V'Ger's Knowledge

[CoveTom]

Y'know, as I'm going through TMP line-by-line in that thread, it occurs to me that V'Ger is supposed to have reached an impasse because it has amassed all the knowledge there is to be known in our universe. It is because of this that V'Ger needs to evolve to other dimensions and planes of existence.

Yet, if you pay attention to the movie, it's clear that V'Ger possesses nowhere near all of the knowledge in the universe. V'Ger, for example, apparently posseses no knowlegde of humans, or of any carbon-based life forms, and what their function is in the universe. It does not understand the concept of mechanical ships and how they are controlled by biological life forms. It does not understand what emotions are and what life forms have them. Even Spock, who did not understand emotions per se, knew of their existence and their role in human life. V'Ger did not even know that much about its own home planet.

For all the talk about how V'Ger had amassed all the knowledge it could in our universe, it seems like there was alot of rather basic information it was still missing.

Thoughts?

 

[SeerSGB]

Well think about it: V'Ger defines life by the parameters given to it by the machine-world. Therefore, even if it came upon a carbon-based lifeform, it might have sterlized them from the planet since they weren't "true lifeforms". It wasn't that V'ger didn't know what we were, it just that from its POV were weren't "true lifeforms".

As for ships with carbonbased life aboard, well think about it: It considered humans a infestation aboard Enterprise and the Earth. It likely thought the same thing about any other ships it ran across.

 

[CoveTom]

^ Right, but it was the Enterprise crew who maintained that V'Ger had "learned all that was learnable." Yet that was demonstrably wrong, as the Ilia probe herself said that she needed to study and learn about the carbon units. Clearly, even V'Ger realized that there were things it needed to learn. Which makes the whole "it has to evolve 'cause it can't learn anymore" thing somewhat dubious.

 

[Kryton]

Actually, there is a difference between learning something and actually UNDERSTANDING what you've learned and how it relates to everything else. This is one of the functions melding with Decker afforded the Vejur entity...a concept beyond information storage to a level where Vejur is now capable of actually getting the point of what it's stored and then further utilizing that knowledge to enhance its own existence.

Of course, that joining with Decker also afforded it the ability to recognize the fact that "The Creator" was an unnecessary concept (considering no one on Earth was even listening for it anymore) and that satisfaction of its own thirst for further knowledge was the only impetus it required to go on.

As well as the abstract concepts mentioned in the film about other dimensions and such. But I took more from it than just what was spoken aloud.

 

[RyanKCR]

Actually the point is that Vejur's Creatior was not a fruitless search. It not only knew it needed it's Creator to fulfill itself and answer some questions it could not answer, but it indeed did find it's creator and despite not being what it expected, accepted it and grew from it. Spock even mentions this. It is basically the ultimate story of the human condition. We look for God for answers and when we find Him, he is not what we expected. Some accept that and grow from it and others refuse it and just continue on without growing. TMP was about the first type.

 

[Christopher]

It's all a matter of perspective. To us, biological life, civilization, emotions, etc. are big, important components of the knowledge of the universe. But on a cosmic scale, it's all relatively trivial. A planet's biosphere is just a thin, fragile veneer on its surface. Life is a side effect of chemical and thermodynamic processes. The entire history of a civilization is just a minor blip in the lifespan of a planet. Most of the bodies in the universe -- stars, planets, brown dwarfs, nebulae, clusters, galaxies, etc. -- go about their business without being significantly affected by life or civilization or emotion in any way.

V'Ger evolved, after all, from a Voyager space probe, a mechanism designed to gather astronomical knowledge, not biological and cultural knowledge. It stands to reason that V'Ger's focus would've been similar -- that its studies would've concentrated on the 99.999...% of the universe that isn't alive or thinking or emotional and that it would've considered the infinitesimal fraction that was to be statistically indistinguishable from zero.

Indeed, that was kind of the point, wasn't it? That V'Ger's expansive knowledge base didn't include such human concepts as meaning and feeling. That it had reached the limit of exploration of the physical universe and was lacking the perspective that a human mind could offer.