I only just saw this comment, and I had the same Hitchhiker's-evoking reaction. From the original radio series: The Total Perspective Vortex derives its picture of the whole Universe on the principle of extrapolated matter analyses. To explain — since every piece of matter in the Universe is in some way affected by every other piece of matter in the Universe, it is in theory possible to extrapolate the whole of creation — every sun, every planet, their orbits, their composition and their economic and social history from, say, one small piece of fairy cake.
Yup. But the thing is, real-world physics is pretty much like that anyway. Something that clearly doesn't make an ounce of sense is how the world works, deep down. Also, growing creatures out of single cells of other creatures is pretty much standard fare. Why wouldn't one of Data's neurons suffice for the task depicted? Timo Saloniemi
In some cases it has even been revered. The Kirk-Uhura kiss in TOS episode "Plato's Stepchildren" for example. No way that wasn't a rape scene [neither Kirk nor Uhura gave consent, in fact, they were both portrayed as fighting it], but gets hailed as a television landmark moment.
The impression I got was that there's something about positronic brains (or maybe it's just Soong's design, specifically) that works kind of like holographic memory; so within each positronic neuron would reside the instructions to reconstitute the entire network. So maybe not literally like DNA, but sort of, at least in general principle if not the specific mechanics. If so then Maddox was right: dismantling Data would have allowed him to build more... Perhaps this functionality, or rather it's absence in Lal and other failed attempts is why recreating Data has been so difficult. Without an in-built way for the brain to map and check itself while still growing and adapting they could be inherently unstable, prone to cascade failures. My working theory for now is that said fragment of Data's brain combined with Borg nano-tech allowed for a recreation of his neural net, but not his memories. Hence: daughters. The synthetic DNA imagery in the title sequence could be very literal.
Which is, quite terrible and frustrating, given the gravitas that is assigned to that scene. Shatner even notes in "Star Trek Memories" how they fought for that scene and then it was still edited differently than how it was shot due to studio directive. Yeah, it wasn't thought out well... Interesting. I was curious has to how the memory might be built, if one positronic neuron would be sufficient or if a network was required. Because, when people go "Oh, we clone all the time" its like, "Yes, because in a cell is sufficient DNA information to do so." If a positronic neuron has a similar memory and "DNA" style instructions then it becomes more understandable. However, my initial reaction was "Doesn't make much sense. It would be like finding a fragment of a hard drive and restoring all of its memory."
Remember that cloning a person wouldn't recreate them; it would create a new person with the same fundamental structure. It'd be a blank slate; all memories and experiences would be new ones. And this information wouldn't be to recreate a whole organism, just the neural pathway architecture. A map that tells each neuron where it is and where all the others are, and a set of instructions for each and every neuron to communicate. Now there may be some analogue to epigenetics or even genetic memory ; a form of "android instinct" either left being from Soong's original programming or passed on from Data's own experiences, expressed at a subconscious level.
It would mean that every single neuron would have to have all the information collected by ever single other neuron in Data's brain. Even if there are only as many neurons in his brain as a human beings, this would be saying that Data's brain is built with over 100 billion levels of redundancy, not to mention a memory storage capacity of each neuron has to be practically infinite. The question is, does this make sense based on how Data has been presented?
I have to go with 'no, it doesn't.' The whole android technobable aspect certainly was one thing that made me raise my eyebrow in the first episode.
Which brings up the question: if an android's personality and even life can be resurrected from just one positronic neuron then was Lal truly dead? It's possible Data didn't understand that there might be a possibility of resurrecting his daughter using the positronic neuron technique(especially since, presumably, Bruce Maddox had yet to discover or invent the technique) but cascade failure might not have been the final end of Lal if one neuron could have been retrieved and used to "reboot" her in another android body.
And everyone knows Surak did it years ago, and his androids could even have babies....true artificial life....
If Surak's Reformation wanted to take living Vulcans out of the security and defense equation by researching or even constructing synthetic individuals to govern their planetary military and the early Romulans objected that could have played a role in their leaving to form their own society on another habitable planet. Vulcans did almost bomb themselves into extinction with nuclear weapons. It may have scared them into never again wanting to handle advanced weaponry and seeking AI that they could trust to do the job for them.