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beccaelizabethI've just started watching more ST:TNG, 'Thine Own Self'. Data loses his memory and wanders around with a box marked 'radioactive' without knowing what 'radioactive' means. But he is talking, with words, in language. How can the story justify that he has language, words, understands words, can read the word 'radioactive', and yet cannot remember that a box marked up in red with 'radioactive' on it is dangerous? Because the whole plot turns on that one implausibility, and it has lost me from the get go. Saying he has words but no personal memory is more workable for an artificial life form. Saying he has words but forgot this and only this word is ridiculous.
It isn't a case of applying SF standards of suspension of disbelief, it isn't about tweaking physics or biology to new rules, it's about saying something is both true and not true at once, he both does and does not know the word.
Fail.
... hang on, I just thought of a loophole. Data is not wearing his comm badge. He is communicating with a local in a language not specificed. He initially echoes the words and then discovers how to express himself. What if he's only talking their language? If he has lost English but has accessed the local language then he would lack the words for concepts they have not discovered. It still doesn't explain how he can read English, but plenty of words can be sounded out without being understood. So he's not using his usual language chip, just a local one.
Right, now I can watch the rest of the episode without having to fast forward through that story.
*watches five more minutes*
... nooooo, he just demonstrated advanced scientific knowledge, including words like organic and chemical that the teacher doesn't know. So that doesn't work either.
He knows too much and too little at once. It's just screwed.
It isn't a case of applying SF standards of suspension of disbelief, it isn't about tweaking physics or biology to new rules, it's about saying something is both true and not true at once, he both does and does not know the word.
Fail.
... hang on, I just thought of a loophole. Data is not wearing his comm badge. He is communicating with a local in a language not specificed. He initially echoes the words and then discovers how to express himself. What if he's only talking their language? If he has lost English but has accessed the local language then he would lack the words for concepts they have not discovered. It still doesn't explain how he can read English, but plenty of words can be sounded out without being understood. So he's not using his usual language chip, just a local one.
Right, now I can watch the rest of the episode without having to fast forward through that story.
*watches five more minutes*
... nooooo, he just demonstrated advanced scientific knowledge, including words like organic and chemical that the teacher doesn't know. So that doesn't work either.
He knows too much and too little at once. It's just screwed.
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Date: 2011-02-09 08:33 am (UTC)Saying he has words but no personal memory is more workable for an artificial life form.
It's also plausible for a natural one. ;o) Usually people who have amnesia are able to name random object around them and generally known figures like polilicians or popstars, but wouldn't recognize their own fathers or sisters. Something about that information being stored seperately. Human brains work funny that way.
I don't remember that episode, but could imagine it working better, if he had some item marked in a way that was personally significant yet useless to a random observer. Of course then a causal viewer wouldn't immediately connect the thing with danger. They should have added a line of dialogue about the cause of the amnesia also making him forget about radioactivity specifically.