From: jwindley%asylum.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Jay Windley)
Subject: Re: Eating within the Holodeck
Date: 1 Oct 92 22:40:12 MDT
Keywords: holodeck
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept

swindley@elec.uq.oz.au (Robert Swindley) writes:
>What i was really trying to get at....
>
>   It's in some tech note somewhere that the holodeck
>actually converts energy into matter to produce some
>things on the holodeck.

Actually that is the position expressed by Capt. Picard in TNG
episodes which feature the holodeck.  The Technical Manual states only
that replicator technology is used to create the matter, and it
previously states that replicated matter is not created "ex nihilo"
from energy, but is manipulated at the molecular level from recycled
waste products and central stores.

>It has further been stated
>that something created on the holodeck cannot be
>removed ie it will dissolve/dissappear as the 
>fields holding it together are no longer in effect`
>after it leaves the deck.

That all depends on how the "matter" is created.  Some of what is seen
-- the items not likely to be touched -- are simply holograms.
Here's what it says:

"Objects created on the Holodeck that are pure holographic images
cannot be removed from the Holodeck, even if they appear to possess
physical reality because of the focused forcebeam imagery [i.e., the
projector lenses can't project out into the corridor].  Objects
created by replicator matter conversion do have physical reality and
can indeed be removed from the Holodeck, even though they will no
longer be under computer control."  (p. 156)

So if you eat a chocolate sundae on the holodeck, you've eaten a real
chocolate sundae, and the molecules are welcome to accompany you out
the door.  That's because the chocolate is inanimate -- once created
it doesn't need to be under constant computer control.  The computer
just creates chocolate and lets it be chocolate.

But this does explain why Moriarty is not able to leave the holodeck
-- the force fields by which the computer animates him are not able to
function outisde the holodeck.  We saw what happens in the first
season of TNG, when two Dixon Hill villians step outside the door and
disintegrate.

But there is actually a gaping plot hole in Moriarty's case, depending
upon where Moriarty's intelligence was vested.  If it was vested -- as
is more believable -- in the external computer, then it should be
possible to extract it and maintain it as a viable computer program
irrespective of its physical I/O device on the holodeck.  Yes, there
are dramatic elements involved, such as whether Moriarty can really
exist without his human form, but the problem is still that holodeck
matter itself is not animate, no matter how animate it seems.  That's
the computer manipulating it from afar.

>   Now if a member of the crew was to _live_ on the
>holodeck for an extended period, eating the food 
>created by the holodeck, would the holodeck 
>projection system claim back it's molecules???

Nope.  It's real food, just as real as any produced by the other
replicator terminals on board ship.  Presumably, if the holodeck
computer were smart enough, the inhabitant's waste products would be
injected into the waste system, to be reused.

>(eg in the short term if i ate something on the
>holodeck to sate my hunger and then left the deck
>would i still be hungry???

Depends on how easy it is to sate your hunger. :-)



--------------------------------+---------------------------------------
Jay Windley                     | jwindley@asylum.cs.utah.edu
Department of Computer Science  +---------------------------------------
Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City   | Error non est sed facilitas.