From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Sat Aug 02 2003 - 13:13:47 MDT
The meme snatchers would also be subjected to the same problem as the
interstellar antibodies: they would have to be placed so that they could
fix things before the information got out of hand.
A guess is that the limit is around an hour; after an hour the
researcher might have told his fellow researchers at the observatory and
called the media (OK, that is not the proper IAU protocol, but you don't
design systems like this based on the assumption that the humans are
always following rules) and the information leak would require too much
work to fix easily (here I assume roughly nanotech capabilities - no
instant matter editing by remote or anything). So we need devices that
can keep track of every human and some relevant hardware too. Just like
the interstellar scenario it might make sense to just put a device on or
in each human being, monitoring what is happening.
However, the problem here is that an invisible microbot also has
somewhat limited sensory abilities. If we assume the need for
human-level sight and hearing, it likely has to be reasonably large (to
catch vibrations and avoid diffraction). A likelier approach would be to
connect it to the brain directly - that way it could fix bad engrams
too. So what we are looking for is something spread across the brain,
with links to the sensory systems and memory systems, that actually is
our guardians. Hmm, the noradrenergic nucleus locus ceruleus starts to
look suspicious. But then again, it is found in all mammals. But what
about the thalamic interstitial nuclei? Broad projections, hard to
distinguish, nobody really understands them. Hidden within what looks
like such a nucleus a little nanodevice sits, listening to things.
Hmm, what was I thinking about? I just forgot it. Ah, better get back to
my work.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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