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What's wrong with the doctor?
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I saw an episode of Star Trek Voyager last night and I'm pretty sure I saw an immensely painful logical flaw. Let's remember something from the outset: in Voyager the doctor is an EMH - that is, an "Emergency Medical Hologram," meaning that he's a computer generated image with tactile functionality provided by the futuristic "force field."
Given that this is a fictitious story, and that it utilizes total fantasy (which I can understand), there is the issue that, even in a futuristic society this particular scenario makes no sense whatsoever. The patient lies on the bed - she, I believe, in her own way, is also a computer generated image - a replica of some data that they found...somewhere (I'm not entirely sure about the details, I could be totally wrong on this point).
But get this: this computer generated image, in an attempt to reconstruct this alien image, stands erect, and pronounces a command along the lines of (and I'm paraphrasing, here) "Computer! Provide suitable apparrel" and, lo and behold! Clothes suddenly eminate across the body of the prostrate ... whatever.
Now isn't that amazing? And how can it be that no one in the 24th century (or is it the 25th? No matter) could have possibly imagined the lunacy of that simple action. We're constantly reminded on this show of how there is this almighty computer that controls all of the ship's systems (although, I never see an actual computer expert onboard - it's usually left up to engineering which, in my opinion is akin to letting Bubba the mechanic fix your laptop).
After all, this computer generated the EMH and then proceeded to have it issue a voice command to the ships computer - back to itself! And then, in other episodes they bitch about running out of power, or resources. In the comparatively void, desert of space, they happily waste energy in having a computer generate an image and then have that image issue commands back to the computer that produced it in the first place. |
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