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Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?


Ragitsu

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Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Well' date=' considering [b']1) the fastest computers are still 20 years short of matching a typical human brain, and probably 30 years from having the software to really emulate one[/b], and 2) humans themselves will be the ones making the decisions about whether to augment, what to improve, etc., I'd say we're pretty far from becoming superfluous. ;)

I'd also note that we already "upgrade" ourselves routinely--cosmetic surgery, laser eye surgery, organ transplants(natural and artificial), immunization programs(polio, smallpox, mumps, measles, etc.), diet/nutrition/exercise, academic study and training, and so forth. The line between "natural" augmentation and "artificial" augmentation can be a little blurry, imo.

That said, I am much more receptive to the idea of "evolving naturally" via bioengineering than I am to implanting random bits of circuitry in my body.

 

That's still waaay too close for comfort.

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Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

That's still waaay too close for comfort.

It was once said that "2 Years in the computer industry equall 5 Years in the automibile industry".

 

Cars might be around since 1674 and Computer only since 1941. But those 70 Computer Years count like 175 car years. So computers already goen half the way cars have done until today. Adn the petrol engine only came after around 200 Years of development.

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Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

To those of you open to augmentation/replacements, is there a limit to the kind of cybernetic or bioengineered "part" you'd accept?

 

Do you mind looking markedly other than human, or do you want to look as you are now?

 

Would you mind anything that is connected to your brain/nervous system, or are you a strictly "normal consciousness" kind of person?

 

Well, I'd be open to very little. Maybe if paralyzed something that would help me walk. But, that might still a deal breaker. As I dont want nothing of that messing in my brain. I have enough problem with computer viruses on my own computer. No telling what would happen if those glitches were rattling around in my skill.

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Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

I would do cybernetics only as a replacement for a lost limb or organ. If mature bioengineering is available I would opt for that instead. I would voluntarily undergo gene therapy to enhance my health and general physicality. I would be okay with a minor neurological cyber implant in order to jack into virtual reality as long as there were no side effects. I would not go wireless though. Wouldn't want anyone to be able to hijack my brain from a distance.

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Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

I wouldn't worry about it too much. Fusion power plants are 20 years away too.

But, we can already make flexible eletronics and even place them on the skin, limiar to a non-permanent tatoo:

http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/12/ees-packs-circuits-into-temporary-tattoos-makes-medical-diagnos/

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Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

I wouldn't worry about it too much. Fusion power plants are 20 years away too.

 

To be fair, they're only about 10-15 years away from producing power from a fusion power plant. The first commercial power plant is planned to go online 2033. ITER, DEMO and PROTO are the power plants in question.

 

And 20 years for the hardware is pessimistic to the extreme. Assuming Moore's Law holds for another 2 years, well, see for yourselves:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]39698[/ATTACH]

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Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

 

Considering that as of the end of next week I will be a Federal Law Enforcement Officer, that is a tempting thought. If it could remain fairly pliable yet still resistant and prove more comfortable than the armored vests they issued us at the academy I would probably go for it.

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Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Possible meltdown/explosion aside' date=' what's wrong with Fusion power?[/quote']

 

Containment.

 

Fusion requires a near perfect magnetic confinement of high energy particles (really hot hydrogen gas) for long periods of time (500 seconds is the current goal). The only way we can do that kind of confinement is with super-conductors, which have to be kept at freezing temperatures. The result is some tricky engineering challenges.

 

Heating.

 

Getting the fuel pellets into plasma state requires a lot of heat delivered over a very small amount of time. The more energy you can give the particles at this point the more energy you can get out of them (the really high energy reactions only occur at really high temperatures) and the longer you can keep the plant running by just inserting more fuel. Lining up the 200+ lasers with nanometer precision isn't an easy job.

 

Current generation fusion reactors just barely brake even, using as much power as they produce before they have to shut down to prevent containment breach.

 

Luckly, all these challenges are computing issues at their heart (given a particularly broad definition of computing issues). Meaning that, with a few orders of magnitude more computing power (I love being able to say that and mean: within 10 years) we could have a computer solve them. That's the fact most people fail to grasp, by the way; the algorithms that can solve these kind of problems, which would have spent millennia trying to solve them when they were first designed now only take years, and will in ten years only take hours. And that's assuming quantum-computing doesn't pan out and make all classical algorithms obsolete.

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Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

I wouldn't worry about it too much. Fusion power plants are 20 years away too.

Yeah, all my life I heard that flat TV's were 10 years away. They were 10 years away in the 60's, ten years away in the 70's, ten years away in the 80's and ten years away in the 90's. Then I blinked, and CRT's were no longer being made.

 

Possible meltdown/explosion aside' date=' what's wrong with Fusion power?[/quote']

"Absolutely nothing! It's the power of the future and always will be!"

 

Just seems like however much progress we make, we never quite get there. I believe that's called an asymptote in mathmatics.

 

To be fair, they're only about 10-15 years away from producing power from a fusion power plant. The first commercial power plant is planned to go online 2033. ITER, DEMO and PROTO are the power plants in question.

 

And 20 years for the hardware is pessimistic to the extreme. Assuming Moore's Law holds for another 2 years, well, see for yourselves:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]39698[/ATTACH]

Interesting chart. Distributed computing isn't on there?

 

Moore's law is, spooky. There doesn't seem to be any reason why it should work, yet it has (so far). Every predicted hard limit on it has been overcome, better materials, better manufacturing techniques, better computing methods. Yet to assume it will continue seems somehow dogmatic.

 

Having said that, if quantum computing does prove possible, the limiting factor on increased computer power at that time will be how fast we can build the prototypes.

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Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

To be fair, they're only about 10-15 years away from producing power from a fusion power plant. The first commercial power plant is planned to go online 2033. ITER, DEMO and PROTO are the power plants in question.

 

And 20 years for the hardware is pessimistic to the extreme. Assuming Moore's Law holds for another 2 years, well, see for yourselves:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]39698[/ATTACH]

 

Such an optimistic young man. DEMO is proposed to go online in 2033 by the ITER working group. If, that is, ITER works when it has been designed and built. It's the fact that we've been hearing these promises since 1951 that leads people to roll their eyes when they hear talk about how commercial fusion plants are always ten years in the future.

 

I mean, sure, it could be true. But the record doesn't leave us with much reason to take these promises at face value.

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Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Moore's law is' date=' spooky. There doesn't seem to be any reason why it should work, yet it has (so far). Every predicted hard limit on it has been overcome, better materials, better manufacturing techniques, better computing methods. Yet to assume it will continue seems somehow dogmatic.[/quote']

Moore's law is a self-fulfilling prophecy, simply because the chip-manufacturers decided to follow it with their development:

"His prediction has proved to be uncannily accurate, in part because the law is now used in the semiconductor industry to guide long-term planning and to set targets for research and development" - Wikipedia, 3. paragraph.

 

So perhaps it is all about setting detectable/defined goals...

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Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Would you apply these technologies to your children' date=' or even unborn children?[/quote']

 

If it's a benign, entirely beneficial use--like removing the risk of hereditable disease or mental illness--sure. If it's something to enhance them above a "baseline human", I think I'd leave it up to them, once they're old enough to understand the implications and consequences of such an act. Plus they'd be less likely to become bio- or cyber-elitists if they had the experience of being a "baseliner" for a while. :)

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Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Would you apply these technologies to your children' date=' or even unborn children?[/quote']

Would I apply this medical miracle, the one I would be praying for daily if I still prayed, to my schizophrenic foster sons so that they would have a chance at a normal life rather than being emotional adolescents all their lives? That's a tuffy!

 

:rolleyes:

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Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

As enlightened as that may be' date=' a lot of people still do care about their "humanity".[/quote']

OK, why?

 

If you feel human, if you think of yourself as a person, if you're healthy and happy, why does an external definition matter?

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Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Would I apply this medical miracle, the one I would be praying for daily if I still prayed, to my schizophrenic foster sons so that they would have a chance at a normal life rather than being emotional adolescents all their lives? That's a tuffy!

 

:rolleyes:

 

Curing an ailment, be it psychological or physiological, is something I think the majority of people don't object to. Also, I certainly wouldn't view it as "Bioengineering" (now, if it were made possible that no human could ever get any form of cancer, that may be a different story).

 

What I had in mind is more like giving them a set of gills, or replacing part of their brain with a computer.

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Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Curing an ailment' date=' be it psychological or physiological, is something I think the majority of people don't object to. Also, [i']I[/i] certainly wouldn't view it as "Bioengineering" (now, if it were made possible that no human could ever get any form of cancer, that may be a different story).

 

What I had in mind is more like giving them a set of gills, or replacing part of their brain with a computer.

Replacing, or at least supplementing parts of their brains, the parts that hear voices that no one else do, is exactly what it would take to cure my boys.

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