Some thoughts on Star Trek: Generations

Who is in the Nexus?

Supposedly, experiencing it, only those who physically entered, independent of whether they chose to leave or not, with the only restriction on those who chose to leave being that they can't leave again.

When Soran re-entered the Nexus he simply regained the ability to leave again, only that he'd never use it. The destruction of his alter-ego in an alternative timeline has to be considered inconsequential for the Nexus.

Those who have not physically entered the Nexus are merely experienced, but don't experience themselves, where the principle that guides their actions is the deepest wish of those who experience them, but therein lies a problem, because they might be experienced by more than one person.

Also, what makes two people, who both experience, meet?

How would it be resolved, if one person would like to meet the other, but the other person had rather not met the former?

Considering what is shown to us, we must assume that these issues are resolved in the Nexus in the following way: You can both summon another person into your world and insert yourself into another's, but you're only dealing with one of many versions of that person, who is simultaneously pursuing his own pursuits unpestered by you.

Still, if animosity did arise, a clash of wills in someone's world would occur and we can only speculate as to the consequences of that, most likely the death of the disturber in the way that suited the world creator best. If the person who suffered this fate could in return summon the tormentor into his world, a whole lot of unpleasantness could ensue, though it would exist parallelly to the entirety of pleasantness.

Whether you can insert yourself into someone's world, after he has once killed you there, is a question that we cannot with any certainty answer. And on the question of memories from parallel existences we are left to assume that all possible states of remembering exist parallelly, i.e. that time truly has no meaning as all possible chronological permutations of events exist parallelly, so with regard to dying in particular, there would be one string of events in which the memory of that would come last, i.e. never, since we're considering infinite strings, and another in which it would come first.

Curtly put, the Nexus seems to be a place, where omnipotence and evasion are intertwined.

But does that mean that nothing in the Nexus mattered?

After all, you could summon all people who ever entered the Nexus into your world, and they would be real.

As it is shown in the film, you get the idea that what makes things matter is that people can't avoid each other's powers, but have to add or subtract them. But is the basic arithmetic of power accumulation really a nobler cause to pursue than what can be pursued in the Nexus?

Seen like this, Soran is right: It does not matter what happens in a universe of mutual coercion compared to the opportunity to leave it.

But what is the basis of this whole speculation?

It's that we know, what we would like to happen. Based on that we can develop alternative scenarios of human existence. But all out of the whole of our existence that created these fantasies is that we're aware that we anticipate satisfaction.

That should give us pause. Perhaps that what matters to us isn't linked to that anticipation at all? - as opposed to hinging on the latter's importance to us by way of alternative outcomes.

Differently put, it might not be about winning, but about having done something lasting in true accordance with oneself.

We have a concept of the world and ourselves, before we have experienced any of the two. It is a mistake to base one's thinking on these concepts alone. Both the world and oneself have to be found. We find what matters to us in retrospect, possibly ex negativo, and once we have experienced the notion, we begin to be able to anticipate it as well, but not before.

The world is not a bleak place, because our pre-existing notions suggest it, and neither is it likewise blessed: we must first live, before we conclude, our understanding needs to develop.