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Aging Inner Circle

This fascinating series is a combination of historical seafaring, swashbuckling adventure, and high technological science-fiction. Join us in a discussion!
Re: Aging Inner Circle
Post by C. O. Thompson   » Thu Oct 27, 2016 12:20 pm

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PlaysWithBees wrote:Another question to consider is whether or not Alannah or the twins will be getting N.E.A.T. Implants.

What is really involved in those implants? Textev States that they were generally implanted shortly after birth as part of the standard medical procedures. Can they also be implanted in an older mature adult? Does Owll have the capability of creating and implanting the interfaces needed to use a neat? We do not know what is actually involved.


I believe that Shan-Wei gave Nimue the tools to begin the process of placing NEAT implants in people. I also think Dominick could have his foot regrown based on textev when Merlin told someone (maybe Olivia) about the tech.

Also, I think that the experiment which provided the VR Suit could lead to a type of NEAT that the older members of the team could use.
Just my 2 ₡ worth
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Re: Aging Inner Circle
Post by 6L6   » Thu Oct 27, 2016 11:12 pm

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Silverwall wrote:
"Interesting reply but the complexity of tapping into existing memories and the gaps in "Nharman" that resulted stongly support the theory that infancy would be the best time medically for such a procedure.

While we have a lot to learn about the brain a lot of what we are learning though things like concussion and related issues is how unbelievably complex the brain is.

Personally I think that we will find that such incredibly complex brain-interfaces will be theoretically possible in the same way star trek style teleporters are. Mathematically possible but would require more processing power than the entire universe holds to actually make it function safely.

Neural education devices are a staple of sci-fi and probably one of the elements we are getting further from as we slowly learn more about how the brain actually functions and we start discarding our primitive Cartesian thinking about consciousness and memory."


Good point Silverwall, but look at the progress made in Genome Sequencing machines in the last ten years.
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Re: Aging Inner Circle
Post by Silverwall   » Fri Oct 28, 2016 3:09 am

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6L6 wrote:Silverwall wrote:
"Interesting reply but the complexity of tapping into existing memories and the gaps in "Nharman" that resulted stongly support the theory that infancy would be the best time medically for such a procedure.

While we have a lot to learn about the brain a lot of what we are learning though things like concussion and related issues is how unbelievably complex the brain is.

Personally I think that we will find that such incredibly complex brain-interfaces will be theoretically possible in the same way star trek style teleporters are. Mathematically possible but would require more processing power than the entire universe holds to actually make it function safely.

Neural education devices are a staple of sci-fi and probably one of the elements we are getting further from as we slowly learn more about how the brain actually functions and we start discarding our primitive Cartesian thinking about consciousness and memory."


Good point Silverwall, but look at the progress made in Genome Sequencing machines in the last ten years.


The problem is that unlike genetics brains are not all wired the same, we see some of this when we look at how hearing works. When you take a recording from one persons eardrum and play it to a second person it is gibberish because each persons brain decodes things differently and has learned the unique ears that belong to that indivudual. This makes it orders of magnitude harder to train someone in the way suggested by the safehold books or the nanovirus assassins in Honorverse.

So much of memeory is learned rather than evolutionary in the way genetics are. Where in the cortex your muscle memeory of an action is will be different from mine and different from RFCs even if we all perform the same action to the same skill level.

The other problem compared to genetics is that we still lack a good theoretical model of how memories work and are formed. We know how DNA works but memory is much less well understood. Despite the common sci-fi concept of engrams or identifiable memories all the most recent research suggest that memory and learning is not formed in discrete identifiable packages we could target with technology.

This quote via wikipedia below sums up our current level of knowledge quite well and it is well short of being operationalised. Given what we suspect in the quote below a neural interface device would need to be able to access every neuron in the brain to be able to lay down memories without damage as unlike DNA there is no "machinary" that writes memory like there is for building DNA. This is why I consider it in the theoretically possible but practically impossible category. If we come up with a better model I may change my mind.

"One question that is crucial in cognitive neuroscience is how information and mental experiences are coded and represented in the brain. Scientists have gained much knowledge about the neuronal codes from the studies of plasticity, but most of such research has been focused on simple learning in simple neuronal circuits; it is considerably less clear about the neuronal changes involved in more complex examples of memory, particularly declarative memory that requires the storage of facts and events (Byrne 2007). Convergence-divergence zones might be the neural networks where memories are stored and retrieved. Considering that there are several kinds of memory, depending on types of represented knowledge, underlying mechanisms, processes functions and modes of acquisition, it is likely that different brain areas support different memory systems and that they are in mutual relationships in neuronal networks: "components of memory representation are distributed widely across different parts of the brain as mediated by multiple neocortical circuits."
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Re: Aging Inner Circle
Post by 6L6   » Fri Oct 28, 2016 9:26 am

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All true Silverwall but who know's what progress will be made in 400 years.
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Re: Aging Inner Circle
Post by Randomiser   » Sat Oct 29, 2016 7:40 am

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Silverwall wrote:Interesting reply but the complexity of tapping into existing memories and the gaps in "Nharman" that resulted stongly support the theory that infancy would be the best time medically for such a procedure.


It may be the best time, there is no textev to indicate it is dangerous or contra-indicated at a later stage. Nahrman is the result of attempting a personality recording in an emergency situation with a dying subject and the wrong equipment. His situation throws very little light on what could be done in better circumstances. The TF recorded, re-recorded and modified adult memories in appropriately equipped subjects every time someone used a limited time PICA. It may have been difficult but was 'commonplace' and, so far as we know, perfectly safe. Safe enough, at least, to be licensed for recreational use.

All that you write about RL brain function is interesting and may be well turn out to be true, but is not strictly relevant to the fictional technology RFC is working with.
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Re: Aging Inner Circle
Post by Randomiser   » Sat Oct 29, 2016 7:55 am

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Touchy subject, but would you want to turn all the existing Inner Circle into VR personalities? They are the people who are available to serve just now and so Merlin is gladly using them, but why would you not just naturally replace them with younger successors as they age and die? Are they really of such quality that they should be preserved indefinitely? Particularly since, for many of them, their usefulness results from their physical presence and the offices they hold. Nahrman is still useful as a VP because he is the best intelligence analyst they have. Will a general or admiral or Emperor be similarly useful if only available as an adviser?

I seem to recall, off the top of my head, that the kind of device in which Nahrman is located would only be suitable for 3-5 Virtual Personalities, with 5 being a stretch, and that was before it was realised Nahrman needed extra support, which may or may not affect things.

Whether Owl can turn out more such computers may depend on what materials he needs and what materials he is short of to produce another PICA. If the difficulty is the computing element, that may rule out more VR environments at the moment too. (BTW if it isn't shouldn't OWL be busy fabbing several new OWLs already, as back up and to extend analysis of the SNARC take. It seems to me OWL is a spectacular single point of failure in the current set-up.)
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Re: Aging Inner Circle
Post by wkernochan   » Sat Oct 29, 2016 1:11 pm

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Randomiser wrote: (BTW if it isn't shouldn't OWL be busy fabbing several new OWLs already, as back up and to extend analysis of the SNARC take. It seems to me OWL is a spectacular single point of failure in the current set-up.)

Ooh, Owl has children (owlets?) -- all of them asking, So what did you do in the war, Daddy?
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Re: Aging Inner Circle
Post by C. O. Thompson   » Sat Oct 29, 2016 2:19 pm

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<snip>

Randomiser wrote:Touchy subject, but would you want to turn all the existing Inner Circle into VR personalities? They are the people who are available to serve just now and so Merlin is gladly using them, but why would you not just naturally replace them with younger successors as they age and die? Are they really of such quality that they should be preserved indefinitely? Particularly since, for many of them, their usefulness results from their physical presence and the offices they hold. Nahrman is still useful as a VP because he is the best intelligence analyst they have. Will a general or admiral or Emperor be similarly useful if only available as an adviser?

I seem to recall, off the top of my head, that the kind of device in which Nahrman is located would only be suitable for 3-5 Virtual Personalities, with 5 being a stretch, and that was before it was realised Nahrman needed extra support, which may or may not affect things.

<snip>

I believe that you are correct in the capacity of the VR environment that Nahrman is in...
We also have Textev that Owl is building an additional AI to help track agents of the inquisition... doesn't indicate if s/he plans to duplicate its own memory core... interesting possibilities there as I recall, Owl is now fused into Norman and that stopped them from simply downloading into a PICA but... if it is possible to duplicate the fused intelligence into another AI, it should be possible to place another copy into a PICA.
It also should be possible to use Nimue's back up copy at least once more. If so, once the critical raw materials are replenished, there could be a Sinjin for each of the islands of the empire and one or two to run between other key players.

I do think that the "mistake" that Merlin and Owl made when the tried to download Norman could be worked around in such a way that the implant would not be obvious and I think that there are big advantages to doing so.

I also think that the inner circle should be provided anti aging to keep them around as long as possible.

<snip>

Whether Owl can turn out more such computers may depend on what materials he needs and what materials he is short of to produce another PICA. If the difficulty is the computing element, that may rule out more VR environments at the moment too. (BTW if it isn't shouldn't OWL be busy fabbing several new OWLs already, as back up and to extend analysis of the SNARC take. It seems to me OWL is a spectacular single point of failure in the current set-up.)


<snip>

There are too many points of failure that would be as spectacular at least for the first 25 or so years after the war is won.
Just my 2 ₡ worth
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