Weren't the crew already doomed before WAU

[SlackerinDeNile]

To be honest though, elements of the Cortex chip technology and Catherine's brief explanations of the science behind it to Simon are kind of contradictory and don't make a lot of sense when you compare them to real-life explanations of the human brain and computers.

The best example of this is in Theta when Simon asks Catherine why they can't just read through the files and code of the digital copy of Brandon Wan to find the security code they were looking for and she tells him that they 'just can't do that'.

She doesn't explain why they can't do that and I don't really get it. If these digital copies are simply advanced simulations of human minds then wouldn't they contain all the thoughts and memories of those people in digital form? Shouldn't it be possible to simulate individual memories or even just read through their programming to find that specific memory? (Yes I am aware that it would likely take quite a while.)