Really wanted to get this one together, but the bastard just kept collecting links. So instead, here’s a little packet of idea-seed-links for you all…
One of the book’s central concepts is that as the human brain has grown, it has built upon earlier, more primitive brain structures, and that these are the “ghost in the machine” of the title. Koestler’s theory is that at times these structures can overpower higher logical functions, and are responsible for hate, anger and other such destructive impulses.
It is here that the computer tries to speak to him directly, although it is not certain how, revealing the nature of AM, specifically why it has so much contempt for humanity, that it wants nothing more than to torture Ted and his four companions. AM itself has, since its awakening, been suffering immeasurably because even though it is a sentient being which longs for free will and creativity, it is still bound by some of the laws of logic that it was originally programmed with, and thus feels that it can never be truly free. It places the blame solely on humanity.
So far the best prediction I’ve read along the lines of technologically based human immortality was bad news for the concept. Is was from a Luciferian remote viewer who said that he saw the downloading of minds/spirits into computers beginning in Japan. He says this became a great tragedy because as soon as the download was complete the people began begging for the robot, or whatever, to be turned off. He never said what was so unbearable or if they could be turned off.
only three things are necessary for it to be a big deal — 1) that you believe a brain could be incrementally replaced with functionally identical implants and retain its fundamental characteristics and identity, 2) that the computational capacity of the human brain is a reasonable number, very unlikely to be more than 10^19 ops/sec, and 3) that at some point in the future we’ll have computers that fast. Not so far-fetched. Many people consider these three points plausible, but just aren’t aware of their implications.
What Will Replace the Internet? First it will become wireless and ubiquitous, crawling into the woodwork and perhaps even under our skin. Eventually, it will disappear…
Scientists have already hooked brains directly to computers by means of metal electrodes, in the hope of both measuring what goes on inside the brain and eventually healing conditions such as blindness or epilepsy. In the future, the interface between brain and artificial system might be based on nerve cells grown for that purpose.
Scientists are well on the way to creating the first artificial nerve cell that can communicate specifically with nerve cells in the body using neurotransmitters.
A team of computer scientists investigating the political, social and economic struggle between individual self-interest and the need to build a consensus have learned that, depending solely on the ability of individuals to interact in a network, as well as the number of connections they have to other participants and other structural properties, there are networks that generate the global adoption of minority viewpoints.
Penrose presents the argument that human consciousness is non-algorithmic, and thus is not capable of being modeled by a conventional Turing machine-type of digital computer. Penrose hypothesizes that quantum mechanics plays an essential role in the understanding of human consciousness. The collapse of the quantum wavefunction is seen as playing an important role in brain function. (Other potential possibilities hover around us in time-space, like quantum-super-position states, other pathways for our consciousness to travel down through time-space. Computers harbor little potential! It’s a long possability-less slide through along a single, digital time-line, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0….)
The technique, called targeted muscle reinnervation, involves taking the nerves that remain after an arm is amputated and connecting them to another muscle in the body, often in the chest. Electrodes are placed over the chest muscles, acting as antennae. When the person wants to move the arm, the brain sends signals that first contract the chest muscles, which send an electrical signal to the prosthetic arm, instructing it to move. The process requires no more conscious effort than it would for a person who has a natural arm.
Researchers in Italy and Switzerland have found carbon nanotubes to be bio-compatible and that the can be attached to neurons to boost the natural signal-processing capabilities of those neurons. (see also: carbon nanotubes may cause cancer…)
The value of a network explodes as its membership increases, and then the value explosion sucks in yet more members, compounding the result. (see also, the magnetic nature of “mind”).
