.  

Reflecting on dimensions has a long history in popular culture, from the geometrically minded satirical novella Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott to the 1937 film The Fourth Dimension by director Jean Painleve. But how is the relationship between different dimensions explored in the Star Trek universe? From a plane of two-dimensional beings in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Loss," to higher-dimensional beings like members of the Q continuum with their ability to pop in and out of three-dimensional space at will, Star Trek is replete with examples of dimensional interplay.  

In this episode of Meta Treks, hosts Mike Morrison and Zachary Fruhling are joined by Trek.fm Patreon manager and host of Melodic Treks and Warp Five, Brandon-Shea Mutala, to discuss the physics, the philosophy, and the geometry of dimensions in the Star Trek universe.  

Chapters 
Welcome to Episode 58 (00:01:09) 
Introducing Brandon-Shea Mutala and Patreon (00:01:58) 
Flatland and The Fourth Dimension (00:15:26) 
Time as a Dimension vs. Higher Spatial Dimensions (00:18:46) 
Lower-Dimensional and Higher-Dimensional Beings (00:21:01) 
Bending Space - Warp Drive and Wormholes (00:30:28) 
Higher-Dimensions and Omniscience (00:43:20) 
Slices of Cheese - Alternate Three-Dimensional Realms (00:45:51) 
Four-Dimensionalism and Wormhole Aliens (00:50:23) 
The Motion Picture and Visualizing Dimensional Slices (00:57:28) 
Fluidic Space - A Different Kind of Cheese (00:59:07) 
Captain Proton and The Fifth Dimension (01:03:12) 
Dimensions in Theoretical Physics - String Theory (01:04:46) 
The Paranormal and Pseudoscience (01:08:26) 
From Theoretical Physics to Experimental Physics (01:12:14) 
Dimensions, Transporters, and Personal Identity (01:14:06) 
The Mathematics of Higher Dimensions (01:16:57) 
Final Thoughts (01:18:14)  

Hosts 
Mike Morrison and Zachary Fruhling  

Guest 
Brandon-Shea Mutala  

Production 
Mike Morrison (Editor) Zachary Fruhling (Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Patrick Devlin (Associate Producer) Kay Shaw (Associate Producer) Norman Lao (Associate Producer) Kit Loffstadt (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)  

Send us your feedback! 
Twitter: @trekfm 
Facebook: http://facebook.com/trekfm 
Voicemail: http://www.speakpipe.com/trekfm 
Contact Form: http://www.trek.fm/contact 
Visit the Trek.fm website at http://www.trek.fm/ 
Subscribe in iTunes: http://itunes.com/trekfm  

Support the Network! 
Become a Trek.fm Patron on Patreon and help us keep Star Trek talk coming every week. We have great perks for you at http://patreon.com/trekfm

Feb 6, 2017

"Sacred Ground" and Religious Explanations.  

What happens when a scientist has a religious experience not fully explainable by science? When Kes's life falls in jeopardy, Captain Janeway, with tricorder in hand and eagerly willing to face any challenge she might face, volunteers to participate in a religious ritual to petition the Ancestral Spirits of the Nechani (or rather, the Bajorans of the Delta Quadrant...) and plead for Kes's life.  

In this episode of Meta Treks, hosts Zachary Fruhling and Mike Morrison discuss Captain Janeway's journey of self-discovery, as she learns to reconcile her faith in science with her openness to new experiences, including the question of whether the relationship between scientific explanations and religious explanations is one of contradiction, complementariness, or coherence.  

Chapters 
Welcome to Episode 57 (00:01:06) 
Initial Thoughts on Sacred Ground (00:01:50) 
The Nechani - Delta Quadrant Bajorans (00:06:00) 
Sciencing the Religion - Bring Your Tricorder (00:08:27) 
Is Science a Type of Faith? (00:10:56) 
Modes of Explanation (00:14:16) 
The Voyager Files - Kathryn Mulder and Dr. Scully (00:18:39) 
Scientific Explanations for Miracles - Spirits of the Gaps (00:22:23) 
Falsifiability and Private Religious Experience (00:35:58) 
Kirekegaard and Religious Conviction - Comparison of Janeway/Kes to Abraham/Isaac (00:38:10) 
Physical Challenge! The Mouth of Truth (00:41:57) 
Analyzing Past Religious Experiences (00:47:21) 
Janeway's Expectations and Waiting on the Spirits (00:50:10) 
One Universe = Unified Explanations (01:00:55) 
Final thoughts (01:02:27)  

Hosts 
Zachary Fruhling and Mike Morrison  

Production 
Mike Morrison (Editor) Zachary Fruhling (Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Patrick Devlin (Associate Producer) Kay Shaw (Associate Producer) Norman Lao (Associate Producer) Kit Loffstadt (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)  

Send us your feedback! 
Twitter: @trekfm 
Facebook: http://facebook.com/trekfm 
Voicemail: http://www.speakpipe.com/trekfm 
Contact Form: http://www.trek.fm/contact 
Visit the Trek.fm website at http://www.trek.fm/ 
Subscribe in iTunes: http://itunes.com/trekfm  

Support the Network! 
Become a Trek.fm Patron on Patreon and help us keep Star Trek talk coming every week. We have great perks for you at http://patreon.com/trekfm

1