So another week filled with opportunity, and time well wasted (tm)
Ever since I read "Ownz0rd" By Cory Doctorow i thought to myself sure enough if it can be written so let it be done.
Here's the original link, if you have 20 minutes to kill it's an excellent piece on salon.
Clickety
Now this piece revolves around a man that has a chip implanted in his spinal coloumn to affect his central nervous system. For those of you whom are not biology geeks, your CNS is responsible for pretty much all of your bodily functions. It regulates breathing, circadian rythym, hunger, muscle control (all of it) and a number of other goodies that make you tick.
Now, I recently saw a special on Space "The Science of SG-1", since stargate is now over, they are running re-runs of specials that Sci-fi paid a lot of money for. The series covers the ideas used in the plot and offers corelations to modern science, since like most good writers the guys working for SG-1 happened to steal most of their ideas from modern science. Einstien-Rosen bridges are nothing new to science fiction, think "Sliders", and they make an excellent plot device or "Deus Ex Machina" since they connect to "Anywhere" and "Anytime" in the universe, mind you no one ever did mention how they controlled the "Black Hole" that produced these wonders of modern fiction. Let's ask Heisenberg? Or maybye Kaiku or Hawking might have an idea?
As always I'm digressing, towards the end of the special they covered a Scientist from Cambridge when offering the basis for the "Replicants" you know those evil world dominating hyper intelligent singular consciousness based robots based upon nanites and the idea of "Grey Goo".
For those of you that no nothing of Grey Goo, here's a linkey:
Clickety Now!
(for the record I hate citing with the Wiki but it's concise)
Anyhow this doctor of robotics recently implanted a chip in his forearm and it's attached to his CNS, that's right folks he is the worlds first cyborg, his name is Kevin Warwick.
Clickety And you'll even fell better after
Ok so we have Dr. James Baker Jr. making nano-particles that could end modern disease as we know it, then there's this Kevin Warwick guy.
Keven Warwick had a chip implanted in his arm and he can now build his own attachments, to his credit these have included a wheel chair that moves by thought alone and a neural feedback based radar cap. I'm surprised the us military isn't on this like a fly on shit, or maybe they are and just being very hush hush about it.
Seriously, If i get the chance I'll swing by warwicks place, he plans to get another chip implanted in his cerebellum. So if you've read the first story "0wnz0red" you'll note the tangent those two boys go on after recieveing their implants.
Here's the cool part, Prof Warwick cites the use of his implant as a "feeling" more than anything else, you see the human nervous system; or any nervous system for that matter, is really quite awesome. Here is created by nature or whichever deity you happen to believe in at this moment in time a system that is:
a. Self organizing
b. Responsive to stimuli
c. Self referential
d. Learning in nature
You see one of the problems of modern dogma regarding both Metaphysics and it's egotistical child Philosophy is the nature of "Self". Ever since Decarte uttered "I think therefore I am" and the sophists lost their heads over the symmantecs of Rhetoric; we've had a hell of a time trying to recreate the above four behaviors in any system at all. People argue these days over the internet being consciouses but it is int and I'll tell you why, the Net at best is a primordial expression of hyper intelligence but not true intelligence, it does not postulate theories then utilize said hypothetical situations as a basis for judgment on the outcomes of situations it has not experienced yet, this is simple because it's not "Self Aware". I mean parts of it are but they are just dumb nodes passing information, they are not anilizing the information as it passes to create content. Traffic shaping comes close but at the end of every packet captureing device is a pair of human eyes.
Your Nervous system, not only learns what the new device does but will integrate it into your bieng. It just sees and responds to stimuli.
If you remember there was an article about a plane being flown by a clump of monkey brains:
You may be replaced by a petri dish!
So we are even getting to the point where we are designing bio-matter interfaces.
Now before all you ho-hum style hippies come flying at me with pitchouli oil saying that "Tech is bad! It is evil!" Think about practical applications, so we can't quite grow stem cells because of the idiocy of the bible belt in the U.S., instead of the twin towers it should have been all of the bible belt. So here we are in 2007, We've got the worlds first Cyborg, Brains for planes but we cannot grow new nerve tissue because of well morons.
So all those paraplegics and quadriplegics will remain exactly that, however perhaps we should consider hybridizing these systems to supplant our own nervous system? Stimulate nerves that are damaged to prevent them from dieing? then create cross connections utilizing atomic batteries where nerves have been previously severed?
It bound not to be that difficult, I'm just waiting until the day that I may request the surgery then surf with a collar?
