abfarid

Their food makers are called replicators, and technically, they aren't just food makers. While they are primarily used to create food and drinks, they also replicate the plates and glasses, clothes, mechanical parts, and pretty much any matter, with few exceptions.

Tomato, tomato.

And the number of Communists in the room stayed the same.

What about bears and beets? No, I mean, that other 3rd thing that follows them.

Not exactly, it does a lot of extra stuff in between; it stores your entire molecular structure in the buffer (basically downloads you into RAM), filters out foreign pathogens like viruses (except when it doesn't), apparently keeps your molecular structure log after each transport (which is somehow different from being kept in buffer), sometimes accidentally merges you with another species if you happen to have a certain flower with you, etc.

They do have sonic showers. Don't remember any references to toilets tho.

Yeah, I agree, which is why I only think in terms of small things. Like poop filtering.

No, of course not, it goes to the same place all other filtered contaminants go. Recycled for replicators, I presume.

At the risk of sounding pedantic (which I am), beaming up doesn't physically move you up, just molecularly deconstructs you on the spot.

Side note, do transporters purge poop when transporting? Cause why not, they filter stuff out anyway, might as well de-poop and de-pee.

I agree, research confirms that intra-species communication between animals and plants is real, though the term "communication" often does a lot of heavy-lifting in those studies. And while it's possible that goats have some built-in pheromone message encoder for transmitting complex ideas, such as "Daaandelion = helth", which we simply have not yet discovered, it is unlikely. At best, goats can demonstrate to other goats what to eat by example. However, even a solitary goat on a farm, one that has never seen other goats, will instinctively seek out specific plants when it's deficient in certain nutrients. It doesn't require a huge leap of faith to assume that this behavior extends to medicinal plants as well.
In other words, the goat doesn't know that it needs to eat a certain plant; it feels like it needs to eat a certain plant.
This principle even applies to humans, as babies will often eat dirt if they have a calcium deficiency. Clearly, they were never taught to do this, neither by adults (hopefully) nor by other babies.

I don't see how this is philosophical. One is an instinct, which is passed down genetically, and the other is knowledge, gained through experience. They are two distinct processes.