There are five lights!

[marsh8472]

MADRED: Yes, I'm sure you have. (he turns on four spotlights behind his desk) How many lights do you see there?
PICARD: I see four lights.
MADRED: No, there are five. Are you quite sure?
PICARD: There are four lights.
MADRED: Perhaps you're aware of the incision on your chest. While you were under the influence of our drugs, you were implanted with a small device. It's a remarkable invention. By entering commands in this PADD, I can produce pain in any part of your body at various levels of severity. Forgive me. I don't enjoy this but I must demonstrate. It will make everything clearer.
(Picard falls to his knees in agony)
MADRED: Surprising, isn't it? Most people feel at first that they can steel themselves against it but they're completely unprepared for the intensity of the pain. That was the lowest possible setting.
PICARD: I know nothing about Minos Korva.
MADRED: But I've told you that I believe you. I didn't ask you about Minos Korva. I asked how many lights you see.
PICARD: There are four lights.
MADRED: I don't understand how you can be so mistaken.

For the sake of argument we're going to assume there are indeed five lights. Now we just have to prove it. Why are there 5 lights?

Here are some ideas I can think of:

1) "Five" in Cardassian language means "Four" in ours
2) 1 light to them means 1 and 1/4th of a light to us. Then do 4*(5/4) = 5 lights
3) Some kind of anomaly is affecting the laws of logic causing the law of non-contradiction to allow 4 to equal 5 but 5 to not equal 4. It's similar to how the gambling devices in DS9 episode "Rivals" affected the laws of probability
4) There's a special characteristic about one of the lights which requires it to be counted twice
5) One of the lights is outside of the visible spectrum of Humans but perhaps not Cardassians
6) When he says "there" in "How many lights do you see there?", he's referring to the 4 lights above him plus some other light in the vicinity of what "there" means.

 

[Devilpogostick]

...Maybe Picard was secretly bad at basic math?

Yeah, I'm just joining this topic cause why not?

 

[marsh8472]

...Maybe Picard was secretly bad at basic math?

Yeah, I'm just joining this topic cause why not?

They did give him drugs too, maybe it affected his ability to count or see all the lights

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

You are all missing the point.

The point is NOT how many lights there actually are. That's irrelevant. The point of torture like this is to make the victim believe things that aren't true- that way the torturer has complete control.

The reason Madred keeps insisting that there are five lights, when Picard knows there are actually four, is to make Madred's control over Picard's world complete. If Madred can make Picard deny the evidence of his own senses, then Madred has total control over Picard's reality. That is the whole point of torture.

And no, it wouldn't work for Picard to just say there are five lights - Madred would be able to tell that he's lying. The point is to make Picard actually believe there are five lights (or however many Madred says).

 

[JirinPanthosa]

In the Cardassian language, when kids learn to count they start from zero. 'Zero, one, two, three, four' is so ingrained into Madred's head that when he was learning English, whose lesson books start from one, he assumed 'one' was really 0, 'two' was really 1 and so on.

 

[Devilpogostick]

You are all missing the point.

The point is NOT how many lights there actually are. That's irrelevant. The point of torture like this is to make the victim believe things that aren't true- that way the torturer has complete control.

The reason Madred keeps insisting that there are five lights, when Picard knows there are actually four, is to make Madred's control over Picard's world complete. If Madred can make Picard deny the evidence of his own senses, then Madred has total control over Picard's reality. That is the whole point of torture.

And no, it wouldn't work for Picard to just say there are five lights - Madred would be able to tell that he's lying. The point is to make Picard actually believe there are five lights (or however many Madred says).

Yeah, I'm pretty sure we know. Cause we wouldn't be posting silly reasonings if that wasn't the case.

Silly thread wanted silly answers.

 

[marsh8472]

You are all missing the point.

The point is NOT how many lights there actually are. That's irrelevant. The point of torture like this is to make the victim believe things that aren't true- that way the torturer has complete control.

The reason Madred keeps insisting that there are five lights, when Picard knows there are actually four, is to make Madred's control over Picard's world complete. If Madred can make Picard deny the evidence of his own senses, then Madred has total control over Picard's reality. That is the whole point of torture.

And no, it wouldn't work for Picard to just say there are five lights - Madred would be able to tell that he's lying. The point is to make Picard actually believe there are five lights (or however many Madred says).

We're assuming there are 5 lights though. The purpose of the torture does not prove there are not 5 lights.

PICARD: What I didn't put in the report was that at the end he gave me a choice between a life of comfort or more torture. All I had to do was to say that I could see five lights, when in fact, there were only four.
TROI: You didn't say it?
PICARD: No, no, but I was going to. I would have told him anything. Anything at all. But more than that, I believed that I could see five lights.

maybe the drugs wore off his system and allowed him to see the 5th light. Perhaps an alien like Q or the Organians could be involved and making Picard see 4 lights.

 

[marsh8472]

...Maybe Picard was secretly bad at basic math?

Yeah, I'm just joining this topic cause why not?

I found some in-canon evidence to support this theory. Remember this scene from "all good things"

Q: Oh, you'd like me to connect the dots for you, lead you from A to B to C so your puny mind can comprehend. How boring. They'd be so much more entertained if you tried to figure it out. I'll answer any ten questions that call for a yes or a no. Well?
PICARD: Are you putting mankind on trial again?
Q: No.
PICARD: Is there any connection between the trial seven years ago and whatever's going on now?
Q: I'd have to say yes.
PICARD: The spatial anomaly in the Neutral Zone, is it related to what's happening?
Q: Most definitely yes.
PICARD: Is it part of a Romulan plot, a ploy to start a war?
Q: No and no. Five down.
PICARD: That's only four.
Q: Is it a Romulan plot? Is it a ploy to start a war? Those are separate questions.


Picard could have an issue with counting to 5 and keeps thinking 4 for some reason

 

[uniderth]

So we are trying to find a way for both the Cardassian and Picard to have been telling the truth? Is that even really an issue?

 

[JasonJ]

What we all fail to realize, is that if we assume each "light" was 100w of power, that means 100J per second, we can calculate that each light emitted 3 x 10 to the 20th power photons each second. Times 4 lights.

So if we consider "how many lights" to mean, "how many particles OF light", the answer is 12 x 10 to the 20th power/second. That's actually a lot of "lights".

 

[marsh8472]

So we are trying to find a way for both the Cardassian and Picard to have been telling the truth? Is that even really an issue?

Just trying to prove there are five lights. Madred was more familiar with the room they were in and was in a better state of mind than Picard was. Maybe proof by Madred's authority is sufficient.

 

[marsh8472]

What we all fail to realize, is that if we assume each "light" was 100w of power, that means 100J per second, we can calculate that each light emitted 3 x 10 to the 20th power photons each second. Times 4 lights.

So if we consider "how many lights" to mean, "how many particles OF light", the answer is 12 x 10 to the 20th power/second. That's actually a lot of "lights".

Yeah we are not told what light means in terms of how Madred uses it. One thought that came to mind is the biblical description of the moon as a "light".

Genesis 1:16 "And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars."

Maybe he was using light in the same way. The four lights plus another source the light reflects off of similar to the moon, perhaps Madred himself is the fifth light.

 

[JasonJ]

Yeah we are not told what light means in terms of how Madred uses it. One thought that came to mind is the biblical description of the moon as a "light".

Genesis 1:16 "And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars."

Maybe he was using light in the same way. The four lights plus another source the light reflects off of similar to the moon, perhaps Madred himself is the fifth light.

True... and in that sense, all the stars of the night are "lights" that could theoretically be seen. Although I doubt Madred put windows in that room.

 

[uniderth]

Just trying to prove there are five lights.

But why?

 

[marsh8472]

But why?

Just as an exercise in creative thinking. It was a hotly contested topic in "chain of command pt 2" but neither side budged or explained themselves much. Picard could have asked for more information, say he doesn't understand, or is possibly delusional at the moment.

 

[uniderth]

Just as an exercise in creative thinking. It was a hotly contested topic in "chain of command pt 2" but neither side budged or explained themselves much. Picard could have asked for more information, say he doesn't understand, or is possibly delusional at the moment.

Oh I see. Well would have been very devious is for Madred to have switched on a fifth light in the later part of the torture.

 

[at Quark's]

Now we just have to prove it. Why are there 5 lights?

Here are some ideas I can think of:
...

You could also use any number of mathematical "proofs" cirulating on the internet to arrive at 4 lights= 5 lights

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Picard's torture collar had an on light, Madred was counting that one.

 

[tharpdevenport]

I don't even know why we have to argue there were five and come up with weird unrealistic examples. This was a mental/torture manipulation to get willing compliance from the captive, and the Cardassian wanted that badly.

 

[marsh8472]

Maybe the cardassians were testing some new form of clocking technology by clocking a 5th light in front of Picard. Madred needed to be sure Picard could not see it so he would ask over and over. Or he was training Picard too detect the cloked light. Remember he said "are you quite sure?". Plus Picard thought he saw a 5th light at the end.