The Human Heart.......

[raphy]

Okay, you crazy AH people. I need a bit of help with my NaNo, and you bunch of discussion and debate-addicts might be just the people to help me out.

A bit of background first. My NaNo is science fiction. Cyberpunk, more specifically. One of the accepted technologies in my world is something I've called Neurotechnology. It effectively 'fools' the brain into thinking it's reciving signals from your senses when it's not. For example, if you tap into the optic nerve and feed the signal for 'blue', then your brain thinks that your eyes are seeing the color blue, regardless of what they're actually seeing. That technology is actually very very nearly with us nowadays - There's been a lot of studies to help blind people see. Blind people, that is, who's optic nerve is still fully functional, but who's eyes themselves are damaged.

Effectively, with a complex enough system, you could do that for all of the five senses - Sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. It's just a case of figuring out the electrical impulses that your sense receptors send to your brain, and duplicating them.

Okay, keep in mind that in my slightly futuristic world, that sense-emulating technology is common and mainstream. Cutting edge technology in this world is something I'm calling 'bioscript'

Bioscript does for your emotions what Neuroscript does for your senses. This is how one of my characters describes it:

"So what's it actually do?"

"Well," the Cowboy took a deep drag on the cigarette, blew the smoke out slowly between his lips. "Put very simply, bioscript attempts to do to your emotions what neuroscript does to your senses."

Dominique whistled, a low sound. There was a long pause. Marshall heard the almost-silent hum of the MagLev monorail go by overhead.

"Yeah." The Cowboy nodded slowly. "Heavy shit. Neuroscript tells your head that your eyes can see the matrix. Bioscript tells your head that your heart is lonely."


Now, the thing is... As an author, this gives me a fantastic opportunity to make some great social comment about the prospective impact that a technology like this would have on society... And I think I'd be very remiss as an author if I didn't take that opportunity.

So.. I open the topic up for debate for you guys here on the AH. Would this be a good thing? A bad thing? Would people want to be installed with it? Push a button and be happy, or sad, or jealous, or lustful, or excited.

Or record emotions - Record yourself when you're happy, play it back when you're sad, to make yourself happy again.

Record someone else's emotions - Plug actors into bioscript recording devices. Then, when the characters they're playing truly are sad, if the actor is good enough, they can feed that emotion to the audience directly. As a member of the audience, you could choose to switch PoVs as you watched the movie. Feel the triumph of the bad guy as he captures the hero. Feel the terror of the victim in the horror movie.

The possibilities are kinda endless... But, I can only talk about my own point of view on this. And I'm looking for discussion about it. Not discussion that will necessarily make it into the novel verbatim, but that will definitely provide me with base opinions that differ from my own.

So go to it, people!

 

[Guest]

Raffo, you call to mind a heated discussion we had in a philosophy class once. The prof. proposed something similar, a drug that would make one happy, content, whatever, as real as if real, and without the consciousness of knowing it was simulated. He asked would we take it, knowing that once we did we would not be aware that the happiness was not real.

I was gut-level averse to it. I know what unhappiness is but I would not want a false happiness. You might imagine how the discussion went given the effects of not being aware of the reality, or un-reality.

So that's my input. On the other hand, re. physiological effects combined with emotions, your product sounds like it could be a very sophisticated replacement for sex toys, e.g., vibrators.

Very interesting mind and story you have there, mate.

'dita

 

[RenzaJones]

To me if emotion has to be contrived it is not really emotion. Ultimately such a product would drive me insane. Having my brain feel happy when I know I should feel otherwise would feel off.
From the descrition the said device wouldn't erase memeories just allow you to choose from a range of emotions ect...
If I have that part correct then to me the device would seem like a doorway to instant but controlled schziopherenia.

 

[wornoutkeyboard]

Well.... first I must say that it is a wonderful topic for your NaNo... and I can't remember where but I know in some of my other sci-fi reading I have seen things similar (but not like) it around...so my mind finds it easy to make the logical jump to "willingly suspend disbelief"...which is important in Sci Fi.

Anyhoo...on to your question...

I am going to shoot for the hip here...so it is possible that my response might not be consistent because I am responding at the same time I am chewing it over in my head.

By knee-jerk reaction is that I don't like the idea. While you have come up with some creative uses (the actor example, being very intriguing)... I think that people are likely to use that kind of technology as a drug (the way we use Heroine, crack, etc now). After all...people take drugs (for the most part) to make them feel a way they feel unable to tap into on a regular basis (relaxed, euphoric, etc.)

And I am believer that a vast number of people have an addictive personality disorder (whether it is cigarettes, alcohol, sex, weed...whatever) and I think that something like this could become all-consuming. I could just envision people never leaving the house as they re-live their happy moments over and over...unable to move forward with real life.

As a "mini" version of the same idea is the mass distribution of psychological medications you see these days (primarily in the US where it is no longer illegal for pharmaceutical companies to advertise on television for prescription products). So many people these days have a rough few weeks and go to the Dr. and get some happy pills...and then when they realize that happiness (or more exactly... indifference.... because that is what many of those mediations do...make you indifferent) is just a pill away...they are no longer motivated to truly solve their problems. They get unhappy and instead of trying to solve the problem, they pop a little pill and all is better until the next time.

Now, before anyone crawls up my butt...yes I do realize that there are real people in the world who really suffer from problems requiring medication. But WAY too many people these days get the blues and run to the Dr. to get happy again when what they really need to do is face life and actually make an attempt to solve their problems that are causing them unhappiness.

Anyhoo...sorry for rambling, but I was just trying to give you what came to mind. I will prolly post again later when I have had a chance to let my mind chew on the idea a bit.

~WOK

 

[Parklife]

On a more theoretical basis, this brings back the "Brains-in-vats" debate that has been thrown around in philosophical circles since Socrates.

When not only 'neurotechnology' abounds but also your 'bioscript' is possible, all of perceived reality is called into question. It would be possible to 'create' all known reality without ever 'knowing' the real from the unreal.

Now it starts sounding like "The Matrix"...

And like you said, the neuro-stimulation has been around for quite some time. Wilder Penfield did experiments in the 1930's where he was able to stimulate certain sections of the brain and cause people to recall specific memories, sense datum, etc...

 

[Mhari]

I'm still thinking on this one, hon...I'm sure I'll have babble for you later!

Something about the concept puts me in mind of Spider Robinson's _Mindkiller_, but I can't quite put my finger on what. It's a fascinating idea for sure.

Think I'll go sleep on it now..

 

[Guest]

Raff, if you don't know it you may want to check out the film, "Strange Days", with Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett. A very impaired work but with some brilliant moments. The feature plot tool is a cyber thingy that allows people to relive their happy, or lust and violence filled, memories. Fiennes is addicted to it.

'dita

 

[Weird Harold]

Effectively, with a complex enough system, you could do that for all of the five senses - Sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. It's just a case of figuring out the electrical impulses that your sense receptors send to your brain, and duplicating them.

...
Bioscript does for your emotions what Neuroscript does for your senses.

Your concept sounds like a variation of the SF standards of "Feely Addicts" and "Wire-Heads." Both are similar VR technologies to your Neuroscript" and Bioscript, and both are generally presented as having a strong potential for abuse.

Personally, I can't see the utility of Bioscript; if Neuroscript is as completly developed as you suggest. If stimulating the five senses can't cause the emotions desired, what advantage would a (presumably chemical) stimulation add to the experience?

 

[Xelebes]

Raffo, you call to mind a heated discussion we had in a philosophy class once. The prof. proposed something similar, a drug that would make one happy, content, whatever, as real as if real, and without the consciousness of knowing it was simulated. He asked would we take it, knowing that once we did we would not be aware that the happiness was not real.

I was gut-level averse to it. I know what unhappiness is but I would not want a false happiness. You might imagine how the discussion went given the effects of not being aware of the reality, or un-reality.

So that's my input. On the other hand, re. physiological effects combined with emotions, your product sounds like it could be a very sophisticated replacement for sex toys, e.g., vibrators.

Very interesting mind and story you have there, mate.

'dita

Having been on such drugs before (anti-anxiety medication), I know that it can only lead you to act happier but deep inside you still question. Though, it is not so transparent as I might imply, it is still there and can be extremely uncomfortable to have this balance going on.

 

[Wills]

Raph

You probably know Iain M Banks SF books, the series that deal with The Culture where he writes of 'glanding' - emotional doping to suit different situations. The way he deals with the subject is convincing and realistic. The Culture is a human civilisation centuries in the future where machines/robots do everything leaving humans time to experiment with being human.

In that scenario I can see why 'glanding' makes sense. If the harsh reality of 'life' has been put to one side then artificial emotional triggers feed the brain to complete the living experience. He also uses the technology to enable people to live out experiences without impairing their physical wellbeing, even to change sex which for me, speaking personally, is an interesting notion and one that I am sure advanced civilisations would experiment with.

In a small way, our media does much the same today feeding us with images and story's designed to impact emotionally, just think of the Africa famine imagery that is used to get us to dip into our pockets. Emotional dopping works for me in a story as long as the individual retains control, if its state controlled, well we've been there and it never has a happy outcome, the most recent example being the whole Iraq fiasco and the way governments conspired to emotionally trigger our sense of fear.

Don't know if that helps you any.

Will's

 

[Quasimodem]

Great idea, raphy!

Aside from the obvious unrealness of induced emotions, and their possible addictiveness, what would be this device's use, and misuse?

What if a televangelist of the sleaziest variety was to subtly employ the bioscript to convince followers that they were participating in a religious event? What could he persuade them to willingly do?

(What have previous charismatic leaders been able to convince followers to do?)

Quack medical and psychiatric practitioners would be able to hoodwink their patients easier. They would not only offer the "hope" of improvement, but also the "emotional responses" of someone who KNOWS he is getting better.

For that matter, is this not what the CIA had in mind when they started up MK-Ultra? If you can instill love and trust for you into a prisoner, and hatred and fear toward everything that reminds him of his previous loyalties, will you not eventually TURN the prisoner. Will he not be brainwashed?

Perdita was correct in mentioning "Strange Days." It contains a device that records the experience - all senses and sensations. However, unless I misunderstood, raphy's device seems to cut one notch lower, at the emotional level.

In any case – that I recall – THAT concept appeared in Mead Shepherd's "The Big Ball of Wax" (1956) where the device was used to send up advertising.

(How can you sell anybody anything, if they can cram all the subsistence level food they need down their necks then switch on and enjoy a twelve-course gourmet dinner as perceived by the palate of a trained epicure?)

It showed up again in Philip K. Dick's "I Can Remember It for You Wholesale" which was butchered in the Arnold Schwartzenegger flick "Total Recall."

"Brainstorm" might have been a good film with that "McGuffin" except Natalie Wood died before the completion, and while, the set up of the idea seemed most interesting, the ending was rather muddled.

Strange Days - (1995) the end of the millennium film directed by Kathryn Bigelow (story and screenplay by James Cameron) about a shady hustler of ‘playback': a full body experience, recorded by a ‘squid' (hairnet-looking pickup). Here the crux of the story was that the "hero" unknowingly has a disk containing the memories of a now dead witness, to the events of a high profile homicide.


Since these previous stories employ a somewhat similar device, they may assist raphy in deciding how to develop his story's use of his device, but it will entail considerable adaptaion, due to the different levels at which the different devices work.

Previously, a similar idea has explored a device which overrides the physical level.

Raphy's concept seems to work similarly, only at the emotional level.

 

[raphy]

Great responses everyone .. And Quasi, yes - You're right. My device works at a lower level than the 'squid' in Strange Days..

That is what I've termed 'Neuroscripting' - Simulating the senses and sensations of what the person sees, hears, smells, feels and tastes... The subsequent emotions will then be driven by the senses.

My proposal does, in fact, go one level deeper. Rather than have the emotions driven by the senses, we go one level deeper and actually project actual emotions into the subject..

Simulating the senses is definitely not a new concept in Sci Fi or cyberpunk. Strange Days, as you mentioned before (Happens to be one of my favourite movies - I love Raph Fiennes in it).. Gibson coined the term SimStim (simulated stimuli) for his sprawl series of novels, and FASA coined a term SimSense (simulated senses) for the Shadowrun RPG..

I just thought I'd maybe play about with the concept of going a bit deeper with it ..

Obviously lots of potential for use and abuse. And I actually don't have much of a position on whether it's good or evil - But as an author, I should explore it and its social consequences, hence this thread, which I am all very grateful to you for contributing to so far!

It's been amazing reading all your responses, they've given me lots of ideas for dialogue between my characters when they're discussing this new technology .. (In the novel, it's a new and emerging technology, and so the characters are at a prime moment in time to discuss whether it should even be allowed to be developed)

 

[Icingsugar]

Interresting idea there, Raph.

But I think it is attacked in the wrong way, from a philosophical standpoint that I find very hand to comprehend.

Neurotechnology is an easy cake, since it only deals with stimuli of senses, electrical impulses and signals that cause a reaction in the conscoius mind. It is input to the thinker, the "soul" if you may. It is what you feed the mind.

Emotions are not that. While sense is the input, and intepretation of the senses, "thinking", is the process, emotions are the output of the mind, the very core of the soul itself.

You can not tell your head that your heart is lonely, because it's not the heart (yes, i know that it's just a metaphor) that is lonely, it is the head.

I don't even think that the analogy to psycho-farmaceutical drugs is a very good one. Today's happy-drugs does not make you happy. Happy-drugs does not even dull anxiety. All it does is take away some of the symptoms of anxiety and depression, that in turn made the patient even more depressed. It makes you cope with depression, not cure it.

To go back to my input/output reasoning, an outside stimuli can not control the emotions. It could however control the input so that the world you live in seems to be much more nuturing for happy thoughts (the whole Matrix thingamabob), or you can control the "programming" of the brain to make wrong conclusions about the input, suggesting that bad things happening actually are good for you, that kind of thing. Hotwire and hack a logic circuit here and there, or something like that.

The brain produces emotion based on those premises (input and conclusion), nothing produces emotions for the brain. Emotions are the core of one's being, while logic, consciousness, conclusion and reasoning is the inner wrapping, and the senses the outer one.

However, to keep the core in the dark, and feed it false information about how it should feel, that would probably be doable. "Mom died, oh how nice!" That's one level deeper than "Stange Days" or whatnot. But that's about as deep as I think you can go.

Well, that's my 2c. Hammer away.

 

[oggbashan]

Asimov explored the concept in his first Foundation book "Foundation" with the mutant called "The Mule" and his Visi-sonor instrument which amplified the effect.

Might be worth looking at.

Og

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Jeez, Raphy. I read a story kind of like this years ago. Decades ago, really, way back before computers. It was set in the indeterminate future, when people were having themselves wired into special life-support chambers where they would spend their entire lives plugged into what were basically life-length, full-sensory movies. You could choose to be a pirate, a cowboy, a knight, a fairy princess, and spend your life flying around in magical realms, whatever. You'd live your entire life in this pre-scripted movie, not knowing what would happen, but knowing that everything would come out okay in the end.

As I recall it, just about everyone in the world had been hooked up to these things, and the two technicians were talking about which movies they were going to live themselves once thgey hooked themselves up. It was one of those stories where the idea was a lot more interesting that any plot, so I can't remember what happened in it, but it's something that's stayed with me over the decades and that I think about often, especially now where it seems like entertainment is really the only growth industry in the USA, and eveything is treated as entertainment.

At one time we thought that in the future we'd all be exploring other worlds and flying around with atomic-powered jet packs. The exploration of space seemed to provide a kind of goal for the species: the next step in our evolution. Now it seems like that's never going to happen, and our technology seems to be bumping up against some pretty absolute limits. So what will we be doing in the distant future? I wouldn't be surprised if people opted to live a virtual life divorced from reality. It would be awfully tempting to live out the life of Achilles, say, or Casanova, or Aragorn or Jack Aubrey.

It's a fascinating idea.

---dr.M.

 

[Guest]

Lazy rhino--

 

[OldnotDead]

Hey, Raphy,

Fun concept to tinker with. As pointed out by people with much better memories than me, there are some decidedly similar explorations.

Taking the 'Cakeman's' comments as a departing point, you do need to resolve the technology a little bit. He is correct when he states that the senses create the environment for a response, but the emotional response is something unique to an individual. For example, there are certain smells that trigger some very specific responses for me because of my past, but I would be very surprised if those smells would produce the same result in anyone else.

It seems to me that what you are introducing is a kind of Artificial Intelligence device where the Bioscript would have to be learned for each person, exploring their brain and seeing what sensory inputs would produce which emotions. Like any AI attempt, it would require a period of learning in order to insure consistent response. For example the device might learn from me that it would require input of both sight, sound and smell to produce the exact right response 100% of the time. I would think that the 'learning' process could give you some very interesting material with which to work.

Then you would have to resolve how it is used. Several previous posters noted some comparisons to psychotherapeutic drugs, their uses and the abuse of the same. Most likely such a device was developed from medical research and probably came out of the 'product' group vs the 'chemical' group. That is a whole separate theme that doesn't apply to every medical advance, but the competition between 'pill pushers', 'cutters' and 'replacers' is a very real one today and would probably not disappear in the future. (For those that are not sure what I mean, consider the choice to treat a heart with clogged arteries with medicine, a 'stent' or bypass surgery) I would see there to be an element within the medical community that feels such a device to be 'inferior' to other 'treatments'.

My last comment is about WHO uses it. In your future is this device early in its application so it is primarily in the hands of the equivalent of our therapists today? Or perhaps only at specific medical institutions, still being at the research stage and not yet available to the broader medical community. From your introduction, it does not sound like it has developed to the point of 'self medication'. (Has anyone yet proposed that Prozac become available as an OTC drug like some of the allergy drugs? Now THERE is a subject!) Depending upon the users and deliverers of the technology, you would have some very different themes going on.

Some examples. Institutional only approved use. The prison population? Court ordered implantation of the device and programming of it to insure positive responses acceptable to society and elimination of undesirable responses. Perhaps the device can learn to eliminate simple violence. Yet, at the same time, the complex responses of a psychopathic manipulator are too difficult to guarantee 100% reliability. But since in the parole process if the 100% favorable response is achieved, the prisoner is released, the 'evil incarnate' figures out how to fake the results, get released and . . . well you have to write the rest

Have fun with it,

 

[Icingsugar]

It seems to me that what you are introducing is a kind of Artificial Intelligence device where the Bioscript would have to be learned for each person, exploring their brain and seeing what sensory inputs would produce which emotions.

Actually, it seemed to me like that was exactly not what he was trying to do. Instead the 'bioscrpting' seems to be about tossing the sensory input aside and instead just tell the mind what kind of an emotion that is on at the moment, as if emotions was something that the mind experienced like all other inputs, instead of something that the mind IS.

Therefore my suggested middle way, where you program the process and associations in the brain, the triggers, as you call them, to suggest to the mind that every input is a good thing, or a bad thing, or a sexy thing, you name it.

Edited to add:
...and that is something that you CAN do already. Suggestive hypnosis therapy does it. "And when you wake up, your uncalled for fear of sheep and garderobes will be gone." It works, if only for short term effect and the tools are quite blunt so far. But with more presicion and research into the field, and a few nano (not NaNo) medicine research quantum leaps, why not?

If you program the emotions, then you can IMO toss the soul and cue the robots. Trick the soul, don't become it.

But maybe I got the good writer's intentions wrong? Your call, Raph.

/Ice

 

[raphy]

Well, from a technological standpoint, I'm taking the easy route out. Right now, the code is highly experimental, in fact the segment that our protagonist comes across is the first of its kind. No one actually knows whether it works or not. (of course, it does, but not in the way that everyone thinks it might)

It seems to me that what you are introducing is a kind of Artificial Intelligence device where the Bioscript would have to be learned for each person,

You are closer than you realize, my friend *grins* That's very much what happens, and can only happen because I've set the backstory up to include exactly that kind of AI - Of course neither the protagonist nor the original programmer of the bioscript fully understands that. It makes for a good ending.

As for the applications of it.. I'm writing from a cyberpunk perspective, which tends to assume that the black market can get its hands on all the latest tech eventually - So in the same way that you see homeless people with cellphones these days, you'll see homeless people will tech like this.

Yeah, it'll be addictive. Yeah, people will sell their wives and kids for one last shot. I'm also exploring the concept of 'personality imprints' being finally made available through an application of this tech. If you can record a person's memories *and* their emotional makeup, can you create a reasonable 'facsimile' of that person within a computer?

Without this tech, a personality imprint would be nothing more than a collection of memories with a voice synthesizer tagged on the end.

Part of the excitement that builds to the climax is that no one in the story knows how it's going to work (which works for me as an author, because I don't know how it would work either, hehe)

 

[dr_mabeuse]

There's another way to go that's simpler and eliminates the middle man.

Why not just stimulate the hypothalamus directly? This is the "pleasure center" of the brain, and rats who are wired so they can stimulate their own hypothalamus by pressing on a bar will ignore sleep, sex, food and water. and just press that bar until they collapse from exhaustion.

The technology's probably available today.

---dr.M.

 

[raphy]

Actually, it seemed to me like that was exactly not what he was trying to do. Instead the 'bioscrpting' seems to be about tossing the sensory input aside and instead just tell the mind what kind of an emotion that is on at the moment, as if emotions was something that the mind experienced like all other inputs, instead of something that the mind IS.

Therefore my suggested middle way, where you program the process and associations in the brain, the triggers, as you call them, to suggest to the mind that every input is a good thing, or a bad thing, or a sexy thing, you name it.

If you program the emotions, then you can IMO toss the soul and cue the robots. Trick the soul, don't become it.

But maybe I got the good writer's intentions wrong? Your call, Raph.

/Ice

Sort of, Ice. The point is, when you 'feel' an emotion, are there neural patterns associated with that.

"The nanotech's there. It'll provide whatever stimuli we tell it. You ever been in love, Marshall?" She was looking directly at him with those serious eyes. He didn't answer, but he didn't need to. She was still talking. "You ever thought about the neurological processes that go into making people fall in love?"
Marshall thought about that for a long time.

Actually. No, that's not the point. Let's run with suspension of disbelief here, because I don't fully explain how the tech works, partly because I don't know, and partly because no character in the story knows.

"Maybe." The Cowboy seemed to notice Marshall's cigarette for the first time. "You got one of those going spare?" Marshall flipped open the pack, let him take one. Watched him light it with a matt black Zippo. "Bioscripting's not even really tested. Daydream thinks he can make it work, but it's still all totally hypothetical. No one really knows, not even Daydream."

So, how it works isn't an issue. I've surrounded both the code and the programmer with enough mysticism to make how it works less important than what it does when it actually works.

Suspension of disbelief - Rather than go with highly technical gobblegook which wouldn't make any logical sense, I've gone the other route, hinted at various concepts within the technology and left the reader to fill the rest in as he or she wishes.

 

[raphy]

There's another way to go that's simpler and eliminates the middle man.

Why not just stimulate the hypothalamus directly? This is the "pleasure center" of the brain, and rats who are wired so they can stimulate their own hypothalamus by pressing on a bar will ignore sleep, sex, food and water. and just press that bar until they collapse from exhaustion.

The technology's probably available today.

---dr.M.

Oh, I would imagine it is. There are things, however, that that neurotech can't do that this new tech can... For example, you could attempt to combine bioscripting with an AI to produce an AI with emotions

 

[raphy]

On a more theoretical basis, this brings back the "Brains-in-vats" debate that has been thrown around in philosophical circles since Socrates.

When not only 'neurotechnology' abounds but also your 'bioscript' is possible, all of perceived reality is called into question. It would be possible to 'create' all known reality without ever 'knowing' the real from the unreal.

Now it starts sounding like "The Matrix"...

And like you said, the neuro-stimulation has been around for quite some time. Wilder Penfield did experiments in the 1930's where he was able to stimulate certain sections of the brain and cause people to recall specific memories, sense datum, etc...

Sorry, only just now getting around to responding to some of the earlier comments..

I would hypothesize that the system used in 'The Matrix' doesn't contain any kind of bioscript. It works at a higher level, allowing our experiences and/or sensory input to control our emotions for us.

 

[raphy]

Raph

You probably know Iain M Banks SF books, the series that deal with The Culture where he writes of 'glanding' - emotional doping to suit different situations. The way he deals with the subject is convincing and realistic. The Culture is a human civilisation centuries in the future where machines/robots do everything leaving humans time to experiment with being human.

In that scenario I can see why 'glanding' makes sense. If the harsh reality of 'life' has been put to one side then artificial emotional triggers feed the brain to complete the living experience. He also uses the technology to enable people to live out experiences without impairing their physical wellbeing, even to change sex which for me, speaking personally, is an interesting notion and one that I am sure advanced civilisations would experiment with.

In a small way, our media does much the same today feeding us with images and story's designed to impact emotionally, just think of the Africa famine imagery that is used to get us to dip into our pockets. Emotional dopping works for me in a story as long as the individual retains control, if its state controlled, well we've been there and it never has a happy outcome, the most recent example being the whole Iraq fiasco and the way governments conspired to emotionally trigger our sense of fear.

Don't know if that helps you any.

Will's

Helps me lots, Wills - I never thought of it as a propaganda tool, but you're right of course. This is exactly why I started this discussion..

I kinda wanted people to put themselves in my characters' places. You've just heard about this new tech. No one's 100% sure if it works, but the guy who designed it says he thinks it'll work once he gets an appropriate test subject..

You're all sitting around your table in your favourite bar, the AH, and talking about this new tech and it's social implicatons..

Which is what we're doing

Again, thanks to you all.

 

[raphy]

Re: Re: The Human Heart.......

Your concept sounds like a variation of the SF standards of "Feely Addicts" and "Wire-Heads." Both are similar VR technologies to your Neuroscript" and Bioscript, and both are generally presented as having a strong potential for abuse.

Personally, I can't see the utility of Bioscript; if Neuroscript is as completly developed as you suggest. If stimulating the five senses can't cause the emotions desired, what advantage would a (presumably chemical) stimulation add to the experience?

Yeah, neuroscripting is a variant on wire-heading. It gets used everywhere that cybertech raises its ugly head.

Why bioscript? Well, just taking the situation you described above.. Because sometimes people are immune to their sensory input.

It's not chemical, it's still eletrical. It's still neurotech.

Something happens to your brain when you fall in love. If you could duplicate that, you could make someone fall in love with you (as long as the current kept running)

Lots of reasons to do it. Whether those reasons are ethical or not I leave up to you, gentle reader.