Reaction Time

evilauthor wrote:I'm going to take a wild guess and say that Merlin is PHYSICALLY fast enough to catch a bullet from a black powder weapon, but only if his mental reaction time is fast enough... which it isn't. I think he'd need to be in hyper-heuristic mode to see and move his hand fast enough and precisely enough to catch a bullet, and he can't do that because his hyper-heuristic mode is disabled by his software hacks.

I've never seen any textev that says indicates that Merlin has a hyper-heuristic mode. The term doesn't appear in the series until MTaT, when Nahrmahn's AI meets Nimue, and so far Nahrmahn is the only one who's used hyper-heuristic mode, presumably because the VR he lives in has the computing power to allow him to do that, but a PICA doesn't have that sort of computing power.

A PICA is basically a superhuman shell for a human mind on a 10 day basis, so there was no reason for them to be able to busy themselves in running calculations instead of living in real time while having dangerous experiences like mountain climbing or hang gliding.

Merlin's high speed data interface is disabled, which is why he has to have OWL's daily take fed to him in real time, so yes, he has some computing power that's unused, since he'd be able to input (and presumably review) vastly greater amounts of data otherwise. Whether reviewing that much data would require a hyper-heuristic mode, I don't know. There isn't any textev that Merlin is capable of it, even while "meditating," but it's also clear that a high speed data interface was designed to transfer a lot of data - like inputting a personality dump and transmitting it back out after 10 days, which is probably the reason a PICA is designed to handle that much bandwidth.

If a PICA was capable of it, hyper-heuristic mode would speed up calculations and slow the perception of time, so it would come in handy in locating the bullet after it was fired and calculating its trajectory if a PICA's eyes are up to the task. It wouldn't speed up how fast a PICA's body could move though, so if the bullet is faster than the PICA could move its hand or body to catch or block the bullet, hyper-heuristic mode wouldn't make any difference.

I suppose we could settle the issue by having Merlin compete against Nimue to see who could catch the most bullets!

From what I can recall Merlin cannot enter Hyper-heuristic mode because his high speed data link is non-operational. Therefore the amount of time he spends in the VR is the same amount of Real time. I believe this is stated just after 'Nimue' comes online as she states she was able to spend quite sometime in the VR learning some extra skills Merlin hadn't 'taught' her.
She was able to do this because she has a functioning high speed uplink.

Human reaction time is dependent on the training of the individual. It takes about 150 ns for the eyes to see and for the brain to process the information. It takes about 300 ns for a message to be sent from the region of the feet to the brain. Which if the feet are in danger e.g. excessive heat by the time the brain processes and sends the response back the damage is done.
Nerve speeds vary but they can send messages at speeds of 100 m/s which is quite impressive for a system that has to depolarise and reset between each impulse.

Hence the reason why we have reflex arcs that are designed to by-pass the brain's interference in such matters. Reflex arc for the hand is about 100 ns total turn around - i.e. sensation of excessive heat to the movement of the hand away from the danger. Problems arise when the brain via the eyes actually sees what is happening and can cause an over-ride which can lead to the hand being kept in place through deliberate action or shock. In cases of touching live electrical wire the electric current overloads and seizes the muscles locking the hand in place - which is why if you are going to touch one do with the back of you hand

To actually process and see a bullet moving through the air is an extremely unlikely event for a normal human - for a top of the line PICA they would have to be viewing the muzzle flash/smoke to possibly be able to see the bullet this is if they have processing 10x that of a human.

The bit about humans moving at 268 miles/hour (wish you Yanks would get with the rest of the world and use metric ) is under what context?

Yes you can move out of the way of a MLB fast ball or a Cricket ball moving at 148 km/h but it is all dependent on your reactions plus your distance away from the launch of said object. It boils down to training / reaction speed and knowing which way to move to avoid.
Running speed the fastest is 12.42 m/s (44.72 km/h / 22.44 mph).

Thrandir wrote:From what I can recall Merlin cannot enter Hyper-heuristic mode because his high speed data link is non-operational. Therefore the amount of time he spends in the VR is the same amount of Real time. I believe this is stated just after 'Nimue' comes online as she states she was able to spend quite sometime in the VR learning some extra skills Merlin hadn't 'taught' her.
She was able to do this because she has a functioning high speed uplink.

Human reaction time is dependent on the training of the individual. It takes about 150 ns for the eyes to see and for the brain to process the information. It takes about 300 ns for a message to be sent from the region of the feet to the brain. Which if the feet are in danger e.g. excessive heat by the time the brain processes and sends the response back the damage is done.
Nerve speeds vary but they can send messages at speeds of 100 m/s which is quite impressive for a system that has to depolarise and reset between each impulse.

Hence the reason why we have reflex arcs that are designed to by-pass the brain's interference in such matters. Reflex arc for the hand is about 100 ns total turn around - i.e. sensation of excessive heat to the movement of the hand away from the danger. Problems arise when the brain via the eyes actually sees what is happening and can cause an over-ride which can lead to the hand being kept in place through deliberate action or shock. In cases of touching live electrical wire the electric current overloads and seizes the muscles locking the hand in place - which is why if you are going to touch one do with the back of you hand

To actually process and see a bullet moving through the air is an extremely unlikely event for a normal human - for a top of the line PICA they would have to be viewing the muzzle flash/smoke to possibly be able to see the bullet this is if they have processing 10x that of a human.

The bit about humans moving at 268 miles/hour (wish you Yanks would get with the rest of the world and use metric ) is under what context?

Yes you can move out of the way of a MLB fast ball or a Cricket ball moving at 148 km/h but it is all dependent on your reactions plus your distance away from the launch of said object. It boils down to training / reaction speed and knowing which way to move to avoid.
Running speed the fastest is 12.42 m/s (44.72 km/h / 22.44 mph).

Something screwed with those reaction times. I mean, NANOseconds? I could go with microseconds, or more easily with miliseconds, but nanoseconds is way too fast. You said it yourself, nerves transmit messages at 100 m/s, so for a 2 meter tall human (just to give round results) it would take 2/100 or 0,02 seconds for a message to go from the feet to the brain. 300ns would make it almost a relativistic velocity. After all, lightspeed is 0.3 m/ns (or 1 ft/ns.

Thrandir wrote:From what I can recall Merlin cannot enter Hyper-heuristic mode because his high speed data link is non-operational. Therefore the amount of time he spends in the VR is the same amount of Real time. I believe this is stated just after 'Nimue' comes online as she states she was able to spend quite sometime in the VR learning some extra skills Merlin hadn't 'taught' her.
She was able to do this because she has a functioning high speed uplink.

Human reaction time is dependent on the training of the individual. It takes about 150 ns for the eyes to see and for the brain to process the information. It takes about 300 ns for a message to be sent from the region of the feet to the brain. Which if the feet are in danger e.g. excessive heat by the time the brain processes and sends the response back the damage is done.
Nerve speeds vary but they can send messages at speeds of 100 m/s which is quite impressive for a system that has to depolarise and reset between each impulse.

Hence the reason why we have reflex arcs that are designed to by-pass the brain's interference in such matters. Reflex arc for the hand is about 100 ns total turn around - i.e. sensation of excessive heat to the movement of the hand away from the danger. Problems arise when the brain via the eyes actually sees what is happening and can cause an over-ride which can lead to the hand being kept in place through deliberate action or shock. In cases of touching live electrical wire the electric current overloads and seizes the muscles locking the hand in place - which is why if you are going to touch one do with the back of you hand

To actually process and see a bullet moving through the air is an extremely unlikely event for a normal human - for a top of the line PICA they would have to be viewing the muzzle flash/smoke to possibly be able to see the bullet this is if they have processing 10x that of a human.

The bit about humans moving at 268 miles/hour (wish you Yanks would get with the rest of the world and use metric ) is under what context?

Yes you can move out of the way of a MLB fast ball or a Cricket ball moving at 148 km/h but it is all dependent on your reactions plus your distance away from the launch of said object. It boils down to training / reaction speed and knowing which way to move to avoid.
Running speed the fastest is 12.42 m/s (44.72 km/h / 22.44 mph).

Kaezar wrote:Something screwed with those reaction times. I mean, NANOseconds? I could go with microseconds, or more easily with miliseconds, but nanoseconds is way too fast. You said it yourself, nerves transmit messages at 100 m/s, so for a 2 meter tall human (just to give round results) it would take 2/100 or 0,02 seconds for a message to go from the feet to the brain. 300ns would make it almost a relativistic velocity. After all, lightspeed is 0.3 m/ns (or 1 ft/ns.

Gatta agree here. typical reactions times for a normal human for something like an emergency in an automobile ae on the close order of 2-2.5 tenths of a second or 200-250 milliseconds.

Reaction speed is irrelevant. At least from the perspective of catching bullets. This happens for two reasons. One you cannot catch a bullet. Go ahead try(no actually don't) your hand simply cannot grab a piece of metal moving that fast. Mythbusters tried something like this with catching a bullet in your teeth. The bullet just breaks the teeth. In order to catch the bullet they used two flat pieces of steel for a mouth and what they got from that was lead smeared over the steel. A human analog hand(like Merlin's or Nimue's) couldn't catch a bullet. The second reason is the almighty creator. Our lord Isaac Newton. Due to Newton's second law Merlins cannot cover ground much quicker than a human. He weighs about the same and where the same boots/shoes, so he has the same friction available as a human. Now he doesn't get tired and can move very fast so he would be like an olympic athlete but he simply cannot move himself to fast so interposing his body between someone and say a bullet while the bullet is in the air would be impossible. If he tried his feet would slip out from under him. Now Merlin's hands could move faster because he can use his body's inertia to let them move faster without falling down but as I said before hands cannot catch bullets.


Note One: Merlin shot Paitryk Hainree before jumping on Sharleyan.

Note Two: Merlin's 'nerves' do send information at relativistic speeds at 1 c to be exact.

Note Three: Nimue has a working high speed data link.

Note Four: Hyper-heuristic mode would be using extra computing power to speed up the thought processes of the mind emulation. So, a high speed data link cannot work unless the data link has the band width to receive all information from all the sensors in a PICA and them control all the 'muscles' in the PICA in real time. Plus the speed of light lag between the Mountains of Light and the PICA, where ever it is.

Note Five: I don't think a good PICA design would incorporate enough extra computational power to use hyper-heuristic mode. Doing so would be a gratuitous waste of space and money. Both of which are limited as the PICA has to be the size of the person it is being made for and the price of the PICA needs to be as low a possible for commercial purposes.

Highjohn wrote:Reaction speed is irrelevant. At least from the perspective of catching bullets. This happens for two reasons. One you cannot catch a bullet. Go ahead try(no actually don't) your hand simply cannot grab a piece of metal moving that fast. Mythbusters tried something like this with catching a bullet in your teeth. The bullet just breaks the teeth. In order to catch the bullet they used two flat pieces of steel for a mouth and what they got from that was lead smeared over the steel. A human analog hand(like Merlin's or Nimue's) couldn't catch a bullet. The second reason is the almighty creator. Our lord Isaac Newton. Due to Newton's second law Merlins cannot cover ground much quicker than a human. He weighs about the same and where the same boots/shoes, so he has the same friction available as a human. Now he doesn't get tired and can move very fast so he would be like an olympic athlete but he simply cannot move himself to fast so interposing his body between someone and say a bullet while the bullet is in the air would be impossible. If he tried his feet would slip out from under him. Now Merlin's hands could move faster because he can use his body's inertia to let them move faster without falling down but as I said before hands cannot catch bullets.


Note One: Merlin shot Paitryk Hainree before jumping on Sharleyan.

Note Two: Merlin's 'nerves' do send information at relativistic speeds at 1 c to be exact.

Note Three: Nimue has a working high speed data link.

Note Four: Hyper-heuristic mode would be using extra computing power to speed up the thought processes of the mind emulation. So, a high speed data link cannot work unless the data link has the band width to receive all information from all the sensors in a PICA and them control all the 'muscles' in the PICA in real time. Plus the speed of light lag between the Mountains of Light and the PICA, where ever it is.

Note Five: I don't think a good PICA design would incorporate enough extra computational power to use hyper-heuristic mode. Doing so would be a gratuitous waste of space and money. Both of which are limited as the PICA has to be the size of the person it is being made for and the price of the PICA needs to be as low a possible for commercial purposes.

WRT point 5 - Late models PICAs (like Nimue Alban's) were being manufactured for the luxury market - think High end Maserati or Ferari, not for the commercial market, so adding extra bells and whistles would make sense.

Highjohn wrote:Reaction speed is irrelevant. At least from the perspective of catching bullets. This happens for two reasons. One you cannot catch a bullet. Go ahead try(no actually don't) your hand simply cannot grab a piece of metal moving that fast. Mythbusters tried something like this with catching a bullet in your teeth. The bullet just breaks the teeth. In order to catch the bullet they used two flat pieces of steel for a mouth and what they got from that was lead smeared over the steel. A human analog hand(like Merlin's or Nimue's) couldn't catch a bullet. The second reason is the almighty creator. Our lord Isaac Newton. Due to Newton's second law Merlins cannot cover ground much quicker than a human. He weighs about the same and where the same boots/shoes, so he has the same friction available as a human. Now he doesn't get tired and can move very fast so he would be like an olympic athlete but he simply cannot move himself to fast so interposing his body between someone and say a bullet while the bullet is in the air would be impossible. If he tried his feet would slip out from under him. Now Merlin's hands could move faster because he can use his body's inertia to let them move faster without falling down but as I said before hands cannot catch bullets.


Note One: Merlin shot Paitryk Hainree before jumping on Sharleyan.

Note Two: Merlin's 'nerves' do send information at relativistic speeds at 1 c to be exact.

Note Three: Nimue has a working high speed data link.

Note Four: Hyper-heuristic mode would be using extra computing power to speed up the thought processes of the mind emulation. So, a high speed data link cannot work unless the data link has the band width to receive all information from all the sensors in a PICA and them control all the 'muscles' in the PICA in real time. Plus the speed of light lag between the Mountains of Light and the PICA, where ever it is.

Note Five: I don't think a good PICA design would incorporate enough extra computational power to use hyper-heuristic mode. Doing so would be a gratuitous waste of space and money. Both of which are limited as the PICA has to be the size of the person it is being made for and the price of the PICA needs to be as low a possible for commercial purposes.

About your note four, wasn't Nimue (a PICA) operating in hyper-heuristic mode when she spent several five days in subjective time learning the muscle memory for the martial arts she used to take that bigot apart in LAMA?

Don

fallsfromtrees

Adding a super computer to a Ferrari could also be done.


n7axw

No

"Then she'd spent several subjective five-days in the VR learning those moves and programming her own muscle mrmory"

The important words are "in the VR". Also mrmory is how it is spelled in my book. It just tickled my gall bladder to spell it that way too.

Highjohn wrote:fallsfromtrees

Adding a super computer to a Ferrari could also be done.


n7axw

No

"Then she'd spent several subjective five-days in the VR learning those moves and programming her own muscle mrmory"

The important words are "in the VR". Also mrmory is how it is spelled in my book. It just tickled my gall bladder to spell it that way too.

Nimue was operating in hyper heuristic mode in VR while she acquired those skills. Hence the term "several subjective five-days." And, no, she can't use that mode in the "real world" for all the reasons adduced. Because she has the high-speed port, she can enter that mode in VR, which Merlin cannot.

runsforcelery Wrote

Nimue was operating in hyper heuristic mode in VR while she acquired those skills. Hence the term "several subjective five-days." And, no, she can't use that mode in the "real world" for all the reasons adduced. Because she has the high-speed port, she can enter that mode in VR, which Merlin cannot.


Thanks for the reply RFC- and my initial question was:

Could Merlin see a bullet -missile- coming and stop (deflect) it? (not catch it)