Bit of Discourse- Transhumanism

[Simon_Jester]

like fundamentally beyond the breast size a normal human body can grow?
Like fundamentally beyond the colours or interactivity, or durability or range of senses or organs they were born with?

sounds pretty similar to transcending the limits to me, just in things they are interested in, not you

Put it this way:

I call something "transhuman" when it has consequences for the way we live that make for noticeable social change by themselves. Being able to live without sleep, or having intelligence beyond that of geniuses, or having, say, the ability to automatically secrete hormones that cause everyone around you to trust you... those potentially cause that kind of difference. Being able to turn green or have breast implants the size of watermelons... doesn't.

Wheras a current bay area singu-futurist

Christ, you guys are worse for buzzwords than the education policy wonks...

I am not a trendy bay area singu-futurist. Not only am I not in the bay area (aka one true tech/futurist Mecca according to all who dwell there), I am not on any of the hip forums, trendy conferences or cool blogs. I do talk to them enough to be able to playfully emulate the style though

I apologize for identifying you with them, even by accident.

However, it is necessary- you will never duplicate an object at the atomic level unless you have some kind of tool for seeing the object at that level.

Necessary for what? Why are we trying to duplicate things 'down to every individual atom' in the first place? Of course the 'atomic level' is important in that we need to be able to map and reproduce the functional properties of various molecular processes and nanoscale structures, but we are pretty certain the relevant functional properties of say a dendrite tree can be described many orders of magnitude more concisely than its arrangement of atoms.

Starglider, that was an example- my point was that IF we wanted to duplicate a structure at the atomic level, we would at the very least need to be able to perceive that structure at the atomic level.

I don't actually care whether or not we need to do that, it's just meant to illustrate the general case. In the general case, the argument runs "capability X will not give us capability Y, but we will damn sure not achieve Y without first achieving X."

Likewise, I argue, we will not achieve brain uploading without being able to build working computer models of the brain that can fully simulate it. As you say, having the simulation doesn't guarantee we'll be able to copy any particular human mind and run it on the simulation... but as I was saying to Esquire, if you don't have the simulation you can't even get started.

[Starglider]

However, it is necessary- you will never duplicate an object at the atomic level unless you have some kind of tool for seeing the object at that level.... I don't actually care whether or not we need to do that, it's just meant to illustrate the general case.

Ok, but I'd note that even assuming we need to have a full molecular understanding of how all the relevant organelles, membranes, channels and receptors work is a conservative assumption. It may be possible to build a functional model simply from observing the information-carrying signals (i.e. firing rates and pulse propagation), in the same way that a Victorian scientist could create an accurate predictive model a transistor with thorough black-box testing, even without knowing how semiconductors work. It's true that early computational neuroscientists were quite over-optimistic about this (early ANNs were portrayed as much more biomorphic than they actually were), hence the current crop of academics being fairly cautious and assuming we do need a full molecular scale description (nuts like Hugo de Garis excluded), but still it hasn't been proven essential.

[Simon_Jester]

Fine. I don't have any opinions on whether or not the brain has to be simulated on a molecule-by-molecule basis for brain simulation to work.

I was just using "can control the atomic-level structure of matter" as an example of capability it'd be cool to have, but which requires other lesser capabilities to exist before you can have it.

[Grumman]

The engineering spec to satisfy the 'OMG it is really the same person' sense of the word is simply matching the original personality to within some below-human-perceptible tolerance. This is conceptually relatively straightforward to brute force; freeze/vitrify the brain, destructively scan it in layers by some combination of laser and mechanical sensing & stripping, pattern-recognise the neural structures, configure appropriate synapse, cell body and external metabolic simulations, run on zetascale (or maybe exascale with good approximations) computer.

When you speak of precision of below-human-perceptible tolerance, do you comprehend that half of your strategy is to specifically kill the human who is most capable of perceiving the difference? The reason you need to destructively scan the subject's brain is not because that's the only way to get the inputs you need, it's because you need to kill him before he can say "Nope, that's not me."

[biostem]

One thing about transhumanism that I don't see talked about too much is the psychological impact of a greatly extended lifespan and straying too far from the "original design" as it were...

I mean, if your brain was in its own little self contained unit, and could be connected to virtually any body, then why limit yourself to the human form? You could be a bird one day, a fish the next. But more to the point, even if your brain could interface with a hyper-advanced body, how difficult or easy would it be to adapt to the new sensory input or need for better reflexes? Current night and thermal goggles translate that info into visible images - but what effect would having radar, thermal, x-ray, sonar, and all sorts of other sensors feeding directly into your brain have?

I also wonder if people could be trusted with the kind of autonomy they have with their original bodies. Would you want someone running around, unmonitored, in a body that could break the sound barrier single handedly, or punch through reinforced concrete with its bare hands?


I could see transhumanism moving toward a sort of tiered setup: A category available to normal citizens, which includes things like correcting genetic flaws, extending life, and replacing damaged or failed organs with ones similar or slightly above normal ones. Perhaps people would get implants to allow directly interfacing with some equipment - like a built-in smartphone.

I don't think it'd be until you started getting into military or highly specialized fields (CIA, law enforcement, heavy construction) that you'd be likely to see more than that. I just think that the power level would be intentionally kept down, so as to avoid any larger societal problems...

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

The engineering spec to satisfy the 'OMG it is really the same person' sense of the word is simply matching the original personality to within some below-human-perceptible tolerance. This is conceptually relatively straightforward to brute force; freeze/vitrify the brain, destructively scan it in layers by some combination of laser and mechanical sensing & stripping, pattern-recognise the neural structures, configure appropriate synapse, cell body and external metabolic simulations, run on zetascale (or maybe exascale with good approximations) computer.

When you speak of precision of below-human-perceptible tolerance, do you comprehend that half of your strategy is to specifically kill the human who is most capable of perceiving the difference? The reason you need to destructively scan the subject's brain is not because that's the only way to get the inputs you need, it's because you need to kill him before he can say "Nope, that's not me."

Not really. You're not engaging in destructive scanning specifically to kill the witness. You'd be engaging in one-time destructive scanning because it would be technically far easier to accomplish than runtime scanning. With the one-time scan, you get all the synaptic connections and chemical states in one go. Runtime scanning would be slow owing to the inherent speed of human thought and the requirement that your scanning mechanism not accidentally kill the subject through denaturing his or her brain proteins through waste heat, or something (unless you were engaging in the sort of runtime scanning that involves replacing the original neurons with their arbitrarily small-scale technological counterparts.) Due to the time requirement, I suspect that the best a runtime scan of a human mind can produce is a messy, time-averaged, approximation ... though since the human mind is really quite terrible at self-reflection, the simulated mind's personality would match the donor's personality below the donor's ability to perceive the difference.

[Grumman]

...though since the human mind is really quite terrible at self-reflection, the simulated mind's personality would match the donor's personality below the donor's ability to perceive the difference.

No. It is trivially easy for the donor to perceive the difference. They are two identical minds, not one mind. When one learns something, the other does not. When one tries to move the other one's body, nothing happens. When one dies, the other continues to exist, blissfully unaware.

[Esquire]

'But I want to transfer my real true consciousness/soul' is essentially a marketing problem. Yes, engineering a sufficiently convincing philosophical placebo will be considerably harder than just brute forcing it, but there are plenty of options and I'm reasonably confident at least some of them will work well enough to convince a lot of people. Of course some people are just axiomatically unconvincable.

Marketing problem, maybe, but a very serious one. If your method for brain-scanning is to shred the original brain layer by layer, copying as you go, I'd advise having some kind of argument for why having a copy of my brain will do any good for me, the person whose brain you just destroyed. You can't just dismiss the question out of hand; the "philosophical placebo" is an essential part of the success of the project. If you can't prove you've actually moved my "real true consciousness/soul" into a new body, all you've done is killed me and created a more-or-less convincing copy, and why would I sign up for that?

[Jub]

...though since the human mind is really quite terrible at self-reflection, the simulated mind's personality would match the donor's personality below the donor's ability to perceive the difference.

No. It is trivially easy for the donor to perceive the difference. They are two identical minds, not one mind. When one learns something, the other does not. When one tries to move the other one's body, nothing happens. When one dies, the other continues to exist, blissfully unaware.

Not if it was replaced bit by bit and stayed awake the entire time. The new parts take the place of and interact with the old in harmony and there are never two minds.

[Starglider]

When you speak of precision of below-human-perceptible tolerance, do you comprehend that half of your strategy is to specifically kill the human who is most capable of perceiving the difference? The reason you need to destructively scan the subject's brain is not because that's the only way to get the inputs you need, it's because you need to kill him before he can say "Nope, that's not me."

Destructive scanning is not strictly 'necessary', it is just much easier than non-destructive scanning. Non-invasive techniques aren't likely to scale to the necessary resolution and invasive non-destructive scanning while theoretically possible requires fairly mature nanorobotics.

Having the original saying 'no, that is not me' would only be a failure if the upload does not also say 'no, that is not me' in exactly the same tone. A correctly executed non-destructive upload is duplication of a mind in the same sense as creating a copy of an sapient AI, there is nothing magical about it. Obviously outside of very contrived experimental conditions divergence will occur post copy due to different inputs.

Marketing problem, maybe, but a very serious one. If your method for brain-scanning is to shred the original brain layer by layer, copying as you go, I'd advise having some kind of argument for why having a copy of my brain will do any good for me, the person whose brain you just destroyed. You can't just dismiss the question out of hand; the "philosophical placebo" is an essential part of the success of the project. If you can't prove you've actually moved my "real true consciousness/soul" into a new body, all you've done is killed me and created a more-or-less convincing copy, and why would I sign up for that?

You're making assumptions about what 'the project' is. For neuroscience / AI research projects, the goal is 'Science!' and the brain is typically donnated post-mortem by someone wishing to assist medical science. Given mature and widely available destructive-only upload technology, the most common case would again be post-mortem scan after death to accident, illness or old age. In fact looking at the current situation with cryonics, suicide might legally complicate getting the procedure. There would be plenty of early adopters to go for this; the marketing issue would only be relevant once there are already millions of uploads. Civil rights for uploads is a related, but fundamentally different question, in that reasonable people should be able to accept that an intelligence is human-equivalent without being 'the exact same as' a human.

Not if it was replaced bit by bit and stayed awake the entire time. The new parts take the place of and interact with the old in harmony and there are never two minds.

I am all for this in principle but it is quite a lot harder.

[madd0ct0r]

like fundamentally beyond the breast size a normal human body can grow?
Like fundamentally beyond the colours or interactivity, or durability or range of senses or organs they were born with?

sounds pretty similar to transcending the limits to me, just in things they are interested in, not you

Put it this way:

I call something "transhuman" when it has consequences for the way we live that make for noticeable social change by themselves. Being able to live without sleep, or having intelligence beyond that of geniuses, or having, say, the ability to automatically secrete hormones that cause everyone around you to trust you... those potentially cause that kind of difference. Being able to turn green or have breast implants the size of watermelons... doesn't.

Fair enough. I reckon the sex change operations might still fit the bill, but I'm clutching at straws really

[Ahriman238]

Another persistent idea is creating a sort of leadership caste for humanity with chemical/pheromone control over us plebes. Particularly if the rest of us get tweaked to be more susceptible to such. As seen in Drakon, Quantum Vibe, and maybe the Tau from 40K.

[Simon_Jester]

This is invariably unpopular, because normal humans (including the audience) view it as a threat.

It's hard for me to judge whether this would be plausible and workable- to what extent do pheromones allow you to hijack someone's self-control? What research has been done on this?

For another, just having the ability to secrete the pheromones might not be enough. Note that in the case of the Draka, it's not just they they're engineered with controlling pheromones, it's that everyone else is engineered to be especially vulnerable, which makes things harder to implement if you don't already rule the world with an iron fist.

[Starglider]

[quote="Simon_Jester"]It's hard for me to judge whether this would be plausible and workable- to what extent do pheromones allow you to hijack someone's self-control? What research has been done on this?

Relatively limited unclassified research but I suspect national security organisations have done a boatload more. The short answer is that it isn't plausible or workable for any known natural or synthetic pheromone; any limited influence you might have would be highly dependent on target mood, biochemistry and of course air conditions (only works at ludicrously short range, not at all over communications media). Most research that has shown a measurable effect is related to sexual attraction which is of limited use for 'dominate the plebs' anyway.

Of course it is possible that there are as yet undicovered molecules that would have the desired effect at very low airborne concentrations, and at the limit you could always posit an active pathogen (i.e. short-lived behavior-modifying virus).

Optimising speech output, from tonal properties up to word choice, would probably be more useful and effective. Politicians already benefit from vocal coaching and oratory/speechwriting training, but biological tweaks could take this quite a bit further.

[Simon_Jester]

Of course it is possible that there are as yet undicovered molecules that would have the desired effect at very low airborne concentrations, and at the limit you could always posit an active pathogen (i.e. short-lived behavior-modifying virus).

True. With a pathogen, of course, you'd have risks associated with making your designated homo superior a carrier for the pathogen, and otherwise you haven't really created a person with the ability to dominate others via these means.

Undiscovered substances would have to do it- or, well, the Draka route of modifying everyone else to respond more favorably to the pheromone of choice.

Optimising speech output, from tonal properties up to word choice, would probably be more useful and effective. Politicians already benefit from vocal coaching and oratory/speechwriting training, but biological tweaks could take this quite a bit further.

Hm. Interesting.

[mumble mumble Bene Gesserit mumble mumble...]

[Ahriman238]

[mumble mumble Bene Gesserit mumble mumble...]

Speaking of them, another route for transhumanism is old-fashion eugenics. The idea came about shortly after Darwin when people realized all over that you can breed animals for desirable traits, and that this could apply to people. Of course, from the beginning eugenics was tainted by racism, and confusion over what traits are both desirable and inheritable, good manners being high on the list for several early eugenicists.

These days the whole thing gets a very, very bad rap for it's association with the Nazis and the Holocaust, and the forced sterilizations of several Americans considered "subnormal" on rather flimsy evidence. That's fair, because these things happened and were horrible. But it does make it rather hard to have a calm and reasonable discussion of the idea. There is such a thing as "soft" eugenics where instead of preventing people you dislike from reproducing (with ensuing, predictable unpleasantness) you encourage people with desirable traits, in modern society this usually means intelligence, to reproduce more than they would otherwise. Is the Mensa sperm bank really so evil, even if it is connected to eugenics?

As alluded to by Simon, the Bene Gesserit of Dune practiced a very long process of eugenics to create their own messiah legend, the Kwisatz Haderach, then promptly wished they hadn't, aside from likely controlling their own breeding. The main villain of Dark Angel was likewise the product of an ancient conspiracy to breed a perfect human, unlike the heroes who got their powers the old-fashioned way through government experimentation. Does Kelhus count? The Nietzcheans in Andromeda may not have begun through eugenics but they sure went out of their way to make sure only the fittest and purest could ever achieve the highest title of their society, that of husband and father.

And Star Trek had the whole Eugenics War even though Khan and his kindred seem to have been GE'd, not bred the slow and old-fashioned way.

[Simon_Jester]

[mumble mumble Bene Gesserit mumble mumble...]

Speaking of them...

And yes I'll get back to your actual post, but also speaking of them, if you look at a lot of fiction dating back to, say, the 1970s and earlier, there is a recurring theme of transhumanism through self-improvement. The idea that by making ourselves the best we can be through the right combination of education, new ideas, and mental and physical disciplines, we can transcend the limitations we are familiar with, without (necessarily) using technology to augment our bodies or creating a whole new breed of beings.

Off the top of my head I can think of...
-Languages that just by learning them, change the way you think and give you remarkable powers of cognition (Babel-17, by Delany)
-Mental disciplines that allow humans to process great quantities of information and model complex systems very effectively (the mentats of Herbert's Dune)
-The idea that all humans actually have latent telepathic or spiritual abilities that can be enhanced and brought out by proper training (too numerous to count)

This kind of went out of style after about, oh, the 1970s. Two reasons I can think of:

One, 'parapsychology' and the idea that humans actually had vast latent potential locked away in their minds went out of fashion, or became generally associated with New Age woo in the minds of most educated people.

Two, the increasing use of computers (including basic stuff like pocket calculators, PDAs, and word processors) as personal tools in the 1980s and on has made it seem... somewhat less probable that in the future people will be better at disciplined, organized thought that takes place entirely inside the confines of our own brains. If anything, the rise of computer technology seems to cause us to outsource parts of our thought process to the machine (say, remembering phone numbers, doing calculations, or knowing how to spell) while concentrating on other things (say, keeping track of our social network).

...another route for transhumanism is old-fashion eugenics. The idea came about shortly after Darwin when people realized all over that you can breed animals for desirable traits, and that this could apply to people. Of course, from the beginning eugenics was tainted by racism, and confusion over what traits are both desirable and inheritable, good manners being high on the list for several early eugenicists.

Interestingly, "good manners" translates into "good social skills in the context of our society," and probably is something that would give you a genetic advantage, assuming there were a way to make it genetic. Being the sort of person who instinctively behaves the way the middle and upper classes of your society expect their members to behave is a very noticeable advantage over people who do not behave that way.

The main reason it seems silly in hindsight is because "good manners" has changed so much in the past 50-100 years.

[Ahriman238]

There are aspects of charisma that likely are inheritable, but good manners are, and always have been, learned behaviors.


While we're at it can we take a moment to deal with this bit of relevant idiocy. It seems in every fifth sci-fi movie or TV show, particularly where an intelligence increase or psychic powers are involved reminds us that humanity has vast untapped potential and that "you only use ten percent (sometimes they say fifteen) of your brain." This is... the second stupidest thing I have ever heard in serious television/film, just barely ahead of "reverse the polarity of the neutron flow" but still a ways behind "It took me two years just to learn the Latin alphabet."

Neurologists have known about the 10-15% thing for a very long time, and at some point it leaked into pop culture, maybe as a factoid, maybe as part of some self-help thing and the idea simply won't die despite missing the essential second half: you only use a small percentage of your brain at one time. Okay? Because the average person does not possess the ability to experience every emotion, review every memory, engage their imagination and creative processes in all areas, make sophisticated plans about the future, be social and engaging, move every muscle simultaneously in new and familiar patterns and metacogitate (examine their own thought processes) all at the same time. You normally don't do more than three or four of these things at once leaving parts of your brain dark and dormant. At least until a minute later when you change tasks, with some parts of your brain going active and others quiet.

So please, just don't say someone is more evolved or has psychic powers because they're tapping the unused 90% (I'm looking at you in particular, Stargate) the best case scenario is you'll look clueless. Or massively insensitive. You see, there is a circumstance in which people's brains do run 100% all synapses firing. It's called a stroke, and is generally considered a Bad Thing.

[Broomstick]

There is such a thing as "soft" eugenics where instead of preventing people you dislike from reproducing (with ensuing, predictable unpleasantness) you encourage people with desirable traits, in modern society this usually means intelligence, to reproduce more than they would otherwise. Is the Mensa sperm bank really so evil, even if it is connected to eugenics?

Is there a term for the type of eugenics where you neither discourage nor encourage people to make a decision but provide them with better information?

It's been found that when people know they are carriers for a really nasty genetic disease they tend to either not reproduce, use various medical technologies to ensure they do not produce offspring with that disease, or choose to take a different mate for reproductive purposes. It turns out you don't really need to steer most people in the "right" direction, humans tend to try to maximize the fitness of their children when given an ability to influence that outcome.

(Usually - there are exceptions because we are talking about humans)

[Broomstick]

....if you look at a lot of fiction dating back to, say, the 1970s and earlier, there is a recurring theme of transhumanism through self-improvement. The idea that by making ourselves the best we can be through the right combination of education, new ideas, and mental and physical disciplines, we can transcend the limitations we are familiar with, without (necessarily) using technology to augment our bodies or creating a whole new breed of beings....[snip]....This kind of went out of style after about, oh, the 1970s. Two reasons I can think of:

One, 'parapsychology' and the idea that humans actually had vast latent potential locked away in their minds went out of fashion, or became generally associated with New Age woo in the minds of most educated people.

Two, the increasing use of computers (including basic stuff like pocket calculators, PDAs, and word processors) as personal tools in the 1980s and on has made it seem... somewhat less probable that in the future people will be better at disciplined, organized thought that takes place entirely inside the confines of our own brains. If anything, the rise of computer technology seems to cause us to outsource parts of our thought process to the machine (say, remembering phone numbers, doing calculations, or knowing how to spell) while concentrating on other things (say, keeping track of our social network).

Three, people actually tried to do this, utilize those strategies to become better. They quickly bumped up against the limits of such techniques. Sure, as an example, you can learn to do some interesting things via biofeedback but it's hard and requires discipline, dedication, and lots and lots of time sunk into learning and practice these techniques.

It's like pitting techniques to improve memory against the written word - by and large, the written word won. Oh, improving your memory is a good thing, and various techniques are practiced to a greater or lesser degree, but most folks find storing knowledge in a book (or other peripheral) works better for them.

[Simon_Jester]

There are aspects of charisma that likely are inheritable, but good manners are, and always have been, learned behaviors.

Very true- and the really amusing part of eugenicists trying to breed better behavior into people is that they think the customs of their particular tribe are some sort of laws of nature.

Although it's worth noting that high-status social conduct was sometimes referred to elliptically as "good breeding" in the 1900-or-so era. Strictly, it meant you had good parents and had been brought up according to upper-class norms. And that did show in the behavior and manners of the individual.

If you have a 19th century knowledge of genetics, you're likely to fail to tell the difference between the "nature" and "nurture" aspects of an upper-class upbringing.

While we're at it can we take a moment to deal with this bit of relevant idiocy. It seems in every fifth sci-fi movie or TV show, particularly where an intelligence increase or psychic powers are involved reminds us that humanity has vast untapped potential and that "you only use ten percent (sometimes they say fifteen) of your brain." This is... the second stupidest thing I have ever heard in serious television/film, just barely ahead of "reverse the polarity of the neutron flow" but still a ways behind "It took me two years just to learn the Latin alphabet."

[How long does it take the average person to learn their ABCs?]

Anyway, I suppose it's a stupid thing nowadays- but for all anyone knew in the 1930s it was true.

So please, just don't say someone is more evolved or has psychic powers because they're tapping the unused 90% (I'm looking at you in particular, Stargate) the best case scenario is you'll look clueless. Or massively insensitive. You see, there is a circumstance in which people's brains do run 100% all synapses firing. It's called a stroke, and is generally considered a Bad Thing.

Heh. Point. Although I do think there's still a certain appeal to the idea that the human brain can be used more efficiently. We try to tap into humanity's latent ability to think better all the time; it's called education.

The idea that in a thousand years we will have learned methods of education so advanced that we'll be able to make drastically better use of our brains than any normal person now living is... not out of the question, though perhaps a bit farfetched. I mean, a thousand years ago it was a rare thing if people learned to read, let alone read without moving their lips. We now take it for granted.

[Ahriman238]

Well, how would you like to see the brain improved? Orion's Arm has their silly transcendence levels that treat advancement almost purely as a function of processing speed and data storage. But there are commonalities in brain mods. Most common are "luckies" bred to be optimistic and opportunistic (which some psychologists say is all there is to luck, the ability to take chances, recognize opportunities and the willingness to capitalize on them) and fullminders who have both male (logic, math strong) and female (emotional, intuitive) neurological edges. Then... hmmm... increased multi-tasking capability, increased memory, increased ability to focus, and less need for sleep.

[Simon_Jester]

Ah, but Orion's Arm is a very... materialistic approach to brain enhancement. You get a better brain by, more or less, replacing the hardware with superior hardware. Intellectual development as envisioned by someone whose idea of 'make it smarter' is to replace their computer's CPU with a faster one.

What I was originally talking about was methods of focus, meditation, or just plain teaching that result in people learning to do things they normally aren't capable of today. Which is interesting because in a real sense, that was Singularity literature, some of it... long before anyone had ever heard of nanotech and when the 'runaway AI god' story was in its infancy.

In other words, the Arisians from Doc Smith are clearly on the other side of a Singularity from humanity, either humanity of that setting or humanity of real life. And yet, so far as we know, their attainments involved "mental science," not materialism.

This model of how people might grow as intelligent beings is out of style, but I figure it should at least be referenced in a discourse like this.

[Starglider]

Ah, but Orion's Arm is a very... materialistic approach to brain enhancement. You get a better brain by, more or less, replacing the hardware with superior hardware.

The funny thing is, once you replace the original brain with something truly general ourpose and directly reprogrammable, then there is huge scope for improvement in basic cognitive abilities just with a software upgrade. This is in fact the most important principle behind 'seed AGI', rapid improvement in hardware is relevant but secondary. Humans are general purpose in the sense that we can (eventually) learn lots of different skills, but the basic neural design has very limited plasticity compared to nearly any kind of programmable computer. Brains do have a lot of raw compute, but applying say your first few layers of visual cortex to anything other than vision recognition is not possible (directly at least; we use sophisticated computer visualisations largely to try and do just this). Damaged brains can reallocate functional areas but on a timeframe of months to years. Switching the entire compute power of a contemporary GPU between vision recognition, physics simulation, and crypto tasks (for example) takes microseconds.

[Ahriman238]

This is invariably unpopular, because normal humans (including the audience) view it as a threat.

It does, however, make for good villains.


Yes training like the mentats are another way to increase brain capability, though I certainly wouldn't object to needing less sleep. Or you go the softer side of sci-fi with psychic powers and so on. At the far end of the scale is Ascension and Sublimation, turning into an enlightened god-like energy being, essentially a sci-fi flavor of enlightenment.


One New Age idea is the Akashic, a sort of psychic archive of all human knowledge past, present and future that exists outside space and time and can be accessed if you only, like, free your mind man! This optimistic idea surfaced in, oddly enough, 40K (Mehcanicus, HH) of course, being 40k the Akashic exists within the Warp, takes phenomenal energy to access and whoever looks into it goes mad from the revelation. Then their heads explode. The whole Heresy sort of disrupted the attempt to build Akashic Reader 2.0.