Hey yall! I’m stoned af and watching star trek on a weekend, naturally. I lost my place since last weekend in TNG season 3, but I knew that I wasn’t far in so I just watched all the intros until I found where I left off. Episode 8 “the price”, Troi gets frustrated with the replicator for wanting a “real” chocolate sundae. This raised a question for me, wouldn’t food replicators be intelligent enough to simulate the process of “the standard” ingredients being processed into the recipe? Like I thought that was the point of being able to say “Earl grey tea, hot”. Like wouldn’t she just have to say “betazoid chocolate sundae” or whatever?
EDIT: SECOND QUESTION: Say you have a family recipe cookbook or whatever and the comfort food is in that cookbook, couldn’t you just say “simulate the process of making the recipe from this cookbook”?
Yeah, food is like music, it’s just not enough to hit the right notes and there is infinite variations even with the same notes in the same order. Food also uses TWO senses so it’s even more complicated.
It’s probably difficult to program something to arrange atoms just the way your grandma used to.
TNG episodes have touched on that very point. Data had played his music by duplicating famous musicians exactly, but, following Picard’s advice, he began using variations of two or more combined, which Picard suggested was more like human creativity.
Excellent points!
Food uses all five senses. Besides taste and smell, we respond to the look of food, and also how it feels, it’s texture. We even talk about “mouth feel.” Crunchy, creamy, smooth, spicy, etc. are all a part of the sense of touch.
Hearing? When you are in a restaurant, and they rush a tray of hot fajitas past your table, don’t you swivel your head to look toward it as soon as you hear that sizzle? How about the loud crunch of a Doritos, or a taco?